For once, the European Union’s scientific advisers seem to have got something right. Three pesticides have been banned for two years after the wise boffins voiced concerns after their harmful effect on honey bees.  The measure is of immense importance: about one-third of the fruit and vegetables in our diets are grown with the aid of insect pollination, so threats to bees imperil food production in general.

This isn’t the end of the story, however. While the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in Parma, Italy, should be applauded for initiating the research which led to the bans, that body continues to behave as if it is joined at the hip with big business.

The bees dossier offers a case in point.

EFSA’s assessments of whether pesticides are safe are conducted by a panel of “experts”, several of whom also undertake research financed by the chemical and agri-food industries.

One of those “experts” — Ettore Capri from Italy — even runs a “think tank”, the main purpose of which is to downplay the dangers associated with pesticides.

Known by the acronym OPERA, this outfit recently published a report titled “Bee health in Europe”. The report seeks to shift the focus from pesticides by pinning the blame for dwindling bee numbers on a “wide range of factors”.

Though the document may be liberally sprinkled with scientific terminology, it cannot be considered as objective or unbiased. A careful reading shows that it was prepared with the help of Bayer, Syngenta, Dow and BASF. All of those firms make pesticides; their bottom line depends on being able to persuade regulators to approve their products.

I contacted EFSA spokesman James Ramsay, asking him if he accepted that Capri was involved in a conflict of interests. “No,” Ramsay replied. He told me that OPERA was viewed by the authority as a “food safety organization” as it pursues “public interest objectives”.

When I got in touch directly with Capri, he insisted that he is not involved in “research projects financed by private companies on bee health” and that he had not taken part in an EFSA working group dealing with bees.

Those explanations are Jesuitical.

OPERA’s entry to the register of lobbyists run by the European Commission states that it received 50,000 euros from the private sector during 2012. If that money wasn’t used on its research and advocacy work, then what was it used on? Interior decorating? Bus fares?

Moreover, OPERA jointly organised a conference with Syngenta in Brussels during September 2012. The programme for the event says that one of the main topics addressed was biodiversity, a concept that is meaningless without bees and other insects. Are we really to believe that Syngenta did not pay at least some of the costs of organising this event?

Capri’s effort to distance himself from EFSA’s work on bees is contradicted by information on the authority’s own website. A list of participants for a “symposium” hosted by EFSA last month indicates that Capri was in attendance. You’ll never guess the topic of this confab. Bees.

Faced with accusations that they are setting the agenda followed by EU institutions, corporate lobbyists tend to point to decisions which didn’t go the way they wanted as evidence that they are not really that influential. The ban on bee-killing pesticides looks like that kind of a decision — until you examine it a bit more closely.

Firstly, the ban is of a limited duration: we can be certain that the chemicals industry will be pressing for it not to be renewed once it expires. Secondly, it has loopholes: the three pesticides may still be sprayed on winter cereals. Such crops may not attract bees directly but the use of pesticides on them means that toxic chemicals will still be released into the environment, with potentially adverse consequences for insects.

And thirdly, there are some dangerous substances not covered by the ban. Greenpeace has identified four pesticides in addition to the three ones recently banned that have been shown to “acutely affect bees”, according to the group. These pesticides are widely used throughout Europe.

EFSA, again to its credit, has issued a warning about one the four substances — fipronil — over the past few weeks. Almost definitely, it will come under pressure from the chemical industry to ease off on its work on bees. Having scientists who are favourably disposed to pesticide-makers sitting on EFSA panels undoubtedly works to that industry’s advantage.

There are bigger issues than honey bees at stake here. As I argue in my new book Corporate Europe, EFSA is in denial about how many of the “experts” it turns to for counsel are lackeys of big business. The authority has been admonished by the EU’s internal watchdogs, the Court of Auditors and the Ombudsman, on some of these matters; yet the underlying problems persist.

In 2008, EFSA suffered some embarrassment when it emerged that Suzy Renckens, who coordinated its activities on genetically modified (GM) foods, was hired by Syngenta, a maker of GM seeds (as well as pesticides). The “revolving door” case begged the question: how can regulators be expected to put manners on firms they regard as future employers?

Syngenta supports Capri’s activities but EFSA doesn’t see this as in any way problematic.  Syngenta has also lobbied strenuously against the ban on bee-killers.

There’s only way of pretending there’s nothing wrong here: burying your head in the sand.

David Cronin’s book Corporate Europe: How Big Business Sets Policies on Food, Climate and War will be published in August. It can be pre-ordered now from Pluto Press (www.plutobooks.com).

A version of this article was originally published by New Europe.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Edward Snowden, the leaker of the National Security Agency top-secret PRISM surveillance program has voluntarily stepped into the public limelight. The 29-year-old former technical contractor for the CIA and system administrator for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton had a good family, girlfriend and comfortable living in Hawaii. What made him risk this privileged life to be on the run or possibly end up in Federal prison?

“I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded,” the young whistleblower told The Guardian newspaper. His day-to-day insider knowledge about the conduct of the NSA led him to the conclusion that the NSA surveillance poses “an existential threat to democracy.” He related how he was motivated for the public good and not for personal gain; “If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich …..” He continued, “The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to … My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.”

In the same spirit of statements made by army whistleblower Bradley Manning, Snowden wanted this crucial information to be publicly available so people could make informed decisions about what is being done in their name by their government.

At his court-martial proceedings, Bradley Manning testified about his motivation behind the largest leak of classified information in history. He said: “I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information … this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general.”

Snowden claimed he had examined the documents closely to assure that they are clearly in the public interest and will likely not harm anyone. His whistleblowing, and furthermore his courageous act of identifying himself to the public proves how the Obama administration’s unprecedented persecution of whistleblowers has not scared people from acting out of conscience to reveal illicit actions of the government behind closed doors

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has also been a target of the US government and now been in asylum at the London Ecuadorian embassy for nearly a year, spoke of his positive outlook in the future of politics. In a prerecorded speech at a Veterans for Peace event in April this year, he spoke about how the newest generation has grown up with the internet and that many of them appear to be willing to defend the values of transparency and privacy, even at great risk to themselves:

“These young people under the age of 30 are the people that are going into the military, the people going into the CIA and intelligence agencies … They’re also forming the political base on which decisions are made.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yB3n9fu-rM&w=560&h=315]

Snowden spoke of his own action; “I am not afraid, because this is the choice I’ve made.” Standing tall today is such a member of this younger generation that has been shaped by the Internet Age. Like the late Aaron Swartz who dedicated his life to the virtues of sharing and a free Internet, Snowden also regards the Internet as “the most important invention in all of human history.” He supports organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and TOR, a technology that enables online anonymity.

In his interview with the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, Snowden spoke of why he was sacrificing his comfortable life; “I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”

Regarding these brave acts on behalf of the public, Greenwald tweeted that ‘courage is contagious’. Only hours after his initial statement, the Twitter hashtag #IStandWithEdwardSnowden trended in the US as people around the world voice their support for this young whistleblower. In New York, a rally for his support was already in the works.

When he learned about Snowden, the former United States military analyst and whistleblower that took down Nixon, Daniel Ellsbergcalled Snowden a hero, saying he had been waiting for someone like him for 40 years. Jesselyn Radack, a former justice department attorney who represents whistleblowers, told Reuters Snowden has become “one of the most significant leakers in my lifetime and in US history.”

On Sunday evening, member of Icelandic Parliament Birgitta Jonsdottir and executive director of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative Smari McCarthy issued a statement of support for Snowden and noted they were working toward granting him asylum.

Snowden will surely go down in history as one of America’s most influential whistleblowers, along with Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. But, as he himself stated in his interview, it is important that he not be thrust into the media spotlight, as that may take the focus away from the content of his disclosures. It is not the messenger but the message that is vital for sparking lasting change.

Snowden’s damning evidence of the NSA’s surveillance activities clearly showed that the Obama Administration has been collecting blanket surveillance on nearly every electronic communication in the US, regardless of the Constitution protections of privacy for those not suspected of a crime. Snowden ominously cautioned that this will likely turn out badly, as any leader in the future would only need to claim a new dangerous threat and no one could stop them from taking that last step. He warned that this will be a “turnkey tyranny”.

This man’s unvarnished courage has revealed the tip of the iceberg of an outrageous abuse of power and trashing of the Fourth Amendment. He did this by handing the evidence straight to the people. It is now up to the people to choose; to resist this dangerous authoritarian approach and turn the key for a new generation of democracy, or allow the world to descend into tyranny.

Nozomi Hayase is a contributing writer to Culture Unplugged, and a global citizen blogger, at Journaling Between Worlds. She can be reached at: nozomimagine@gmail.com

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Like the mercenaries for hire used by the U.S. in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and New Orleans–contractors like Blackwater that have come under scrutiny for their extreme lack of oversight–the U.S. government has been outsourcing intelligence services to private companies who have access to the general population’s most sensitive information.

Booz Allen’s cyber facility on September 25, 2012 in Annapolis Junction, Maryland. (Jeffrey MacMillan/The Washington Post via Getty) This revelation, which has arisen out of the recent Edward Snowden NSA leaks among the trove of alarming civil rights violations, has rights advocates very concerned.

According to the offices of James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, of the 4.9 million people with clearance to access “confidential and secret” government information, 1.1 million, or 21 per cent, work for outside contractors–these intelligence corporations.

Of the 1.4 million who have the higher “top secret” access, 483,000, or 34 percent, work for contractors–meaning that, as Edward Snowden recently revealed in his interview with the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, contractors sitting anywhere, in a home office for example, have vast access to the personal communications of ordinary citizens.

Snowden, who worked for intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp, states:

Any analyst at any time can target anyone, any selector anywhere. Where those communications will be picked up depends on the range of the sensor networks and the authorities that that analyst is empowered with. Not all analysts have the ability to target everything. But I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge, to even the president, if I had a personal email.

“It’s very difficult to know what contractors are doing and what they are billing for the work — or even whether they should be performing the work at all,” said Scott Amey, an expert in contractor oversight and government transparency at Project on Government Oversight, a non-partisan government accountability organization based in Washington. “It has muddied the waters.”

Speaking on Democracy Now! Glenn Greenwald explained on Monday, “the systems at NSA allow full and unfettered access at any time to any one of these analysts to go and listen to whatever it is they want, to read whatever emails they want, to monitor in real time whatever online chats are taking place.”

“And because there’s no oversight, because there’s really no accountability or transparency, there is no check on this abuse.”

He continues, “…when human beings are able to spy on other human beings in the dark, abuse, rampant abuse, is inevitable. That was supposed to be why we don’t have spying abilities without accountability any longer.”

“The largest concentration of cyber power on the planet is the intersection of the Baltimore Parkway and Maryland Route 32,” former NSA director Michael V. Hayden, who oversaw the NSA’s privatization efforts between 1999 to 2005, told Salon.

“He was referring not to the NSA itself but to the business park about a mile down the road from the giant black edifice that houses NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Md. There, all of NSA’s major contractors, from Booz to SAIC to Northrop Grumman, carry out their surveillance and intelligence work for the agency,” Salon reports.

And it was Hayden who coined the term “Digital Blackwater.”

“I use that for the concept of the private sector in cyber,” he told a recent conference in Washington.

“I saw this in government and saw it a lot over the last four years. The private sector has really moved forward in terms of providing security,” said Hayden, who now works for one of those very corporations, Chertoff Group.

The Associated Press has more:

Booz Allen, based in McLean, Va., provides consulting services, technology support and analysis to U.S. government agencies and departments. Last year, 98 percent of the company’s $5.9 billion in revenue came from U.S. government contracts. Three-fourths of its 25,000 employees hold government security clearances. Half the employees have top secret clearances.

The company has established deep ties with the government — the kinds of ties that contractors pursue and covet.

Contractors stand to gain an edge on competitors by hiring people with the most closely held knowledge of the thinking inside agencies they want to serve and the best access to officials inside. That typically means former government officials.

The relationship often runs both ways: Clapper himself is a former Booz Allen executive. The firm’s vice chairman, John “Mike” McConnell, held Clapper’s position under George W. Bush.

“That really illustrates the ingrown nature of the relationship of NSA and its contractors,” said Steven Aftergood, head of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. […]

Booz Allen earned $240 million in profit on its $5.9 billion in revenue last year. That’s up from $85 million in profit in 2011 and $25 million in 2010.

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

The headquarters of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland.Last week saw revelations that the FBI and the National Security Agency have been collecting Americans’ phone records en masse and that the agencies have access to data from nine tech companies. 

But secrecy around the programs has meant even basic questions are still unanswered. Here’s what we still don’t know:

Has the NSA been collecting all Americans’ phone records, and for how long?

It’s not entirely clear.

The Guardian published a court order that directed a Verizon subsidiary to turn over phone metadata — the time and duration of calls, as well as phone numbers and location data — to the NSA “on an ongoing daily basis” for a three-month period. Citing unnamed sources, the Wall Street Journal reported the program also covers AT&T and Sprint and that it covers the majority of Americans. And Director of National Intelligence James Clapper himself acknowledged that the “collection” is “broad in scope.”

How long has the dragnet has existed? At least seven years, and maybe going back to 2001.  

Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and vice chair Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said last week that the NSA has been collecting the records going back to 2006. That’s the same year that USA Today revealed a similar-sounding mass collection of metadata, which the paper said had been taking place since 2001. The relationship between the program we got a glimpse of in the Verizon order and the one revealed by USA Today in 2006 is still not clear: USA Today described a program not authorized by warrants. The program detailed last week does have court approval.

What surveillance powers does the government believe it has under the Patriot Act?

That’s classified.

The Verizon court order relies on Section 215 of the Patriot Act. That provision allows the FBI to ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a secret order requiring companies, like Verizon, to produce records — “any tangible things” — as part of a “foreign intelligence” or terrorism investigation. As with any law, exactly what the wording means is a matter for courts to decide. But the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s interpretation of Section 215 is secret.

As Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman recently wrote, the details of that interpretation matter a lot: “Read narrowly, this language might require that information requested be shown to be important or necessary to the investigation. Read widely, it would include essentially anything even slightly relevant – which is to say, everything.”

In the case of the Verizon order — signed by a judge who sits on the secret court and requiring the company to hand over “all call detail records” — it appears that the court is allowing a broad interpretation of the Patriot Act. But we still don’t know the specifics.

Has the NSA’s massive collection of metadata thwarted any terrorist attacks?

It depends which senator you ask. And evidence that would help settle the matter is, yes, classified.

Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., told CNN on Sunday, “It’s unclear to me that we’ve developed any intelligence through the metadata program that’s led to the disruption of plots that we could [not] have developed through other data and other intelligence.”

He said he could not elaborate on his case “without further declassification.”

Sen. Feinstein told ABC that the collection of phone records described in the Verizon order had been “used” in the case of would-be New York subway bomber Najibullah Zazi. Later in the interview, Feinstein said she couldn’t disclose more because the information is classified. (It’s worth noting that there’s also evidence that old-fashioned police work helped solve the Zazi case – and that other reports suggest the Prism program, not the phone records, helped solve the case.)

How much information, and from whom, is the government sweeping up through Prism?

It’s not clear.

Intelligence director Clapper said in his declassified description that the government can’t get information using Prism unless there is an “appropriate, and documented, foreign intelligence purpose for the acquisition (such as for the prevention of terrorism, hostile cyber activities, or nuclear proliferation) and the foreign target is reasonably believed to be outside the United States.”

One thing we don’t know is how the government determines who is a “foreign target.” The Washington Post reported that NSA analysts use “search terms” to try to achieve “51 percent confidence” in a target’s “foreignness.” How do they do that? Unclear.

We’ve also never seen a court order related to Prism — they are secret — so we don’t know how broad they are. The Post reported that the court orders can be sweeping, and apply for up to a year. Though Google has maintained it has not “received blanket orders of the kind being discussed in the media.”

So, how does Prism work?

In his statement Saturday, Clapper described Prism as a computer system that allows the government to collect “foreign intelligence information from electronic communication service providers under court supervision.”

That much seems clear. But the exact role of the tech companies is still murky.

Relying on a leaked PowerPoint presentation, the Washington Post originally described Prism as an FBI and NSA program to tap “directly into the central servers” of nine tech companies including Google and Facebook. Some of the companies denied giving the government “direct access” to their servers. In a later story, published Saturday, the newspaper cited unnamed intelligence sources saying that the description from the PowerPoint was technically inaccurate.

The Post quotes a classified NSA report saying that Prism allows “collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,” not the company servers themselves. So what does any of that mean? We don’t know.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

New York Times
June 11, 2013

A large force of riot police entered Taksim Square early on Tuesday, firing tear gas grenades and using water cannons to disperse demonstrators who have occupied the square for more than a week as part of a protest to save a nearby park that the government wants to develop.

Television footage of the ongoing operation showed protesters hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at police vehicles as security officers responded with tear gas.

It appeared that relatively few protesters were in the square as the police moved in and many retreated to the park. News reports said some protesters clashed with security forces, however, hurling rocks and firebombs.

Read more

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This article was posted: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 9:08 am

Tags: activism, foreign affairs, police state

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

The Fourth Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

US President Barack Obama was a civil rights attorney and a “senior lecturer” at the University of Chicago on constitutional law. He campaigned on an anti-surveillance state platform.

Now he spends his days drone-striking children and operating secret prisons all over the world, deporting a million immigrant workers, persecuting whistleblowers at home and supporting the corporatocracy with bailouts and privileges. In recent weeks, he’s also spent a great deal of time pleading ignorance about major privacy scandals.

“I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I actually respect the Constitution.” – Barack Obama, March 30th, 2007

The politically biased IRS tax targeting scandal came to light recently, but before we’ve had a chance to reread 1984, another, more devastating report has emerged.  The National Security Administration has been collecting everyone’s data for years, and doing so through unrestrained backdoor access to at least nine of the largest Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple and Skype.

The Washington Post and the Guardian broke the story:

“Through a top-secret program authorized by federal judges working under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the U.S. intelligence community can gain access to the servers of nine Internet companies for a wide range of digital data. Documents describing the previously undisclosed program, obtained by The Washington Post, show the breadth of U.S. electronic surveillance capabilities in the wake of a widely publicized controversy over warrantless wiretapping of U.S. domestic telephone communications in 2005.”

The NSA calls this the PRISM program. Obama knew about PRISM – the NSA brags that most of his Daily Brief reports are generated with PRISM data.

These are not “oops, my neighbor saw me naked” privacy breaches, this is a predatory state tearing through every communication you make and storing it in databases like the new $2 billion National Security Administration Data Center facility in Utah. All it does is store American data, 24/7. This Orwellian monitoring began years ago, in tandem with the evolution of information technologies, with such secret spy programs as Carnivore and Echelon.

The train of civil rights abridgments which picked up steam under Bush just keeps rollin’ with the Obama administration at the throttle. Add this to the list alongside the persecution of political activists like Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and Occupy protesters  and most recently anarchist legal advocate Gerald Koch.

If you have nothing to hide, what’s the problem with a surveillance state, right?  Imagine if the British crown had this level of intelligence gathering capacity during the American Revolution, or if the government had this Panopticon technology during the early 20th century Labor Movement, or if the FBI had this much firepower during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement (indeed, the FBI already assassinated Fred Hampton and tracked and subsequently played a major role in the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr.).

Just because you don’t think the state will persecute you today, remember that Japanese Internment wasn’t so long ago, or that according to Noam Chomsky “The most civilised part of the world, with the highest cultural standards 70 years ago was Germany. No more need be said.” Just because the government appears less psychopathic or genocidal today does not mean it will be this way tomorrow. Even still, you might get thrown in jail for recreational drug use, political speech or tax “evasion” more easily than ever before.

What is to be done?

“Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.” – Edward Abbey

Whittle away state power. Use encryption methods when transmitting sensitive information. Withdraw support for the system in whatever way you can – and reinforce your own autonomy with alternative currency and the decentralized stability of your community with local forms of production and consumption.

Sebastian AB is a finance and science writer, biology major and history minor.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Top NSA whistleblower William Binney — the former head of the National Security Agency’s global digital data gathering program — has repeatedly explained that just because you “haven’t done anything wrong” doesn’t mean you can’t be severely harmed by spying:

The problem is, if they think they’re not doing anything that’s wrong, they don’t get to define that. The central government does.

Binney explains that the government is storing everything, and creating a searchable database … to be used whenever it wants, for any purpose it wants (even just going after someone it doesn’t like).

And he notes that the government will go after anyone who is on its enemies list:

If you ever get on their enemies list, like Petraeus did, then you can be drawn into that surveillance.

Binney recently held his thumb and forefinger close together, and said:

We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state

Similarly, in response to the question, “why should people care about surveillance?”, the whistleblower source of the Guardian’s disclosures on phone and Internet spying — Edward Snowden — said:

Because even if you’re not doing anything wrong you’re being watched and recorded. And the storage capability of these systems increases every year consistently by orders of magnitude … to where it’s getting to the point where you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody — even by a wrong call. And then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with. And attack you on that basis to sort to derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.

[If people don’t oppose the surveillance state now] it will be turnkey tyranny.

In 1975, Senator Frank Church said about the NSA:

I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

With the U.S. economy in its slowest job-market recovery since World War II and still 2.6 million jobs short from its payroll peak in January 2008, it’s good to hear there’s finally someone in the Obama administration who says he knows how to jump-start an economy.

On May 26, Secretary of State John Kerry announced at the World Economic Forum in Jordan that he’s been working with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on a “transformative” economic plan that could grow the Palestinian economy by an astounding 50 percent in three years.

Kerry said his economic plan, “different than anything we’ve done before,” could well deliver nothing short of a high-speed economic miracle.

In this extraordinary turnaround, asserted Kerry, Palestinian unemployment could be cut by two-thirds, agricultural output could double or triple, peace could break out and cause tourism to triple, 100,000 new “energy efficient” houses could be built, and the median annual wage of Palestinians could jump by as much as 40 percent.

But as Time magazine reported, “There were few specific details offered.”

Well, I have an idea. If Kerry is all that skilled in economic wizardry, with a “transformative” economic plan that will multiply production in one of the most dysfunctional regions of the world, I think he should cut the globe-trotting and hustle back to the Oval Office to divulge his magic formula to President Obama and the Council of Economic Advisers.

The April 2013 report from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the U.S. unemployment rate was “little changed” at 7.5 percent, putting the official number of unemployed persons at 11.7 million, not counting the millions of labor force dropouts.

The May 2013 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics also showed that “little changed,” with the official unemployment rate increasing to 7.6 percent.

The 7.6 percent unemployment rate nearly doubles to 13.8 percent under the Labor Department’s broader definition of joblessness that includes those who are involuntarily working part time because they can’t find full-time work and those who are unemployed but have given up looking for work.

In May, employers added 175,000 jobs while the labor force expanded by 420,000, with 182,000 of the 420,000 workers rejoining the labor force even though they didn’t have jobs.

“From the start of the recession in December 2007 to well past its end in March 2013, more than 10 million Americans left the labor force, meaning they stopped working or looking for work,” reported Ben Casselman at the Wall Street Journal in June. “As a share of the population, the labor force in March was the smallest in more than 30 years.”

Specifically, among major groups, the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate in April for teenagers, blacks, and Hispanics, respectively, was 24.1 percent, 13.2 percent, and 9.0 percent.

Also in April, “the number of involuntary part-time workers increased by 278,000 to 7.9 million,” reported the Labor Department, while “2.3 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force.”

These “marginally attached” workers “were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months” reported the Labor Department, but they “were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.”

Sounding not unlike Kerry in Jordan, candidate Obama delivered a “transformative” declaration at a campaign rally on October 30, 2008: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Since then, the national debt has grown by a record $6.2 trillion and the Census Bureau reports that 50 million Americans – one in six – are now living in poverty.

Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics and the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.

This article originally appeared on: The New American

Can a book be both beautiful and terrible?

Adorning its front cover is a beautiful little girl, her hair neatly sectioned into intricate cornrows, the ends of her braids festooned with bright, plastic baubles.

But the story within these pages is hardly one of beauty; it is the terrible, heart-rending, soul-eating tale of the foreclosure crisis. How capital waged a war of greed, fraud and malice to wipe out the wealth, homes and well-being of millions of people.

And yet, Laura Gottesdiener’s fine little book, A Dream Foreclosed, manages to find some beauty amidst immense pain and suffering.  The beauty of people continuing to fight back against rapacious banks, the politicians they buy and the lawyers they hire.

People fight — for years — against fraudulent, robo-signed foreclosure notices, court hearings, heavily armed sheriffs and police, and actually win, because they discover that there is power in communities — and in movements.

They learn that they aren’t alone.

Indeed, there are millions — millions — of people, thrown into the horrors of homelessness, suffering in silence and shame.

Gottesdiener tells their stories, of how they joined, or sometimes built, movements to change their condition — and won!

Gottesdiener tells the life tales of four families —North, South, East and West — who, though driven to the brink of madness and despair, find solace in united struggle against monstrous odds.

Through movements, through united action, these desperate and scattered families build loving kernels of community and bonds of solidarity.  As Hettie, the mother of one young man facing foreclosure remarked, “People in numbers can work magic” (138)

They received nothing but scorn and derision from their elected so-called ‘leaders’ (whether local or national).  So, pressed against the wall of hopelessness, thrown into the refuse heap of society, they became their own leaders — and created social change.

Click here to listen to an audio file of Mumia reading this review.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is the author of Live From Death Row, All Things Censored and We All Want Freedom.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

First, why Hong Kong?

My answer: Because he’s a spook.

There has been no end of sniggering from the liberal Colonel Blimps that Snowden chose to reveal his identity in Hong Kong.

As in (from the Twitter feed of a journalist who relentlessly works the “unfree China” side of the street): “Seeking refuge in Hong Kong out of devotion to free speech is a bit like seeking refuge in Tibet out of devotion to Buddhism.”

Here’s what I think:

Snowden, in addition to his career as an IT grunt, had worked on the covert operations side in Geneva.

When he thinks about what happens to him, he assumes his identity is going to be revealed. He looks at the situations of Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. Definitely doesn’t want to stay in the United States (Manning). Definitely doesn’t want to take up residence in a liberal democracy which happens to be a US security partner (Assange).

He wants to control the circumstances of his exposure and obtain maximum press exposure to shape international perceptions of him and rally support before the legal hammer comes down.

He doesn’t want to take the risk of getting quickly jacked up by a national legal system of a nation allied to the United States on any charge, trumped up, plausible, or genuine.

Iceland? Pretty, snowy, let-Internet-freedom-ring-a-ding-ding Iceland?

One more problem.

He doesn’t want the local authorities and local spooks working enthusiastically with the US authorities to make surveil him, harass him, help make a case against him, and button him up. He doesn’t want to get rendered. He would like not to get bumped off.

What countries would a CIA analyst believe to have the lowest level of cooperation with the CIA and the most pervasive counterintelligence capabilities? Russia maybe. China maybe.

So he looks at a jurisdiction that a) has a liberal legal systems with good protections and process and b) keeps its US spooks on a short leash.

In other words, Hong Kong.

Second, were his revelations timed to coincide with the Sunnylands summit?

I guess so, for maximum hypocrisy exposure (Snowden) and media heat (Greenwald). My personal feeling is that it is not going to affect US-China cyberbitchslapping too much. Both sides already have a pretty good idea of each other’s capabilities. In fact, I would think it would be better for Xi Jinping not to take the Snowden embarrassment as an excuse to take lightly President Obama’s demands. This is just the sort of situation in which the United States drops the hammer in order to demonstrate that it’s still the biggest bully on the block.

Third, will the PRC arrange for Snowden to be extradited to the United States?

Probably, though I think their inclination will be to let the Hong Kong legal system grind ahead with all deliberate speed, perhaps with a few discrete shoves from behind the scenes, in order to preserve Hong Kong’s reputation for judicial independence. If President Obama can bring himself to ask really, really nicely, the PRC might resort to some sort of extraordinary intervention.

But I think Snowden knows he’s coming home, sooner or later.

Fourth, why are Snowden, Greenwald, and the Washington Post receiving anything other than the thanks of a grateful nation for revealing, not the details of individual covert operations, but information on US surveillance capabilities which are known or suspected by most insiders but unknown only to the public at large?

I have no answer for that.

It is a rather disturbing fact that the evolution of 21st century society is driving us into a deeper awareness and understanding of the work of that famous French philosopher, Michel Foucault.

I will outsource this observation to the excellent Bernard over at Moon of Alabama:

Edward Snowden points to a different danger of such secret data accumulation:

[Snowden] said the [analysts and governments] labored under a false premise that “if a surveillance program produces information of value, it legitimizes it. . . . In one step, we’ve managed to justify the operation of the Panopticon.”

The Panopticon is a architectural concept for a prison where the guards can watch, unseen by the inmates, from a tower in the middle into all cells build in a circle around the tower. It leaves the inmates in a perceived state of permanent surveillance. The French philosopher Michel Foucault described the effect:

Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers.

The original Panopticon, like the digital version the NSA is building, takes away all feeling of privacy. Even when one is not watched, knowing that the possibility of being watched is always there, creates uncertainty and leads to self disciplining and self censorship. It is certainly a state the powers that be would like everyone, except themselves, to be in.

Well, I’ll add this. For those of you unfamiliar with concepts of penal architecture, the Panopticon was a proposal by the 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham. No true Panopticons were ever constructed for reasons of technical difficulty. The nearest thing to a true Panopticon was built in Cuba in the 1920s:

Here is the requisite ironic postscript from Wikipedia:

[T]he essential elements of Bentham’s design were not only that the custodians should be able to view the prisoners at all times (including times when they were in their cells), but also that the prisoners should be unable to see the custodians, and so could never be sure whether they were under surveillance or not.

This objective was extremely difficult to achieve within the constraints of the available technology, which is why Bentham spent so many years reworking his plans. Subsequent 19th-century prison designs enabled the custodians to keep the doors of cells and the outsides of buildings under observation, but not to see the prisoners in their cells. Something close to a realization of Bentham’s vision only became possible through 20th-century technological developments — notably closed-circuit television (CCTV) — but these eliminated the need for a specific architectural framework.

Peter Lee edits China Matters. His ground-breaking story on North Korea’s nuclear program, Big Bang Theory in North Korea, appears in the March issue of CounterPunch magazine. He can be reached at: chinamatters (at) prlee. org.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

File photo shows Afghan security forces rushing to a scene of attack in capital, Kabul.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

After more than two years of a full-fledged Pentagon and NATO-led war against the North African state of Libya, the installed General National Congress regime is now requesting assistance from their neo-colonial masters. In a press release issued by the Secretary General of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the chief of this military alliance of the imperialist world indicated that the western-backed government in Tripoli had requested assistance on security matters.

A team of so-called “experts” is expected to leave as soon as possible and report back to NATO by the end of June “so we can decide on the way ahead,” Mr. Fogh Rasmussen said. The NATO official also said that three principles would guide any help NATO provides.

According to the statement issued by NATO on June 4, it says that these principles would “include strong Libyan ownership, providing advice in areas where NATO has an expertise, such as building security institutions. And thirdly let me stress this is not about deploying troops to Libya. If we are to engage in training activities such activities could take place outside Libya,” said the Secretary General. (NATO press release, June 4)

These statements are taking place within the context of a worsening security situation both inside Libya and throughout North and West Africa. The security and social stability of Libya and both regions of Africa are a direct result of Pentagon and NATO military actions beginning in February and March of 2011.

During the course of the imperialist war against Libya, some 26,000 sorties were flown by the U.S., the NATO countries and their allies in the region and 9,600 airstrikes hit the oil-rich state. An arms embargo was imposed by the United Nations Security Council against the Libyan government under Gaddafi but the western trained and supported rebels were armed to carry out attacks against supporters of the Jamahiriya, civilians and patriotic forces.

In addition to the U.S. and NATO’s military actions against this country of approximately 7 million people, $US160 billion in Libyan-owned foreign assets were seized by the western banks. Concerted mob violence was leveled against dark-skinned Libyans and Africans from other parts of the continent.

The entire foreign policy and public affairs apparatus of the western states and their surrogates were mobilized to demonize Libya and its leadership. Corporate media outlets parroted the false claims by the imperialist governments in order to sway public opinion in favor of the war of regime-change against Col. Muammar Gaddafi and his supporters inside the country and internationally.

Consequences of U.S. and NATO’s War Against Libya

At present in Libya thousands of Africans and dozens foreign nationals from Eastern Europe remain in detention by the GNC regime. Seif al-Islam, the son of the martyred former leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi, is imprisoned by a militia group which is, along with the GNC leaders, are refusing to turn him over to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The ICC played a role in the isolation of Libya during 2011 as well. The Hague prosecutors at the time claimed, alongside the imperialists, that human rights violations were carried out by the Jamahiriya under Gaddafi. Consequently, indictments and warrants were issued by the ICC against Gaddafi, Seif al-Islam and other leading patriotic Libyan officials.

Today there is a battle taking place between the GNC regime, which the ICC was instrumental in creating the conditions for its installation, and the Libyan rebels who say that they are capable of providing Seif al-Islam with a so-called “fair trial.” Yet if the regime in Libya cannot provide an adequate security situation for ordinary citizens and regime officials, then how will they be able to carry out an impartial judicial proceeding for others who are victims of the current political crises.

The NATO leaders, the ICC, as well as select putative “human rights groups” have refrained from commenting and analyzing the disastrous consequences of the imperialist war against Libya. A manifestation of this denial is reflective of the current efforts to extradite Seif al-Islam to The Hague to stand trial within a court system, the ICC, which has been condemned by the African Union (AU) as biased against the leaders and peoples of the continent.

Perhaps the most outrageous statement in regard to the situation in Libya was made by NATO Secretary General Rasmussen when he audaciously uttered in relationship to the delegation being sent to the North African state to establish a training program that “I believe this would be a fitting way to continue our cooperation with Libya, after we successfully took action to protect the Libyan people two years ago.”

The situation of the people in Libya is more precarious than it has ever been since the period of colonial war of conquest carried out by Italy between 1911 and 1931 when hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered by the imperialists and the fascists, who after 1923 were led by Benito Mussolini. Even after the country gained nominal independence under a monarchy in 1951, it would take the September 1 Revolution of 1969 that was led by Col. Gaddafi and the Revolutionary Command Council to unify the state and set it upon a path of development and national reconstruction.

Massacre in Benghazi Reflects Devolution of Libyan Society

On June 8, militia members in Benghazi—which was the birthplace of the counter-revolution against the Jamahiriya in February 2011—massacred demonstrators who were demanding that armed groups terrorizing the population be either arrested or neutralized. There have been disputed reports over the number of people killed and wounded in this latest assault on the Libyan people, but it clearly demonstrates the degree of lawlessness prevailing inside the country.

In an article published by the Associated Press it reported that “Clashes between protesters and militias aligned with the military in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi left 27 people killed and dozens wounded, a health official said Sunday. The violence broke out Saturday after protesters stormed a base belonging to Libya Shield, a grouping of militias with roots in the rebel groups that fought in the country’s 2011 civil war who are tasked with maintaining security.” (June 9)

Inside Libya the country’s militias have been attempting to partition the state into three regions in the East, West and South. In a recent law passed by the GNC legislature, former members of the Gaddafi government–even if they had turned against the Jamahiriya in favor of imperialism–were banned from public service.

Prior to the announcement by NATO that they would be sending a delegation to Libya, France—which is occupying Mali and spreading its war in West Africa into neighboring Niger—had called for military intervention into the south of Libya. France claims that Libya’s south, which has never been brought under the control of the rebel GNC, is the source of resistance to its military efforts in West Africa.

Developments in Libya and Mali indicate clearly that imperialist intervention in Africa and other geo-political regions of the world will only destabilize these areas and provide rationales for further military occupations. Despite efforts to contain and pacify the peoples of these regions, resistance will escalate and create even deeper crises within the industrialized states already suffering from escalating levels of unemployment, poverty, austerity and political repression.

Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

With revolt now spreading to a bedrock of capitalist stability, there is every indication that the global wave of 2011 is still alive. Turkey, marketed to the whole world as a neoliberal success story (and to the Muslim world as a model democracy), is now up in arms against authoritarianism and free market capitalism (or rather, its urban ramifications). With Turkey joining the bandwagon of revolt, 2011 is bound to have consequences far beyond its countries of origin.

However, this wave, just like the waves of 1848 and 1905, is likely to end up in partial and small victories, and defeats. In some ways, the situation is even bleaker than in all past global waves. The global mood of post-1980 defeatism persists unabated. We lack solid alternatives to the current world order. Disorganization is rampant and is even reproduced by activists through a cult of leaderless-ness.

No 1789, 1917, or 1949 can result from the global wave of 2011.

Unintended legacies

Yet, just like 1848 and 1905, the cultural and organizational legacies of 2011 might prove to be more important than the immediate gains of the revolts. 1848 did not lead to any lasting democracies, but it convinced the European working and middle classes that a more democratic and social world was possible. It put socialization on the agenda. Furthermore, the defeats of that massive revolt taught militants that they needed much more resilient leadership and organization to realize their aims. A bunch of dispersed working-class and republican political fields left their place to solid national and continental organizations by the end of the century.

The wave of 1905 is known for its defeats more than its victories. Yet, those defeats not only provided the groundwork for further political experience, education and organization; but also created the most massive directly democratic organizations of autonomy that world history has ever seen (the workers’, peasants’, and soldiers’ councils). Without the defeats, semi-victories, and lessons of 1905-1911, there would neither be a Russian Revolution, nor a Chinese one (nor, for that matter, persistent oppositional cultures in Mexico, Turkey, and Iran).

In short, even though the immediate aftermath of the global revolt was much more demoralizing in 1905, its ripple effects were arguably more revolutionary.

The question, then, is whether 2011 will be a second 1848 or 1905. Will we have to wait decades for the fruits, or is 2011 the harbinger of something to come very soon, perhaps a second 1917? Some might ask, Why would we want a second 1917, given that the hopes invested in the first one were overblown? The council revolution of that year had spread quickly to parts of Europe, to be defeated and crushed completely in a few years. It was perhaps politically and economically immature to strive for socialism in an isolated Russia, as the resulting one-party dictatorship demonstrates. Nevertheless, the few years following 1917 showed to the whole world that popular classes could organize themselves and take decisions that influence the fate of their countries and the whole world. Moreover, the whole capitalist West had to reorganize its political and economic structures to incorporate popular voices and demands, out of fear of total annihilation by direct democracy. Still, the leaders of the Russian councils could have served themselves and the world better if they had set more realistic goals and persistently pushed for them in the rest of the world, rather than attempting, in vain, to build socialism in an isolated and impoverished semi-capitalist country.

The first time around, the postcapitalist revolution was a tragedy. Since people are rightfully averse to farce nowadays, no mass movement will want to learn from 1917, unless we find the concept with which to draw the proper lessons from that pivotal event.

Recursive revolution

So, what would it take today to build up to a second 1917 without the illusions, defeats and horrors of the first one?

Neither the economic structures nor the political and ideological levels of activists and ordinary people are ready for a post-capitalist world today. The Russian leaders knew that none of this preparation was in place in 1917 either. Their solution, as one formulated it, was a “permanent revolution” (or, in the words of another leader, “uninterrupted revolution”) that combined the tasks of the preparation with the revolution; of capitalist and democratic transformation with post-capitalist transformation. There was a valid insight in this endeavor: If capitalism is left on its own path, it will destroy itself and the world, rather than preparing the earth for a post-capitalist civilization. For that reason, any post-capitalist transformation has to be immature. But the next logical step they took was flawed: They trusted that the process of revolution (of which the councils were the spine) and their own leadership would be sufficient to successfully combine the preparation for socialism and the revolution. This over-confidence in popular will and misleading optimism regarding revolutionary leadership was the kernel of 1917’s illusion. In an isolated Russia, the revolutionaries were pushed to first silence those who disagreed, then the councils, and ultimately each other. The structures that weighed on them cannot be simplified into a quick formula that emphasizes the bad will and authoritarianism of a few bad apples. If the illusion repeats itself under favorable circumstances, so will the horrors.

But, if any postcapitalist transformation has to start immaturely, what can sustain it, if not a permanent revolution? Popular energy (of the kind expressed in the councils, or in today’s “Taksim Commune” and the anarchistic innovations of OWS) and revolutionary leadership are indispensable, but not sufficient. If left to their own devices, either of these two are bound to destroy the other, and the revolutionary process along with it. A slow process of political maturation and ideological co-education (an interactive education, where intellectuals and masses are simultaneously transformed) has to accompany these. People dissatisfied with capitalism should also build their own postcapitalist institutions (such as cooperatives and other collectivist enterprises), though never forgetting that these are not sustainable (as popular and democratic) in the long run without revolutionary interventions (and massive revolts).

Such a process – where activists and people focus on building alternative institutions, on co-education, and on accumulating political experience during calmer periods, but then recursively focus on revolt against barriers that block the flowering of these institutions – could be called an intermittent or recursive revolution.

The intermittent revolution is not a permanent revolution: It is based on the realization that periods of calm are necessary for institution-building and co-education in civil society. But intermittent revolutionaries would also acknowledge, unlike reformists, the necessity of mass revolts to create and sustain organs of popular power and cultures of solidarity, and to smash the impediments that undermine alternative institutions.

The leaders of 1917 also had another partially valid insight: The impossibility of postcapitalist transition in one country. This insight, however, was wedded to another illusion: the imminence of the European (especially German) revolution. To avoid the monstrosity which would result from forcefully pushing for this dream (through the invasion of its neighbors!), Russia succumbed to a dictator’s hard-nosed pragmatism (in the garb of dry dogmatism). But when we give up the illusion of an imminent transition to socialism, we can also avoid the false dichotomy between a global revolution and socialism in one country; as well as that between bookish internationalism and pragmatic nationalism. We can build a postcapitalist world only through an interregional, intermittent revolution; that is, through the cooperation of activists and peoples who have to accept defeats and semi-victories, and then move on, in solidarity. The activists and leaders of the intermittent revolution would be rooted in their own national soil, but would strategically think about and act on the possibilities of transformation elsewhere, in active interaction with leaders in the respective national contexts. Such links are already being forged today throughout the world.

In search of new organizational forms

What can we expect, then, from the global wave of 2011?

We can reasonably look forward to the spread of popular and democratic organizations and cultures. We can’t know, yet, whether mainstream cultures and state structures will be as thoroughly transformed as in the decades that followed 1848. That era witnessed, in Europe, the first moves toward the welfare state. Will states and mainstream cultures similarly incorporate 2011’s sensibilities regarding nature, urban rights, and participatory democracy? This will certainly depend on the further spread of the global revolt, as today’s incumbent regimes and elites are much more reactionary when compared to those of mid-19^th century Europe.

Hence, it might look unreasonable to talk, more ambitiously, of a second 1905. But the task is more urgent today: Capitalism is reaching its financial and natural limits. It is no longer sustainable. If alternatives are not produced and implemented, the earth is going to be destroyed under its weight. What the alternatives to capitalism could be is the topic of another discussion, and that discussion should also kick into top gear now. I focus here on another task: the making of the actors who can push for the implementation of these alternatives.

What can we hope to achieve at this moment? Alongside the further spread of revolt, we can strive to create interregional links among activists and leaders; and recruit and nurture a body of activists from a generation that has engaged in politics for the first time. This recruitment and networking, though, would be historically relevant only if conducted with a strategic vision. Rather than eulogizing leaderless-ness, activists need to build flexible and democratic leadership structures. Leaderless revolt quickly dissipates or loses its direction. (If there was “no leadership” in Taksim today, as some activists claim, the square would quickly fall into the hands of the Kemalists; it is only through the – admittedly dispersed – leadership of various shades of the left that Kemalist hijacking is thwarted). Centralized leadership, we also know, robs people of their power.

A new form of leadership for a sustainable postcapitalist transformation requires an ability to learn from the grassroots, willingness to interact with popular energy, institutionalized checks and balances, and constant immersion in alternative institutions and co-education. Just like 1905 put its stamp on history through the consolidation of a new organizational form (the centralized revolutionary party), 2011 might create (or bring to attention) a new (more democratic, yet still efficient) form of revolutionary organization.

Only then can we begin to speak of a second 1905.

Cihan Tugal is a Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

The Obama White House is convening meetings this week to discuss measures to escalate the US-backed war for regime-change in Syria and prop up the flagging fortunes of the so-called “rebels” fighting to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Obama has called upon his top advisors “to consider all possible options that would accomplish our objectives of helping the Syrian opposition serve the essential needs of the Syrian people and hastening a political transition to a post-Assad Syria,” National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan told the AFP news agency.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who was set to return to the Middle East for talks with the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, called off the trip to remain in Washington for the discussions on Syria war plans. According to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press, the proposals on the table include the direct arming of the US-backed militias fighting in Syria. Until now, Washington has maintained the pretense of providing only humanitarian assistance and “non-lethal” aid to these armed gangs.

In reality, the CIA and the Pentagon have played an indispensable role in organizing the purchase and shipment of arms into Syria, with the reactionary monarchies in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates putting up the money. One of the biggest recent shipments came from Croatia, with Washington arranging the transfer to the Syrian “rebels” of 3,000 tons of weapons left over from the Balkan wars of the 1990s, as well as from other European stockpiles, with Saudi Arabia footing the bill.

Britain and France are also considering acting more directly in arming the Syrian militias, having succeeded in overturning a European Union ban on such shipments at the beginning of this month. British Foreign Minister William Hague announced that the House of Commons would vote on the issue before the shipment of British weapons.

Also on the agenda of the White House discussions is a proposal for the imposition of a no-fly zone, the device employed in Libya two years ago to initiate a full-scale US-NATO war for regime-change. The proposal has been aggressively advanced by Republican Senator John McCain and others in Congress, but has prompted warnings from top US military commanders that such a step in Syria would involve a major US military intervention.

The initiation of such a campaign in Syria, which has far more advanced air defenses than Libya possessed, would entail an intense bombing campaign with substantial civilian casualties. Also, while Washington had the fig leaf of a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the Libyan no-fly zone, both Russia and China have made clear that they will block any such resolution in relation to Syria.

According to the US officials cited by the Associated Press, “Obama was leaning closer to signing off on sending weapons to vetted, moderate rebel units.” The use of American air power against Syrian government forces is “now being more seriously debated,” but, the officials stated, is “far less likely right now.”

What is driving the move toward stepped-up intervention is desperation in Washington that its proxy forces in Syria have suffered a series of military setbacks. These forces are dominated by Islamist militias, including the Al-Nusra front, which has formally affiliated to Al Qaeda.

The Syrian military, aided by fighters from Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’ite militia movement, succeeded last week in ousting anti-Assad militias from the town of Qusair, near the Lebanese border, depriving the “rebels” of a key conduit for arms and foreign fighters.

Now, Syrian government forces appear poised to launch new offensives to drive the anti-regime militias out of both Homs, to the north of Qusair, and Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city and commercial center near the Turkish border in the north. Consolidation of government control over Homs would deprive the US-backed “rebels” of the ability to operate in the south of the country, while achieving a victory in Aleppo and its surrounding area would cut off their supply lines from Turkey.

The White House discussions on Syrian intervention are unfolding amid a major deployment of US forces within striking distance of Syria. War games dubbed “Eager Lion” began in Jordan this week, with 4,500 US soldiers, Marines and sailors participating alongside 3,000 Jordanian troops and another 500 from other countries, most of them members of the so-called “Friends of Syria.”

Under the cover of these exercises, US Patriot Missiles, F-16 fighter planes and other advanced weaponry are being deployed on Jordanian territory, just across the border from Syria. While the war games end on June 20, US forces and armaments are to remain in place.

Jordan’s military chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Awni el-Edwan, speaking at a joint news conference with Maj. Gen. Robert Catalanotti of the US Army’s Central Command on Sunday, declared unconvincingly, “The exercises have nothing to do with any regional developments around Jordan.” He deflected questions about the permanent US deployment in Jordan, declaring, “Patriot missiles and F-16 fighters are taking part in the drill in a pure military context. Keeping them in Jordan needs a political decision that we, military people, do not interfere in.”

In the wake of the military reversals for the US-backed “rebels,” both Washington and the forces it is backing in Syria have put on hold the plan for a so-called Geneva 2 conference, ostensibly backed by both Russia and the US, to negotiate a political settlement of the two-year-old armed conflict.

The Associated Press stated that “Assad’s military successes appear to have rendered peace efforts largely meaningless in the short term.” The New York Times and other sections of the media have made similar statements, exposing the fact that the sole purpose of the talks for Washington was to force through regime-change. Now, Washington reasons, is not the time for “peace,” but rather for an escalation of the war in order to change the facts on the ground.

Behind the human rights pretensions and crocodile tears for the “Syrian people,” the Obama administration is pursuing far-reaching strategic and commercial interests in its bid to overthrow the Assad regime, and is prepared to kill tens if not hundreds of thousands more Syrians to achieve them.

While both Washington and the Western media have blamed the “rebel” reversals on the role played by a few thousand Hezbollah fighters or aid to Assad from Russia and Iran, the reality is that, however much Syrians may dislike the current regime, they are hostile to and fear the so-called rebels even more.

These forces are increasingly dominated by Islamists, many of them foreign fighters funneled into the country. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad outfit based in London, reported recently that 2,219 foreign fighters have been killed in the war, suggesting that the numbers fighting in Syria must be in the tens of thousands.

The Observatory also reported over the weekend an incident in Aleppo that underscores why there is such popular hatred for the forces extolled by much of the pseudo-left in the West as “Syrian revolutionaries.” According to the report, Islamist “rebels” overheard Mohammed Qatta, a 14-year-old who sold coffee in the street, turn away a customer using a popular Syrian phrase, “Even if [Prophet] Mohammed comes back to life, I won’t.”

The Islamists accused the boy of blasphemy, took him away and whipped him. They brought him before an assembled crowd, including his parents, and announced his “crime” and his sentence of death. They then shot him through the mouth and the neck as his mother begged them to kill her instead.

In a video interview posted by the Aleppo Media Center, an opposition group, the boy’s mother cried, “Why did they kill my son? We are not for or against anybody in this conflict. May God take revenge on them.”

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Principlist presidential candidate Ali Akbar Velayati waves to a group of his supporters in the city of Qom on June 10, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Internationally acclaimed traditional Iranian musician and vocalist Mohammad Motamedi has been invited to the 2013 Beiteddine Art Festival in Lebanon.

The award winning musician moatamedi is slated to perform great concert titled On the Way of Marco Polo at the opening ceremony of the festival on June 21, 2013.

Motamediâ„¢s music program will be held in two sections of orchestral and traditional at the event.

The first section will be orchestral that is scheduled to be a joint work of Iranian and Lebanese vocalists and musicians.

Lebanonâ„¢s great orchestra and Iranian musician Fardin Khalatbari will accompany Motamedi at the section. A selection of Arabic and Persian poems of the ancient Iranian poet Mowlavi will be offered at this part of the program.

At the second section of Motamediâ„¢s concert, traditional Iranian music is programmed to be performed.

Born in 1978, Motamedi performed several concerts in Iran and some other countries that were warmly received.

He garnered France Musique World Music Award at the 2013 Babel Med Music festival.

As the winner of the section, Motamedi was granted to record a CD with ËœRadio France Ocora Recordsâ„¢ the following year.

He also held Extemporization concert in theatre of Paris, concert in historical Palace of Versailles and concert in Music Conservator Rome-Italy.

Beiteddine Music Festival is one of the most important festivals in the Middle East that attracts many leading artists from around the world every year.

The annual summer festival takes place in Beiteddine Palace in the Lebanese small city of Beiteddine.

Established in 1984 with local artistic performances, the festival presents concerts or performances related to classical music, dance, theatre, opera, jazz, and modern world music.

FGP/FGP

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Last weekend, approximately 200 European trade unions, political NGOs (non-governmental organizations), charity groups, and feminist, environmentalist and pseudo-left groupings organized a so-called Alter-Summit in Athens. The congress endorsed the institutions of the European Union (EU), with which union bureaucracies have worked closely in negotiating and approving austerity policies since the outbreak of the European debt crisis.

On Friday and Saturday, some 1,000 people from across Europe came to the Olympia area of northern Athens to discuss in different “assemblies” about themes including “social rights”, “ecology” or “education”.

The summit began with a special “feminist assembly”, in which women attending the meeting gathered separately for discussion.

The turnout was much lower than the 5,000 attendees that were expected. This reflects the bitter experience of Greece as the focal point of social counter-revolution in Europe. After numerous EU bailout packages negotiated with the Greek government and union bureaucracy, more than 60 percent of the youth are unemployed, wages have fallen by 35 to 50 per cent on average, and the education system has been smashed.

The Alter-Summit’s organizers–included many of Europe’s biggest trade unions, which played key roles in negotiating social attacks on workers across Europe–could not generate any genuine broader enthusiasm.

Greece’s two main union confederations, GSEE and ADEDY, have functioned as extended arms of the state, suppressing working class opposition to the cuts and by trying to limit every action of the workers to brief protest strikes. When Athens put the striking subway drivers, seamen and teachers under martial law to force them back to work, ADEDY and GSEE called off solidarity strikes.

The German IG Metall, the largest single trade union worldwide and one of the sponsors of the summit, already organized the closure of an auto plant in Germany–the traditional Opel plant in Bochum.

Besides these organizations, the major European pseudo-left parties were active at the conference, even though they did not officially sign the initial appeal. Members of France’s New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA), the German Left Party and the Greek Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) attended the conference. Many of their affiliated organizations–the Left Party’s Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, SYRIZA member party AKOA, or the NPA-affiliated Solidaire trade union–helped organize the summit and signed its documents.

These organizations have played a reactionary role throughout Europe. The Left Party not only facilitated the bailout of the banks in the German parliament, but organized itself the sharpest social attacks in different states throughout Germany. SYRIZA is preparing to join the government in Greece, having pledged to repay the banks.

In the center of the Alter-Summit stood its so-called “People’s Manifesto”, which outlines “urgent common priorities for a democratic, social, ecological and feminist Europe” shared by the participating organizations.

This document is essentially the outline of an alternative austerity policy, hidden under formless proposals for “wage increases” or an “adequate minimum wage”. Coming from organizations such as the GSEE, which has helped impose one wave of EU wage cuts after another, such a demand is a cynical ploy. It aims to hide the manifesto’s anti-working class program behind demands which the Alter-Summit’s organizers not only are unwilling to fight for, but are actively hostile to.

Far more prominent in the “People’s Manifesto” is the defense of the EU. “Rising inequalities endanger social cohesion,” the manifesto states in its preface, continuing: “The very existence of the European Union is now at risk”. For this reason, they demand “that the EU institutions must be brought under democratic control, just as the public interest must prevail and ecological and social needs be met.”

This presentation of the EU as a potential guarantor of “public interest” and of “social needs” is absurd. From its founding in 1992, the EU was a tool of the ruling elite to smash the living standard of the working class first in Eastern Europe and then throughout the continent. The brutal social attacks in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy are conducted by its institutions.

With their absurd as desperate defense of the EU, the summit participants’ response to the growing social opposition within the European population not only against austerity, but also against the EU institutions.

In the last two weeks, a whole slew of comments in the bourgeois press have warned against the dangers posed by growing opposition to the EU. While an UN report said that the risk of “social unrest” is dramatically rising, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble spoke of the threat of “revolution”.

The trade unions and pseudo-left parties are responding to this situation by praising the EU and developing an alternate program for imposing austerity measures in Europe.

The manifesto opposes cancelling the debts of the southern European countries, which have been the main mechanism to introduce austerity measures in these countries. Instead, it opposes existing credit agreement with the EU and calls for a haircut of the debts. The latter already happened in Greece–with full support from the lenders, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the EU–in a move that did not ease austerity, but instead aimed to save private lenders’ money.

The manifesto also expresses it support for another IMF proposal. It demands to “mandate and oblige the European Central Bank [ECB] and other public European banking institutions to lend directly to states at low interest”. Having the ECB as the lender of last resort is just another way to repay major banks holding sovereign debts with freshly-printed money.

The manifesto also demands a public bailout of failed banks–a policy the EU has already employed across Europe, to transfer bad private debts onto governments’ balance sheets to justify more reactionary budget cuts. In another sign of the Alter-Summit organizers’ deep hostility to socialist policies, the nationalization of banks that are not failing is explicitly ruled out.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

About 100 people gathered outside the Lower House of parliament in central Moscow to protest or support legislation that, if approved, would introduce fines for propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations to minors.

While the supporters of the initiative chose a more conventional
form of expression and demonstrated with posters calling for a
“purge” of homosexuals in Moscow and Russia, its opponents chose
a more creative tactic.

Several gay couples started kissing near the entrance of the
parliament building, demonstrating the vague line between the
visual propaganda or promotion and the expression of a persons’
feelings. The protests were a re-run of the one held in December 2012 when the
hearings on the draft law started.

Police detained about 15 people for violating public order, but
the inclination of those detained were not reported.

Initially the bill was banning the propaganda of paedophilia and
homosexuality to minors, but the formula was changed before the
second reading, apparently after strong protests from the LGBT
community, Russian activists and international rights groups who
pointed that this could be viewed as discrimination based on
sexual orientation.

The current version of the bill describes the propaganda of
non-traditional sexual relations as “spreading the information in
order to form non-traditional sexual desires in children,
describing such relations as attractive, promoting the distorted
understanding of social equality of traditional and
non-traditional relations and also unwanted solicitation of
information that could provoke interest to such relations.

One of the main sponsors of the bill, the head of the Lowed House
Committee for Family, Women and Children, Yelena Mizulina, has
elaborated in press comments that the last part concerned pop-up
ads on the Internet.

Breaking the ban means a fine. A private person can be fined from
4000 to 5000 roubles ($125 – $156) and legal entities from
800,000 to 1 million roubles for real-life propaganda, and
internet promotion is punished by 50,000 to 100,000 roubles
($1550 – $3100) fines for private persons and 1 million roubles
for legal entities with forced suspension of their activities for
up to 90 days.

Also the bill orders foreigners and people without citizenship
are expelled from Russia if found guilty of such a felony. 

The international Human Rights Watch organisation has described
the proposed legislation as an attempt to make discrimination
look decent, and says Russia authorities are violating the basic
rights of representatives of LGBT community.

At the same time, the latest opinion polls shown an overwhelming
majority of Russians support the ban on promotion of
non-traditional sex. The share of supporters has grown to 88
percent from 86 percent last year. Moreover, 42 percent of those
polled say homosexuality should be made a criminal offence, and
25 percent say that it should be subject to “public
condemnation”.

This article originally appeared on: RT

The Lower House of the Russian parliament has approved a controversial bill which criminalizes insulting people’s religious feelings. It could come into effect as early as July if passed by the Upper House and the President.

In the current version of the bill, insulting religious feelings
in public can be punished with up to three years in prison. Other
possible sanctions include fines up to half a million roubles
(about $15,600) and compulsory correctional work.

Before the final reading MPs amended the draft adding criminal
responsibility for obstructing the activities of religious
organizations. Such a felony will be punished with up to one year
in prison and those convicted will be barred from taking certain
official posts for two years.

Premeditated and public desecration of religious objects or books
will also be punished — by fines of up to 200,000 roubles (over
$6,200).

The current bill is promoted by a large part of the Russian
political establishment and strongly backed by the Russian
Orthodox Church whose leader has publicly accused some unnamed forces of
staging attacks on faith and religion in the country.

The bill is intended to deter such incidents as feminist punk
band Pussy Riot’s impromptu appearance in Moscow’s main cathedral
in February last year, when they attacked the church and its
alleged strengthening ties with Russian authorities and President
Vladimir Putin personally.

Three band members were apprehended and sentenced to two years in prison each for aggravated
hooliganism, despite numerous objections from Russian activists
and foreign rock and pop stars. One of those convicted has
already been released on probation and two others remain behind
bars.

The case showed that the Russian legal system needed to deal with
growing religious sentiment in society as did the subsequent
events when vandals started felling memorial crosses and covering church walls
with graffiti in protest at the arrests and sentence.

Significant part of the society still oppose the bill saying that
it contradicts the basic principles of a free and secular state,
and the freedom of expression provided by the Constitution. The
leader of one of Russia’s oldest political parties Yabloko,
Sergey Mitrokhin, took part in protests on Tuesday picketing the
State Duma office with a poster that compared the controversial
bill with the Spanish Inquisition. 

The supporters of the bill, such as deputy head of the Lower
House Committee for Religious Organizations Mikhail Markelov,
claim that it is a reply to dangerous tendencies in society.
“People who practice traditional forms of religion constantly
face threats of various kinds. This includes the stunts by the
Pussy Riot group, this includes the cemetery vandalism, and this
also includes attempts on lives of spiritual leaders,”
Markelov told reporters.

The MP added that according to opinion polls the majority of
Russians supported the bill protecting believers’ feelings. He
added that such laws were a recognized international practice and
had been enforced in many European countries.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Edward Snowden, the former CIA intelligence analyst who blew the whistle on the NSA, has been making sure our taxpayers’ money is not misused by these intelligence services, says investigative journalist Tony Gosling.

RT: One argument is that Snowden exposed the existence
of a system that was designed to prevent terrorist attacks; he’s
made that known now to extremists. So surely that’s espionage,
isn’t it?

Tony Gosling: Well, this has got nothing to do with
terrorism or terrorist attacks. This system is actually designed
to troll all information. Let’s think about what that means. It
includes all of the communications of our politicians, our
political representatives and MPs. It also includes lawyers,
people who might be defending us in court. And it includes
journalists. It is probably the biggest phishing operation in
history…Look at what Rupert Murdoch did with the News
International scandal involving phone hacking. What was happening
there? Information was being garnered and then used against
people. And if you’ve got everything that anyone has ever said in
private, you can take down just about anybody on the political
scene.

We’ve seen quite a lot of these takedowns. So that’s the real
danger here…It undermines the rule of law. And effectively,
that’s what’s been going on inside of the National Security
Agency, and probably here at [British intelligence agency] GCHQ.

All we are asking for is the rule of law. We’ve had enough of
them using these intelligence agencies, this whole thing of
national security, to cover up their own crimes. Somebody has
authorized these, and somebody has carried them out. And if they
haven’t got warrants from judges to do this surveillance then
they’ve broken the law. What we need is some kind of Serpico
[Frank Serpico was a NY cop who blew the whistle on entrenched
police corruption — Ed.] to go into these intelligence services
and clean them up, otherwise we’re heading down, as Daniel
Ellsberg was saying, the road to tyranny.

RT: Okay, the whistle has now been blown…but what’s
going to happen to Snowden do you think?

TG: Well, I would hope that there would be a movement — in
fact, it’s already happening on the internet pretty straightaway
— to protect him and look after him. [Snowden] is the latest in a
series of people. We’ve had Julian Assange, to begin with,
somebody who’s been working in the public interest exposing
criminality and international war crimes, now incarcerated in
London. Bradley Manning’s trial is just starting and, of course,
Snowden is just the latest in this link. And I would imagine
there will be attempts to protect him by the general public in
the West. Certainly, he’s been working in our interest, making
sure our taxpayers’ money is not misused by these intelligence
services.

RT: Well, his biggest worry now is that nothing is
going to change, despite all this.



TG: There are many politicians, lawyers, journalists and
ordinary citizens across the West who want to see our
intelligence services clear their act up. Because this is no
good. We can’t have them simply able to break the law, and
basically crying wolf: “National security, national security,
we’re not going to allow the police in here.” We need the police
to go into these agencies and ask question; if necessary, arrest
intelligence officers who have been involved in this. But the key
is to find out who authorized this in the first place, and…unless
we send those people to jail, we are really in a dangerous
situation where we could be living in what is effectively a
technocracy, and that’s to say that democracy is out the window,
those that own and control the technology that surrounds us, this
surveillance technology, will be able to take down anybody,
blacken the name of anybody they wish to.

This is really a mixture of an Orwellian state, that was talked
about by George Orwell…and also [former US President Dwight]
Eisenhower warned us that the military-industrial complex could
get on top and it seems most of our politicians, and many of our
journalists in the West, are on the back foot.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Turkish PM Recep Erdogan clamped down on protesters because Turkey is a member of NATO and a US ally. If the police acted the same way in Belarus, British Foreign Secretary William Hague would have reported it to the UN, journalist Neil Clark told RT.

“The double standards are glaring. If you’re in NATO you can
actually get away with murder and Erdogan has been emboldened by
that,” believes British journalist Neil Clark.

RT: We’ve been seeing some violent images coming from
Istanbul’s Taksim Square. What’s driving this move by the
authorities?

Neil Clark: I think, Erdogan feels emboldened really to
act in a very harsh way against the protesters, and he’s
emboldened because he’s a member of NATO and a US ally. It’s very
interesting to see how muted the criticism has been in the past
week in the west. William Hague for example has been silent and
the French have been silent. And I think this emboldens Erdogan
to clamp down harshly on protesters, putting the water cannons
and the police, the plastic bullets, etc…Just imagine if the
scenes that we saw in Taksim last night happened in Minsk. Just
imagine people protesting against President Lukashenko in Belarus
and the army and police clamped down in such a brutal matter. We
would have William Hague saying Belarus is going to be reported
to the UN Security Council and cause more sanctions on Belarus.
The double standards are glaring. If you’re in NATO you can get
away with murder, and Erdogan has been emboldened by that.

RT: Mixed signals came from Istanbul too, with Erdogan’s
deputy saying he wanted to meet with the protesters and the
protesters hoping that something could be sorted amicably. Then
why this use of force instead of talks?

NC: I think, Erdogan feels there’s no pressure on him to
actually negotiate with the protesters. Why should he, he is
thinking, because he’s got the backing of NATO and the US. The US
will do everything to stop him from falling from power. That’s a
very important factor. The other thing of course, elections
aren’t due in Turkey for two more years. The opposition is
divided. So he thinks he’s in a very strong position.

RT: Is a compromise possible at this stage between the
protesters and the government?

NC: I think the problem is the opposition is disunited.
And Erdogan feels in a strong position because the US is very
happy with what he is doing in Turkey, in particular in relation
to Syria where Turkey has played a leading role in the
destabilization of Syria. And so he feels confident that he will
stay in power. He doesn’t need to give up too muc, this is the
problem. As I said if this was happening in Belarus, there would
be enormous pressure put on the Belarus government to make
concessions, to meet with the opposition, to accede to their
demands, but that’s not happening to Erdogan, I’m afraid.

 

RT: How divided is the Turkish public?

NC: Very divided. On the issue of Syria for instance we’ve
got a huge majority, 70-80 per cent totally reject his policy on
Syria. He’s brought the war to Turkey, there’s been bomb attacks
in Turkey because of the aggressive policies. On issue after
issue he’s done the opposite of what he said in 2011. Although he
was democratically elected two years ago, he’s actually stuck two
fingers up at the Turkish people, and that’s why there’s so much
anger against him now.

RT: Are these protests like an Arab Spring, or have they
more in common with Europe’s anti-austerity demonstrations?

NC: Well, we’re not supposed to call it a Turkish spring,
are we, because the Arab spring is only supposed to happen in
countries where the US wants the government to fall. And
therefore we’ve had reports on the BBC saying why it’s not the
Turkish spring. Of course, it’s a Turkish spring, and it’s not
meant to happen here, because Turkey is a loyal NATO ally. I
think that these protests will continue and they really show the
hypocrisy of the western powers because if it was happening in
Iran, for example, the government would be forced to resign.
There’s no course for the government to resign or even for them
to negotiate with the opposition. So I think it is a Turkish
spring.

This article originally appeared on: RT

The construction site of a new housing project at an illegal Israeli settlement in east al-Quds (Jerusalem) (file photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

File photo shows a general view of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Police fire tear gas at protesters in Istanbul’s Taksim Square Tuesday, June 11. (Photo: Yannis Behrakis/ Reuters) Following threats made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that protesters will “pay a price” if they continue their mass demonstrations, Turkish police stormed Taksim Square Tuesday brandishing tear gas, water canons and rubber bullets, destroying the camp and dispersing the protesters who have occupied the square for over two weeks. 

AFP reports:

Hundreds of police officers backed by armoured cars moved in on Taksim Square in the early morning in their first return to the site after pulling out on June 1, saying they wanted to remove makeshift barricades erected by protesters and clear the area of flags and banners.

The police action surprised protesters, hundreds of whom have been camping out in the adjoining Gezi Park, and came just hours after Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said Erdogan would meet with protest leaders Wednesday, in his first major concession since the deadly unrest began nearly two weeks ago.

Student Burak Arat, told AFP he was sleeping in Gezi Park when police moved in on the square

“We will fight. We want freedom. We are freedom fighters,” said student Burak Arat, who told AFP he was sleeping in Gezi Park–a “liberated zone” until now–until he awoke to the bursts of tear gas cannisters.

Tuesday afternoon, following the attack, police re-entered Taksim Square “to clean up signs of occupation,” Al Jazeera reports.

According to reports, police replaced the banners with a large Turkish flag and a banner with the picture of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the secular republic.

A statement from the office of Istanbul governor, Huseyin Avni Mutlu, said the demonstrators’ banners were making the square look as though it was under “occupation” and was “negatively affecting our country’s image in the eyes of the world opinion and leading to reaction from within the society,” the Guardian reports.

Addressing party officials, Edrogan added that Gezi Park “not a place to be occupied…there is a big game being played using Gezi Park as an excuse”.

Ahead of the removal, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Istanbul and the capital Ankara Monday evening, where police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. Monday’s action was smaller than the mass demonstrations held over the weekend.

The national unrest first broke May 31 after police violently disrupted a peaceful protest to save Istanbul’s last green space, Gezi Park. Tensions have since spiraled into mass displays of anger against Edrogan and his “increasingly authoritarian” ruling Justice and Development (AKP) Party.

The heavy handed police response has left two protesters dead and nearly 5,000 injured.

_____________________

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

The construction site of a new housing project at an illegal Israeli settlement in east al-Quds (Jerusalem) (file photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

File photo shows a general view of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

He’s Obama’s FBI director choice. He’ll replace current rogue head Robert Mueller. In September, he’ll step down.

He’s run the agency since September 4, 2001. He succeeded acting head Thomas Pickering. He assumed office days before 9/11.

Appointing him perhaps related to what followed. War on terrorism was declared. So was authorization for war on humanity. Nonbelligerent Afghanistan was attacked.

Doing so was planned months in advance. Wars aren’t launched overnight. Extensive planning precedes them. Pretexts justify the unjustifiable. It’s standard US policy.

America was never beautiful. Democracy’s more illusion than reality. Things are worse now than ever. Freedom hangs by a thread. Humanity’s threatened. It’s perhaps the most perilous time in world history.

Post-9/11, police state laws and practices shredded constitutional rights. They’re on the chopping block for elimination altogether.

Rule of law principles no longer matter. War on Islam was declared. Institutionalized spying followed. Ordinary Americans are targeted. Guilt by accusation became policy. Innocence is no defense.

Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey/Mueller Guidelines gave federal authorities “flexibility (to) protect the Nation from terrorist threats.”

None exist. Everyone’s vulnerable to abuse. Muslims, anti-war activists, and Occupy Wall Street supporters are especially threatened. So are free expression and other constitutional rights.

In May 2012, Mueller urged Congress to enact greater surveillance powers. He wants unrestricted spying authority. On his watch, the FBI’s been responsible for most US terror plots.

Innocent people were maliciously targeted. Muslims are most vulnerable. Sting operations entrapped them. They continue out-of-control. Constitutional rights no longer matter.

Obama wants Comey to continue the worst of lawless Mueller practices. He won’t disappoint. He’s well chosen for the job. His imperial credentials are well known. He’ll keep waging war on freedom. His resume explains why.

From December 2003 — August 2005, he was GW Bush’s Deputy Attorney General. From January 2002 — December 2003, he was Southern District of New York US Attorney.

Current SEC head Mary Jo White preceded him. A previous article explained Wall Street’s in good hands with her in charge.

Justice Department officials operate extrajudicially. It’s always been that way. J. Edgar Hoover began what’s now worse. Modern technology and post-9/11 ruthlessness lets current directors do what he couldn’t imagine.

Mueller’s his modern day incarnation. In some respects it’s on steroids. Expect Comey to match him blow for blow. Perhaps he’ll escalate things further. His past record gives civil libertarians cause for concern.

He, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and DOJ Office of Legal Council head Jack Goldsmith authorized lawless practices. In 2004, they approved warrantless spying.

In 2005, FISA law followed. It requires warrants. Judicial approval is needed. Authorization depends on probable cause. A “target of the surveillance (must be) a foreign power or agent of a foreign power.”

Comey played a murky role in Bush’s torture program. He tried having things both ways. DOJ documents showed he expressed reservations.

He was uneasy about enhanced interrogation practices. At the same time, his legal opinion approved them and extraordinary renditions. Rhetoric is meaningless. Policies alone matter.

Comey will partner with CIA chief John Brennan. He’s Obama’s maestro of murder. He headed Bush’s National Counterterrorism Center. He spent 25 years at CIA. He’s been involved in the worst of its lawless practices.

Expect civil liberties to erode further on their watch. They’re mandated to destroy them.

From 2005 — 2010, Comey was Lockheed Martin general counsel. It’s the world’s largest weapons maker. It’s the largest war profiteer. It benefits from death and destruction. Comey provided legal cover to do it.

In 2010, he became Bridgewater Associates general counsel. Its web site says it “manages approximately $150 billion in global investments for a wide array of institutional clients, including foreign governments and central banks, corporate and public pension funds, university endowments and charitable foundations.”

In 2010 and 2011, it “ranked as the largest and best-performing hedge fund manager in the world, and in both 2012 and 2013 Bridgewater was recognized for having earned its clients more than any other hedge fund in the history of the industry.”

Comey’s also a London-based HSBC Holdings board member. It’s a giant banking and financial services firm. It makes money the old-fashioned way. It steals it. It commits fraud and grand theft multiple ways.

In 2012, it paid the largest ever bank-imposed penalty. It settled money laundering charges for $1.9 billion.

It worked with Mexican drug cartels and other crime bosses. Officials involved weren’t prosecuted. They operate freely. They prioritize grand theft. So do other major banks. Government officials permit it. They’re partners in crime.

As general counsel and board member, Comey was intimately involved. Culpability doesn’t matter. It’s true throughout Washington. Rogue officials infest the nation’s capital. Their records speak for themselves.

Democrats praised Comey’s selection. Given their own reprehensible practices, it’s no surprise. His Republican and tainted business credentials don’t matter. He represents corporate empowerment and imperial America. That’s all that counts.

Obama called his nomination “an equally important statement about his intentions in the fight against terrorism.”

America has no enemies at home or abroad except the ones it creates. Doing so heightens fear. It furthers Washington’s agenda. It furthers its war on humanity. Comey’s done it before publicly and privately.

As FBI director, expect further erosion of constitutional rights. They’re largely destroyed already. Remaining ones hang by a thread. Perhaps Comey’s mandated to finish the job.

He and Brennan have had lots of practice. They menace freedom.  It may end altogether on their watch. It’s the new normal.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

http://www.dailycensored.com/police-state-in-good-hands-with-james-comey/

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Six anti-drone protesters (myself included) were arrested inside RAF Waddington on Monday (June 3). The protest had three aims;

1) to symbolically breach the secrecy and silence surrounding the British use of armed drones;

2) to bring information about the impact of airstrikes on Afghan civilians  and 3) to symbolically begin conversion of the air base to peaceful purposes.

We did this by creating a peace garden within the base, displaying information on buildings, hangars and sign posts about the impact of airstrikes on Afghan civilians (see bottom of post)  and trying to find out information about the day-to-day use of drones at Waddington.

The Waddington Six: (from left) Revd Keith Hebden, Chris Cole, Fr Martin Newell, Penny Walker, Susan Clarkson and Henrietta Cullinan.

We were in the base for over an hour before being detained and arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. After being held on the base for some time we were driven off the site and saw large queues of traffic. Our presence had meant the base was  ‘locked down’ with all activity coming to a halt and no one was allowed to enter or exit the base.

We were detained by the police for over two hours before being processed. At this point we were told that we were being held incommunicado and not allowed a phone call to inform anyone of our arrests or to contact a solicitor. Unbeknown to us permission was being sort to gain entry to our houses in order to seize computers, mobile phones, diaries, and documents. In the afternoon we were each interviewed  and told that we would be released and bailed pending further enquiries. By 10pm however it was becoming clear that we would be held overnight.

At 2am we were each awoken to be told we were being charged with aggravated trespass and conspiracy to commit criminal damage.  These are both serious charges with the conspiracy charge meaning a trial in crown court rather than a magistrates court. In addition I was told there was a warrant for my arrest for non-payment of fines relating to a previous acts of civil disobedience.

Next morning we were taken to court only to be informed that these more serious charges had been suddenly and mysterious withdrawn and we were instead to be charged with ‘simple’ criminal damage to a fence.  We all pleaded not guilty intending to argue that our actions were justified given the circumstances. An interim hearing will be held on July 4 and a trial will take place later in the year. We were given bail on condition that we did not re-enter Lincolnshire except to attend court hearings.

I was then held overnight again before being driven to Camberwell Magistrates Court in London. At first the court refused to accept me as they knew nothing about any warrant. However eventually I was brought before a magistrate who wiped the outstanding fines and court costs due to ‘time served’, given time to pay the remaining balance, and released.

The extreme reaction to our presence at RAF Waddington with the laying of very serious charges only for a complete and sudden reversal within hours betrays, I believe,  the nervousness felt by those in charge of UK drone operations.

Behind the scenes it appears that the powers that be now appear to questioning whether or not to maintain the  ‘just say nothing’ tactic as it is perceived as no longer working, with a growing chorus of MPs, Peers, journalists, lawyers and activists demanding answers and information about the use of armed drones. Those maintaining the secrecy around the use of drone  are coming under increasing pressure — and the message from us all is that it will only increase.

Below is the information that was posted around the base. It is a representative sample of ten airstrikes over the past five years that have killed and injured civilians in Afghanistan. Click images for more info.

CLICK IMAGE TO ACCESS CARROUSEL

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

by Kerry Picket 

The Air Force’s 624th Operations Center sent an e-mail with a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) that prohibits them from accessing and reading news stories related to the current National Security Agency snooping controversy on the Air Force’s NIPRNET (Non-Secure Internet Protocol Router Network) systems. 

The 624th Operations Center, located at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, is the operational arm for the 24th Air Force’s cyberspace operations capability.

The e-mail, first attained by Shane Vander Hart, President of 4:15 Communications, LLC, posted the memo on his site after receiving an e-mail from a mother whose son is stationed with the U.S. Air Force in the Middle East. The NOTAM warns airmen about the risks of simple web searches regarding the NSA and Verizon phone records scandals:

I wanted to make sure that all of you read this because just doing a simple search could jeopardize your future. In summary, anything to do with the recent news about the NSA and Verizon phone records are considered classified and searching news or records about these on our NIPRNET computers is unauthorized. Thanks!

The executive summary states that documents associated with the NSA story may potentially be classified, even though the information is publicly available on the internet:

Classified documents regarding Verizon phone record collection and court order have been identified as being hosted on publicly accessible Internet Web Sites, most notably “The Guardian” news site. Viewing and/or downloading these documents on Air Force NIPRNET computers could constitute a Classified Message Incident. Therefore, users are not to access these file (sic) for any reason (i.e. viewing, downloading, forwarding, etc.)

Edward Snowden, a 29-year old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of NSA defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, revealed himself as the NSA leaker over the weekend. Interviewed by the The Guardian in a Hong Kong hotel room, Snowden told the U.K. publication, ”I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things.”

“I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded,” he continued. “That is not something I am willing to support or live under… I can’t in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”

Booz Allen released a statement Sunday evening confirming Snowden’s employment with them for less than three months, assigned to a team in Hawaii.

“News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm,” the statement reads. “We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter.”

Copyright Kerry Picket, Breitbart.com, 2013

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

File photo shows a South Korean soldier gesturing beside barricades on the road leading to the Kaesong Industrial Zone on the North Korean side of the fortified border.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Principlist presidential candidate Saeed Jalili says Iran is currently in an excellent position, and a bright future awaits the Islamic Republic.

Addressing a gathering of his supporters in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad on Monday, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council said Iran is the standard-bearer of resistance in the Muslim world and for the same reason, it is not acceptable to see inflation or unemployment in the country.

The chief nuclear negotiator further noted that he’s standing tall, because he has never deviated from the guidelines of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

Jalili said should he emerge winner in the June 14 election, he will resolve the countryâ„¢s economic maladies by boosting production, curbing imports and regulating the financial market.

Jalili is facing five rivals including President of the Expediency Councilâ„¢s Center for Strategic Research Hassan Rohani, Secretary of the Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi.

Two presidential candidates, former Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel and former First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref withdrew their candidacy bids respectively on Monday and early Tuesday.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election. Nearly 50.5 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential poll.

MP/KA/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

This article originally appeared on: RT

Refugees from South Kordofan gather in the shade of trees at dusk at the Yida Refugee Camp in South Sudan. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei says he has what it takes to tackle inflation, unemployment as well as the US-engineered sanctions.

On Monday, the independent candidate criticized his rivals for exaggerating the current situation in Iran to garner votes, advising them against fomenting despair in the society.

Rezaei, who is Secretary of the Expediency Council, further noted that there are serious issues faced by the country, adding that the next four years will be tough, and there will be no room for trial and error in the next administration.

He also urged his rivals not to waste peopleâ„¢s time, and called on voters to elect someone who will not make mistakes during his four-year term in office.

Rezaei is facing five rivals including President of the Expediency Councilâ„¢s Center for Strategic Research Hassan Rohani, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi.

Two presidential candidates, former Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel and former First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref withdrew their candidacy bids respectively on Monday and early Tuesday.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election. Nearly 50.5 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

MP/KA/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The International Energy Agency predicts a major reshaping of the global energy market as quicker than expected climate change could heat up the planet by and additional 5.3 degrees C if carbon emissions aren’t cut.

Last year carbon emissions from fossil fuels hit a record 31.6 bn
tonnes, up 1.4%, according to the IEA’s World Energy Outlook
report. That’s despite positive figures from the two largest
green house gas emitters the US and China.

American emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels fell by
200 million tonnes to levels last seen in the mid-1990s due to a
transition from coal power to natural gas and renewable energy,
the Guardian reports. European emissions fell 50 million tonnes
due to economic contraction and renewable energy growth, despite
an increase in coal energy use. The Chinese growth of emissions
by 300 million tonnes is the smallest over the past decade as
China continues to invest into diversifying its energy sources
and installing more renewables and more energy efficiency.

The agency says the energy sector accounts for two-thirds of
global CO2 emissions that are believed to fuel climate change.

The IEA warns the world is on track for the temperature increase
of up to 5.3 degrees Celsius by 2100 despite the UN target of no
more than 2 degrees Celsius increase. The agency calls on
countries to minimise carbon emissions, stop building coal power
stations and increase energy efficiency to tame the global
warming within the 2 degree increase. Under this scenario, the
world will leave two thirds of its fossil fuel reserves untapped
before 2050, the agency reports.

“When the Stone Age came to an end, it wasn’t because there
was no stones anymore, but because we had different
technologies,” Bloomberg quotes Maria Van der Hoeven, the
executive director of the IEA. “There’s no need to use
coal for our energy supply if we have other options.”

Revenues from nuclear power stations and alternative energy will
increase leading coal power generators to lose up to $1.8tn in
the next 20 years, the IEA reports.

This article originally appeared on: RT

China’s fifth-ever manned mission has successfully blasted off from a location in the Gobi Desert and will now head to the country’s prototype orbital station, where the crew will spend 14 days — a Chinese space record.

The Shenzhou-10 craft, carrying two male astronauts, and the
second Chinese woman to go to space, will dock with the
Tiangong-1 space lab 40 hours after lift-off.

The crew will spend their time on-board conducting scientific
studies and technical tests, as well as giving a satellite
lecture to Chinese students, before returning in the re-entry
module that brought them to space.

The previous longest mission — conducted last year — was two days
shorter.

China had never attempted a manned mission before 2003, but has
since invested heavily in its space program. Tiangong-1, launched
in 2011, does not currently have a crew, but is used to develop
China’s docking capability, and pave the way for a permanently
manned mission. Its dimensions and capabilities are reminiscent
of Salyut and Skylab, the first-generation Soviet and American
space stations launched in the early 1970s.

Thirty-three-year-old Wang Yaping has become the second
Chinese woman in two years to visit space. Wang joined the
Chinese army when she was 17 and currently holds the rank of
major. Commander Nie Haisheng has been on one previous mission to
space, while docking pilot Zhang Xioaguang is also travelling to
orbit for the first time.

Tiangong-1 will be decommissioned and allowed to plunge back down
to Earth later this year. Instead, China plans to launch two
successors in the next three years, each one bigger than the
last. By 2020, the year the International Space Station is
scheduled to be retired, Beijing plans to operate a comparable,
full-manned orbital lab of its own.

This article originally appeared on: RT

After the latest NSA surveillance revelations a Russian MP has suggested to the government to immediately limit civil servants’ access to the popular US internet services and social networks.

Lower House deputy Ilya Kostunov sent letters to Deputy PM Dmitry
Rogozin (who oversees the Russian defense industry sector), the
heads of the Defense Ministry, Federal Security Service and the
Communications Ministry with a request to make official
recommendation on usage of the popular US internet services such
as Gmail and Facebook and sometimes also hardware devices
produced by US companies.

The politician told Izvestia daily that the instructions should
be made part of the civil servants’ contracts “so that they
understood that by sending information through US services they
not only fill up the dossiers on themselves and their
organizations but can provide aid to a foreign state or
organization that are engaged in anti-Russian activities”.
“This falls under article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code as
this is high treason,” he added.

Persons convicted under this article face up to 20 years in
prison.

The MP told reporters that in the letter he reminded ministers
and state officials about the scandal involving the US National Security Agency
and its classified program PRISM that collects and analyses data
on the Internet. According to the newspapers that broke the story
the US special services have direct access to the servers of such
companies as Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Skype,
AOL and others.

“Certainly, the heads of United States intelligence assured
that they were strictly observing the law and protected US
citizens’ right for privacy. But as far as foreign citizens such
as Russians are concerned they and other intelligence services
from NATO countries have no limitations at all” Kostunov
explained. According to the MP, foreigners were not only studying
the electronic correspondence but also remotely used microphones
and video cameras to learn more about the civil servants’
movement, habits, contacts and behavior.

Besides, careless handling of classified information by using
free and popular internet services can lead to it falling into
the hands of independent hackers, Kostunov warned.

The politician suggested the introduction of obligatory
encryption for all information transferred via the internet.

Experts and public figures agreed that proper regulation is
necessary. Even the chairman of the unregistered Pirate Party of
Russia said that using personal accounts of free services for
official state correspondence was “totally unacceptable”.

An internet presence once became a fashion among Russian
officials, especially during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev
who presents himself as a keen supporter of hi-tech and the
newest digital trends. At the same time, this tendency recently
started to fade. For example Deputy PM Rogozin, whose tweets
never failed to make headlines in conventional media, has
announced that he would no longer tweet personally leaving this
to his press service.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, on the contrary, said in a recent
interview that all his posts and other movements in social
networks were personal. Medvedev’s Facebook account has recently gained
one million likes.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Germany appears to be the most snooped on EU country by the US, the map of secret surveillance activities by the National Security Agency shows. ‘Boundless Informant’ is among the data disclosed by former CIA contractor and NSA consultant Edward Snowden.

The color-coded map of secret surveillance activities by the NSA ranks
countries according to how much surveillance they are currently
undergoing – green for the least and red for the most watched.

While all EU member states boast variant shades of green, Germany
stands out color-coded orange.

The source behind the revelation of the top-secret NSA
surveillance program, already referred to as one of the most
significant intelligence leaks in US history, was uncovered late
last week. 29-year-old Snowden asked The Guardian to reveal his
identity, having fled to Hong Kong to escape retaliation by the
US authorities.

“The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to
intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast
majority of human communications are automatically ingested
without targeting,” he told The Guardian.

“I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authority to
wire-tap anyone … even if you are not doing anything wrong, you
are being watched and recorded,” he added.

The Boundless Informant documents show NSA collecting up to 3
billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a
30-day period ending in March 2013, according to The Guardian.
The tool reportedly allows users to select a country on a map,
view the metadata volume and select details about the collections
against this or that state.

Germany’s Interior Ministry had already been in contact with US
officials to find out whether there had been any infringement of
German citizens’ privacy lately. Chancellor Angela Merkel is due
to raise the issue of the NSA’s eavesdropping on Germany with
President Barack Obama, who said the monitoring program is a
means of defense against terrorism.

Senior European Union officials are also expected to discuss the
impact of NSA’s programs on the privacy of EU citizens during a
trans-Atlantic ministerial meeting in Dublin on Thursday.

“This case shows that a clear legal framework for the
protection of personal data is not a luxury or constraint, but a
fundamental right,” European Commissioner for Justice Viviane
Reding said.

The European Parliament said it is always firm on data protection
within the EU, as well as when negotiating with third countries,
including the US.

“It would be unacceptable and would need swift action from the
EU if indeed the US National Security Agency were processing
European data without permission,” Guy Verhofstadt of the
parliament’s liberal bloc said.

NSA’s tradition to survey international communities reportedly
goes back to the Cold War era, when the agency used monitoring
sites in Germany, Britain and other countries to spy on
communications within the Soviet Union and its East European
allies.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has meanwhile cancelled his
trip to Washington to speak about The Guardian’s latest NSA
report.

He assured parliament that accusations that the UK government
allegedly used information provided by the Americans to
circumvent laws were “baseless.”


“Our agencies practice and uphold UK law at all times,” he
stated, “even when dealing with information from outside the
UK.”

In an interview with the British newspaper, successful NSA
consultant Snowden leaked top-secret documents that revealed the
existence of the US National Security Agency’s extensive internet
spying program PRISM, which records digital communications and
allows for real-time online surveillance of US citizens. PRISM
gives US intelligence agencies direct access to files stored on
the servers of major internet companies, including Google and
Facebook, to identify and target potential terror suspects.

This article originally appeared on: RT

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), already embroiled in a high-profile scandal over its operations, is looking to acquire surveillance equipment that includes cameras concealed in plants, coffee trays and clock radios.

The Washington-based agency seems prepared to take the tawdry
task of tax collecting to a higher level with state-of-the art
spy equipment.

A government procurement list published on a US government website
states that the IRS “intends to award a Purchase Order to an
undisclosed Corporation.”

The list of specified equipment the tax-collecting agency is
looking to procure includes four “Covert Coffee tray(s) with
Camera concealment” as well as two “Concealed clock
radio(s).”

Another procurement item, which would make even James Bond green
with envy, includes surveillance equipment to hide in plants:
“Plant Concealment Color 700 Lines Color IP Camera Concealment
with Single Channel Network Server, supports dual video stream,
Poe, software included, case included, router included.”

Other coveted items include “Remote surveillance system,
Built-in DVD Burner and 2 Internal HDDs, cameras.”

“The Procurement Office acquires the products and services
required to support the IRS mission,” according to its
website.

The IRS seems in a hurry to procure the surveillance equipment:
It posted the request on June 6 and ended the announcement for
the tender on Monday, June 11. 

The government agency said the list of desired surveillance
equipment is necessarily “vague due to the use and nature of
the items.”

“If you feel that you can provide the following equipment,
please respond to this email no later than 4 days after the
solicitation date,” the IRS said.

However, the solicitation for the spy gear seems to have been a
mere formality, since a supplier was duly selected before the
announcement of the tender.

“If no compelling responses are received, award will be made
to the original solicited corporation,” the IRS procurement
statement said.

News that the IRS is looking to buy surveillance equipment comes
at a particularly challenging period for the agency.

In recent weeks, the IRS has been thrust into the public
spotlight after Republicans complained that the government agency
was motivated by politics, targeting right-wing Tea Party groups
that are critical of the Democratic Party and US President Barack
Obama.

At the same time, the government agency is coming under fire for
wasteful spending.

Last week, a report by the Inspector General detailed
nearly $50 million in wasteful spending by the agency on
conferences, including IRS employees receiving room upgrades at
luxurious Las Vegas hotels, spending $135,350 for speakers, and
another $50,000 on a parody video based on the ‘Star Trek’
television show.

Meanwhile, the government agency appears to have broken the very
rules it sets down for taxpayers, that is, being able to prove
all of its expenses.

“The IRS constructed a mock set at its television studio
located in New Carrollton, Maryland, at a cost of $2,400.
However, SB/SE Division management does not have any
documentation supporting this amount,” the report noted.

Members of Congress expressed their outrage over the spending
spree, much of it coming at the height of the global financial
crisis.

“You cannot take the money of American workers and waste
it,” said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the top
Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Last month, Obama announced that the acting commissioner of the
Internal Revenue Service, Steven Miller, resigned in the wake of
news that the agency had used an excessive amount of scrutiny
when dealing with conservative political groups seeking tax
relief.

The IRS, a bureau of the US Department of the Treasury, collects
over $2.4 trillion annually from around 234 million tax returns.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Plans to create Russia’s own internal offshore tax zone to counter European tax havens as well as boost capital investment in Russia were first proposed by Prime and Deputy Ministers Dimitry Medvedev Igor Shuvalov, but will likely now remain a pipe dream.

“The idea is still very undeveloped, and the Finance Ministry
does not understand how it can be done,” an anonymous
ministry official told Vedomosti.

Support by the Ministry of Finance has been cool over creating an
offshore destination in Russia’s Far East, an alternative to more
risky tax havens in Europe that would draw investment from abroad
as well as keep Russian money in Russia.

The new zone would in theory help return investment to Russia, as
well as curb accusations of corruption among government officials
for owning foreign securities, equities, making deposits, or
operating foreign bank accounts. 

The State Duma has been mulling over the idea for the last 2
months, and more hastily since the government set a July 1st
deadline for government officials to ‘de-offshore’ their wealth, or
else be stripped of their official posts.

If an offshore zone is to be created, it will be executed as a
Special Vehicles Purpose-based bank, and if would operate via the
International Investment Bank (IIB), a bank established in 1970
for socialist countries.

IIB member states includes Russia, Bulgaria, Vietnam, Cuba,
Mongolia, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The bank is
currently based in Moscow.

Negotiations for the project are ongoing, but the IIB would be an
the most obvious vehicle because presently its services are
underutilized.

Nikolay Kosov, Board Chairman of the IIB, first pitched the idea to Shuvalov, who
instructed the Finance Ministry to consider the option.

Existing tax havens, such as Cyprus or Monaco, would be used
as a model to set the rates in the Far East Russian offshore. For
example, if a Cypriot company made a loan at 10 percent, under
this structure the Russian offshore would offer a slightly higher
rate of 10.3 percent, Denis Shchekin, managing partner and
Shchekin and Partners told Vedomosti.

It is estimated Russians, before the Cyprus crisis, held roughly
15 billion euros in funds on the tiny Mediterranean island.

The IIB is exempt from income tax, a benefit the bank could pass
onto its high paying customers. As long as the money stays in the
bank, the depositor won’t have to pay tax on the interest. This
would appeal to companies looking to keep money in a ‘safer’ more
legal offshore area.

It is unlikely the Russian offshore project would be able to
provide the same level of secrecy as other jurisdictions such as
the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, and Austria, all of whom have
long established banking secrecy laws.

This article originally appeared on: RT

This article originally appeared on: RT

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Causalities are feared after a powerful bomb exploded near the United States Embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul, security sources say.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Mac Slavo
SHTFPlan.com
June 11, 2013

“The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We must be alert to the … danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Farewell Address
January 17, 1961

In 2011, when we noted that Everything You Do Is Monitored, we weren’t embellishing or fear mongering.

This is as real as it gets.

The National Security Agency’s collection of phone data from all of Verizon’s U.S. customers is just the “tip of the iceberg,” says a former NSA official who estimates the agency has data on as many as 20 trillion phone calls and emails by U.S. citizens.

William Binney, an award-winning mathematician and noted NSAwhistleblower, says the collection dates back to when the super-secret agency began domestic surveillance after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I believe they’ve been collecting data about all domestic calls since October 2001,” said Mr. Binney, who worked at NSA for more than 30 years. “That’s more than a billion calls a day.”

The data were collected under a highly classified NSA program code-named “Stellar Wind,” which was part of the warrantless domestic wiretapping effort – the Terrorist Surveillance Program – launched on orders from President George W. Bush.

But don’t kid yourself if you think the only data being aggregated, recorded and analyzed is who you called or emailed.

Let’s be clear: EVERYTHING.

Binney explained that the government is taking the position that it can gather and use any informationabout American citizens living on U.S. soil if it comes from:

Any service provider … any third party … any commercial company — like a telecom or internet service provider, libraries, medical companies — holding data about anyone, any U.S. citizen or anyone else.

I then asked the NSA veteran if the government’s claim that it is only spying on metadata — and not content — was correct. We have extensively documented that the government is likely recording contentas well. (And the government has previously admitted to “accidentally” collecting more information on Americans than was legal, and then gagged the judges so they couldn’t disclose the nature or extent of the violations.)

Binney said that was not true; the government is gathering everything, including content.

Binney explained — as he has many times before — that the government is storing everything, and creating a searchable database … to be used whenever it wants, for any purpose it wants (even just going after someone it doesn’t like).

Binney said that former FBI counter-terrorism agent Tim Clemente is correct when he says that nodigital data is safe (Clemente says that all digital communications are being recorded).

Binney gave me an idea of how powerful Narus recording systems are. There are probably 18 of them around the country, and they can each record 10 gigabytes of data — the equivalent of a million and a quarter emails with 1,000 characters each — per second.

Source: Washington’s Blog

The surveillance grid is being put into place all around us and its capabilities are unimaginable to most — something that could only exist in the realm of Hollywood plots.

But this is no $80 million Hollywood movie. The budget for the U.S. government’s surveillance program is 1,000 times that.

At an estimated $80 billion this production employs nearly one million people.

Moreover, anyone who uses a machine to send information — of any kind — over the internet, is indirectly employed by these agencies, as well.

The net is expansive — and it’s growing.

Realistically, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where the government simply puts an end to the spying, lays off these one million people, and calls it a day.

Our Congress authorized these activities with the Patriot Act, and subsequent laws that have been enacted since. While this doesn’t mean the new mandates and regulations are just in the eyes of the Constitution, the machine has given itself permission to do exactly what they’ve done. And if the sentiment of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is shared by the rest of his colleagues, this is only going to get worse:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) must have studied his Police State Handbook before giving an interview regarding the Verizon scandal.

“I think we should be concerned about terrorists trying to infiltrate our country and attack us and trying to coordinate activities from overseas within inside the country…

…I’m a Verizon customer. I don’t mind Verizon turning over records to the government if the government’s going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States. I don’t think you’re talking to terrorists. I know you’re not. I know I’m not. So, we don’t have anything to worry about.”

Via: The Organic Prepper

What we have to worry about, Senator Graham, is unprecedented intrusion into every aspect of our lives and a government that will use that information to presume every citizen of this nation guilty in the eyes of the law.

“If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.”

-Cardinal Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis (link)

Despite what this police statist may believe is within the scope of government’s responsibility, the fourth amendment of our Constitution is very clear on this.

As human beings we all have a right to be safe and secure in our persons, homes, and personal effects. This includes our personal private communications and activities.

The government of this country has overstepped its bounds.

The only solution is handcuffs for ALL those responsible for authorizing such transgressions against a free people.

We’re not trying to be pessimists here, but since the odds of that happening are slim to none, we must assume that every digital interaction within the Prism is subject to monitoring. This includes the obvious communication devices like phones and computers, but likewise encompasses your Wifi connected dishwasher, your video gaming system, vehicular GPS tracking, credit card transaction, visits to your doctor, and any appearance you make in front of a camera or microphone. And within just a few short years, even your daily movements, from the minute you step outside your door, will be monitored by a web of thousands of drones hovering quietly above.

All of it is being tapped by a network of processors so advanced that they can record and aggregate yottabytes of data (A yottabyte is equivalent to about 100 trillion DVD’s).

These capabilities exist right now, and they are being used to watch your every move.

The matrix has you.

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This article was posted: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 6:34 am

Tags: big brother, domestic spying

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Mike Adams
Natural News
June 11, 2013

“Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere… I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President…” — NSA spy grid whistleblower Edward Snowden.

And so it begins: the power to tap the private phone calls of a federal judge or even the President. All at the fingertips of young NSA analysts who sift through masses of private data collected through the government’s back doors into the servers of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, Skype, AOL and others. (Here’s the proof.)

But if a 29-year-old working for the NSA could wiretap a federal judge, he could also wiretap a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Anything he found that was embarrassing or even incriminating could be used in a simple blackmail threat to force that justice to change his or her decision on a key issue…

… like Obamacare.

What we’ve learned today forces us to re-examine events of 2012

Back in July of 2012, news headlines were ablaze with the revelation that Supreme Court Justice John Roberts suddenly and unexpectedly changed his decision on Obamacare, siding with big government instead of protecting individual liberties. Many facts surrounding this sudden change of decision raise huge red flags when viewed in the context of the NSA being able to wiretap anyone’s emails, phone calls and private files – including a Supreme Court justice.

As CBS news reported in 2012, “Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court’s four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations. Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said.”

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Regardless of the strength of the supporting evidence brought to Roberts during his time of consideration for the decision, nothing caused him to budge. Roberts was inexplicably immovable, even though he was now siding against nearly everything he had argued and decided in previous court cases.

No one could satisfactorily explain the decision… until the NSA PRISM scandal erupted. Now, we all of a sudden have a viable explanation for what really goes on behind the public headlines.

Consider this: If a group of men had the power to peek into the private conversations of ALL Americans – including the most powerful and influential decision makers in the nation – why would they waste their time looking for so-called “terrorists” in the first place? There’s a far more valuable use for this “omniscient” technology: collecting huge payoffs to blackmail important members of Congress, the Obama administration or the Supreme Court.

How easy would it be to blackmail a Supreme Court Justice?

Blackmailing a U.S. Supreme Court justice is probably easier than you might think. These justices are, of course, human, which means they all have secrets they’d rather not be made public. With its highly intrusive surveillance technology, the NSA could easily gather the usernames, passwords, emails, voice calls, text chats, photos and files of every member of the Supreme Court (and Congress, for that matter), then threaten to leak certain details to the press if they don’t do what they’re told.

We don’t know, of course, whether this actually happened with Roberts. His decision to flip on Obamacare could have been motivated by some other bizarre influence, but this NSA spy grid blackmail theory is the first realistic theory I’ve run across that would explain the sudden and inexplicable shift in his opinion.

Think about it: The health insurance companies – which are largely owned by globalist banks and investors – stand to make trillions of dollars from the forced buying of insurance via the “individual mandate” that was being decided by the Court. Because the Court was almost evenly divided on the issue, the changing of the opinion of just one justice could tilt the decision in favor of the insurance industry and lock in enormous profits for years to come. So if the NSA approached the insurance globalists and said something like, “Pay us $500 million and we’ll hand you the Obamacare decision,” the answer would obviously be, “to where do we transfer the money?” It’s a cheap investment for a windfall of long-term profits. And health insurance companies – like any large corporations – don’t “play fair.” They play to win.

The NSA is now the most powerful organization in the world

I hope you’re beginning to fully grasp the power that is now concentrated in the hands of the NSA. An organization that has the power to covertly pry into the private lives of everyone also has the power to control everyone. There is no greater currency in Washington, of course, than to have real dirt on the people you’d like to control.

The NSA spy grid “PRISM” program is like a Dirt Devil. It’s the Dyson vortex vacuum of politics… on steroids. If there’s dirt to be found on anyone, the NSA can find it. That dirt can then be used as “insurance” – mob-style – to make sure the people you’re targeting behave in the way you want them to behave. This would include, of course, voting the correct way on key legislation or court decisions.

Right this very minute, the NSA almost certainly has a full dossier on every member of Congress, federal judge, State Dept. employee and high-powered corporate CEO in the country. And because the creepiest people tend to rise to the top in politics, there’s no doubt these files contain all sorts of graphic details on prostitutes, under-age sex, secret homosexual relationships, cheating on husbands and wives, substance abuse problems, medical problems and much more. Do you know which members of Congress have smoked pot or snorted coke? The NSA probably does. How about which members of the Obama administration have ever engaged in “experimental” gay sex in college? The NSA knows all that too, no doubt.

This knowledge is far more valuable than any hunt for terrorists. There is no question in my mind that the NSA has already figured this out and has been using this spy grid behemoth for nefarious purposes to pull the strings of key decision makers across our society. This may be the explanation behind all sorts of inexplicable votes and bizarre decisions in Washington. The NSA might even be the puppet pulling Obama’s strings, as they no doubt have all sorts of dirt on Obama’s history which we already know to be largely fabricated. (Real birth certificates don’t have a dozen layers stitched together in Photoshop.)

The power to spy is the power to control

You gotta hand it to whoever built this spy grid from the ground up. It’s a brilliant covert tactic of dominant control. With all the slimebags rising to positions of power in Washington, can you imagine the absolute treasure chest of low-hanging blackmail fruit that would be easily uncovered by sifting through the private emails and phone calls of lawmakers and bureaucrats?

Take DHS as the tip of the iceberg. Last year, several male DHS employees sued the agency, claiming they were forced to perform deviant sex acts on their female bosses. There’s no question that DHS is staffed up with total perverts and sexual predators, which is why we frequently hear stories of the TSA molesting little children (the TSA is part of DHS).

Can you imagine what the private emails and phone calls of Janet Napolitano look like? (Shield my eyes! I don’t even wanna know!)

Or Anthony Weiner, the congressman who sexted a bunch of half-nude pictures of himself to young women?

Usually the more power hungry these people are, the more deviant and perverse they behave when they think no one is looking. That makes them all incredibly easy to be compromised by the NSA – the techno-mob with the ultimate power to control through intimidation.

And if the NSA can really control all these people – or at least some of them – it begs the question: What are the NSA’s aims? Who are the people calling the shots and where do their loyalties lie?

Ever further down the rabbit hole is this question: Are these also the same people running global terrorist networks in order to justify their own existence? Or if that’s too nefarious to believe, would you believe these people might willfully look the other way with certain terror groups in order to make sure they keep operating?

Perhaps the NSA is actually in the business of NOT catching terrorists in order to make sure its own power and financial budgets keep growing. And perhaps the NSA’s real business is shaking down corporate interests that pay huge dollars to have key decisions in Washington hijacked via blackmail.

This is far more believable that the utter nonsense explanation we’re told by the media which says the NSA is “catching terrorists.” Really? Show me one! In reality, there’s no evidence whatsoever that the NSA has stopped even a single act of genuine terrorism that targeted Americans.

Remember: Enormous power coupled with a complete abandonment of ethics can only lead in the direction of corruption and evil. Without checks and balances, the NSA will become a rogue criminal mafia that terrorizes everyone… and can be stopped by no one.

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This article was posted: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 6:33 am

Tags: big brother, constitution, domestic spying

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has defended the violent police crackdown on ongoing anti-government protests in the city of Istanbul.

During a speech addressing Turkish parliament on Tuesday, Erdogan said he will continue to stand firm and maintain his stance on demonstrators who have been gathering at the iconic Taksim Square for the past 12 days.

The Turkish premier added that the recent developments and massive anti-government protests across the country had tarnished the countryâ„¢s image worldwide.

Erdogan further called the anti-government protesters vandals, who were carrying out violent acts while using environmentalism as an excuse.

Earlier on Tuesday, Turkish police attacked anti-government protesters at Taksim Square, using tear gas and water cannons.

The anti-government protests in Turkey were triggered by the police violence against a sit-in staged at the square to protest against the demolition of Gezi Park on May 31.

The protesters say the park, which is a traditional gathering point for rallies and demonstrations as well as a popular tourist destination, is Istanbul’s last public green space.

The protests soon spread to dozens of cities across Turkey and solidified into calls for Erdoganâ„¢s resignation.

On June 8, the leader of Turkeyâ„¢s opposition Nationalist Movement Party, Devlet Bahceli, called for early elections in order to overcome the current turmoil.

Erdogan has faced international condemnation for his handling of the crisis and the Turkish police have been also criticized strongly for using excessive force against protests.

Reports say at least four people, including three protesters and one police officer, have been killed in the clashes.

SZH/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

“Good German” syndrome runs rampant as government becomes tyrannical

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 11, 2013

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has sacrificed his freedom, his future, his family, his home and his model girlfriend in order to warn Americans that they are the targets of a monolithic spy agency which is working feverishly to ensure that privacy is demolished — and most Americans simply don’t care.

Edward Snowden

Revelations that the National Security Agency was collecting records of millions of US customers of Verizon under a secret court order issued in April, followed by news that the NSA was also pulling private data “directly from the servers” of major US service providers such as Google and Facebook, stoked international condemnation, but not from American citizens, most of whom actually support the idea.

“A majority of Americans — 56% — say the National Security Agency’s (NSA) program tracking the telephone records of millions of Americans is an acceptable way for the government to investigate terrorism,” reports Pew Research Center.

A comparison with a previous poll from January 2006 highlights the fact that more Americans are now likely to support NSA surveillance despite the huge scandal it caused for the Bush administration. Under Bush, 47% found NSA wiretapping of Americans unacceptable whereas just 41% find it unacceptable under Obama.

The poll also finds that whereas 61% of Democrats found blanket NSA surveillance unacceptable under Bush, only 34% oppose it under Obama — underscoring once again how partisanship is used to dismantle American freedoms no matter who is in office.

The survey also reveals that just one on four Americans are following the NSA story “very closely,” whereas the other 73% are presumably more interested in the release of the new XBox and season 17 of Dancing With the Stars.

“Sorry Edward Snowden: you just threw your life away for nothing. The sheep have been properly and thoroughly conditioned and brainwashed, which is why they continue to get precisely the government they so rightfully deserve,” writes Zero Hedge.

While the NSA sites the necessity to stop “terrorism” as its justification for eviscerating the 4th Amendment, the Obama administration issimultaneously supporting Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria, many of whom have promised to attack the United States once they have finished with Bashar Al-Assad.

The irony of Snowden having to run to Communist China to escape from “the land of the free” is a chilling subtext to the story. Other authoritarian regimes throughout history have also cited security threats as a reason to put the entire population under surveillance.

As Robert Gellately of Florida State University has highlighted, Germans under Hitler spied on and denounced their neighbors and friends not because they genuinely believed them to be a security threat, but because they expected to selfishly benefit from doing so, both financially, socially and psychologically via a pavlovian need to be rewarded by their masters for their obedience.

That “Good German” syndrome is very much alive and kicking amongst Americans today, most of whom seem to be completely at ease with the fact that their government is becoming tyrannical while willing to make any excuse imaginable to deny that the United States is beginning to resemble a high-tech plutocracy which treats its own citizens as the enemy.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

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This article was posted: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 6:36 am

Tags: big brother, domestic spying

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Michael Snyder
American Dream
June 11, 2013

Are you on the list? Are you one of the millions of Americans that have been designated a threat to national security by the U.S. government? Will you be subject to detention when martial law is imposed during a major national emergency? As you will see below, there is actually a list that contains the names of at least 8 million Americans known as Main Core that the U.S. intelligence community has been compiling since the 1980s. A recent article on Washington’s Blog quoted a couple of old magazine articles that mentioned this program, and I was intrigued because I didn’t know what it was. So I decided to look into Main Core, and what I found out was absolutely stunning — especially in light of what Edward Snowden has just revealed to the world. It turns out that the U.S. government is not just gathering information on all of us. The truth is that the U.S. government has used this information to create a list of threats to national security that the government would potentially watch, question or even detain during a national crisis. If you have ever been publicly critical of the government, there is a very good chance that you are on that list.

The following is how Wikipedia describes Main Core…

Main Core is the code name of a database maintained since the 1980s by the federal government of the United States. Main Core contains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security. The data, which comes from the NSA, FBI, CIA, and other sources, is collected and stored without warrants or court orders. The database’s name derives from the fact that it contains “copies of the ‘main core’ or essence of each item of intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community.”

It was Christopher Ketchum of Radar Magazine that first reported on the existence of Main Core. At the time, the shocking information that he revealed did not get that much attention. That is quite a shame, because it should have sent shockwaves across the nation…

According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, “There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources tell Radar that the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

Of course, federal law is somewhat vague as to what might constitute a “national emergency.” Executive orders issued over the last three decades define it as a “natural disaster, military attack, [or] technological or other emergency,” while Department of Defense documents include eventualities like “riots, acts of violence, insurrections, unlawful obstructions or assemblages, [and] disorder prejudicial to public law and order.” According to one news report, even “national opposition to U.S. military invasion abroad” could be a trigger.

So if that list contained 8 million names all the way back in 2008, how big might it be today?

That is a very frightening thing to think about.

Later on in 2008, Tim Shorrock of Salon.com also reported on Main Core…

Dating back to the 1980s and known to government insiders as “Main Core,” the database reportedly collects and stores – without warrants or court orders – the names and detailed data of Americans considered to be threats to national security. According to several former U.S. government officials with extensive knowledge of intelligence operations, Main Core in its current incarnation apparently contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies. One former intelligence official described Main Core as “an emergency internal security database system” designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law.

So why didn’t this information get more attention at the time?

Well, if Obama had lost the 2008 election it might have. But Obama won in 2008 and the liberal media assumed that he would end many of the abuses that were happening under Bush. Of course that has not happened at all. In fact, Obama has steadily moved the police state agenda ahead aggressively. Edward Snowden has just made that abundantly clear to the entire world.

After 2008, it is unclear exactly what happened to Main Core. Did it expand, change names, merge with other programs or get superseded by a new program? It appears extremely unlikely that it simply faded away. In light of what we have just learned about NSA snooping, someone should ask our politicians some very hard questions about Main Core. According toChristopher Ketchum, the exact kind of NSA snooping that Edward Snowden has just described was being used to feed data into the Main Core database…

A host of publicly disclosed programs, sources say, now supply data to Main Core. Most notable are the NSA domestic surveillance programs, initiated in the wake of 9/11, typically referred to in press reports as “warrantless wiretapping.” In March, a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal shed further light onto the extraordinarily invasive scope of the NSA efforts: According to the Journal, the government can now electronically monitor “huge volumes of records of domestic e-mails and Internet searches, as well as bank transfers, credit card transactions, travel, and telephone records.” Authorities employ “sophisticated software programs” to sift through the data, searching for “suspicious patterns.” In effect, the program is a mass catalog of the private lives of Americans. And it’s notable that the article hints at the possibility of programs like Main Core. “The [NSA] effort also ties into data from an ad-hoc collection of so-called black programs whose existence is undisclosed,” the Journal reported, quoting unnamed officials. “Many of the programs in various agencies began years before the 9/11 attacks but have since been given greater reach.”

The following information seems to be fair game for collection without a warrant: the e-mail addresses you send to and receive from, and the subject lines of those messages; the phone numbers you dial, the numbers that dial in to your line, and the durations of the calls; the Internet sites you visit and the keywords in your Web searches; the destinations of the airline tickets you buy; the amounts and locations of your ATM withdrawals; and the goods and services you purchase on credit cards. All of this information is archived on government supercomputers and, according to sources, also fed into the Main Core database.

This stuff is absolutely chilling.

And there have been hints that such a list still exists today.

For example, the testimony of an anonymous government insider that was recently posted on shtfplan.com alluded to such a list…

“We know all this already,” I stated. He looked at me, giving me a look like I’ve never seen, and actually pushed his finger into my chest. “You don’t know jack,” he said, “this is bigger than you can imagine, bigger than anyone can imagine. This administration is collecting names of sources, whistle blowers and their families, names of media sources and everybody they talk to and have talked to, and they already have a huge list. If you’re not working for MSNBC or CNN, you’re probably on that list. If you are a website owner with a brisk readership and a conservative bent, you’re on that list. It’s a political dissident list, not an enemy threat list,” he stated.

What in the world is happening to America?

What in the world are we turning into?

As I mentioned in a previous article, the NSA gathers 2.1 million gigabytes of data on all of us every single hour. The NSA is currently constructing a 2 billion dollar data center out in Utah to store all of this data.

If you are disturbed by all of this, now is the time to stand up and say something. If this crisis blows over and people forget about all of this stuff again, the Big Brother surveillance grid that is being constructed all around us will just continue to grow and continue to become even more oppressive.

America is dying right in front of your eyes and time is running out. Please stand up and be counted while you still can.

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This article was posted: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 6:30 am

Tags: police state

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Infowars.com
June 11, 2013

Alex gets a fair hearing for a change, but previously respected BBC reporter John Sergeant is either made to look, or offers himself up, as a complete fool. This show airs at 7pm on BBC One, national British television, meaning millions will have watched it.

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This article was posted: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 6:31 am

Tags: bilderberg

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/more_sunshine_in_spain_not_always_good_news_20130611/

Posted on Jun 11, 2013

This article originally appeared on: TruthDig

A new nationwide survey shows that Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf is leading the race for the presidency, with Mohsen Rezaei and Hassan Rohani coming next.

According to the survey conducted on June 9 across the country by a credible institution, 23.4 percent of the respondents said they will vote for Qalibaf, who is running on the principlist ticket.

Independent candidate, Rezaei, and reformist Rohani are trailing behind with 14.2 and 13.2 percent of the votes, respectively.

Rezaei is the secretary of the Expediency Council and Rohani is President of the Expediency Councilâ„¢s Center for Strategic Affairs.

Some 9.1 percent of the respondents said they will vote for another principlist candidate, Saeed Jalili, with 8.7 percent mentioning principlist Ali Akbar Velayati as their candidate of choice.

Jalili is Iranâ„¢s chief nuclear negotiator and Velayati advises Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on foreign affairs.

Only 1.5 percent of the interviewees chose former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi.

Two presidential candidates, former First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref and former Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, withdrew their candidacy bid on Monday and early Tuesday.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election. Nearly 50.5 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

MYA/KA/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]A barrage of rockets fired by foreign-backed militants in Syria has hit the northeastern Lebanese town of Hermel in Bekaa Valley.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The US Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit against the federal government and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by two Americans that were torture while detained by invading US forces in Iraq.

The high court rejected a legal appeal filed Monday by Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, two US citizens who insist that Rumsfeld should be held accountable for the treatment they endured while detained for several weeks back in 2006, RT reports Tuesday.

Both men were placed in a military prison in Baghdad for nearly three months that summer. They had filed a complaint with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about the Iraqi-owned security contractor they worked for, then were scooped up by US forces and put behind bars days later.

In a 2011 interview Vance reportedly explained that only a few months into working for the contractor, Shield Group Security, he Å“started to notice some pretty frightening and alarming illegal activity.”

Å“It ranged from bribery, theft, weapons dealing,” he further stated as quoted in the report. Å“It was a gamut of illegal activities.”

According to the report, Vance told the FBI about the allegations in 2005 and became an unpaid informant for them shortly thereafter. Then in April 2006, his cover was blown and he and Ertel were brought to the US embassy in Baghdad and Å“turned over to the US military and checked in to a temporary detention facility.”

While detained in Baghdad, the two Americans say Å“they were tortured and their rights of habeas corpus were violated.”

Specifically, the two note, they were Å“subjected to sleep deprivation techniques and other inhumane treatment, and Vance wasnâ„¢t allowed to make contact with anyone in America until two weeks after his arrest,” the report adds.

Vance was further kept in custody for more than two months after authorities learned from the FBI that he was an informant.

Å“Even Saddam Hussein had more legal counsel than I ever had,” Vance later told the New York Times. Å“While we were detained, we wrote a letter to the camp commandant stating that the same democratic ideals we are trying to instill in the fledgling democratic country of Iraq, from simple due process to the Magna Carta, we are absolutely, positively refusing to follow ourselves.”

Both men, the report states, hoped to sue Rumsfeld and the federal government for a slew of crimes, including false arrest, unlawful detention, unlawful search and seizure, denial of right to counsel in interrogations and denial of necessary medical care and denial to present witnesses and evidence.

Because Rumsfeld personally approved torture techniques used in the prison, Vance and Ertel filed a suit against him and the US government in late 2006. The case has ended this week, after going through a series of obstacles, when the Supreme Court shot down an attempt to appeal an early ruling.

Vance and Ertel asked the high court to reverse in 2012 decisions by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in which they ruled that Rumsfeld could not be sued for his role in approving the torture techniques. The high court, however, rejected the request, reaffirming the Seventh Circuit Courtâ„¢s decision.

MFB/MFB

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Araqchi has presented the details of the forthcoming presidential election process for the Iranian nationals living in other countries.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Indian fighter jets take part in a mock exercise at the Indian Air Force Station in Gwalior. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian presidential candidate Hassan Rohani says he will facilitate unions and professional associations to play a greater role in the countryâ„¢s affairs if he gets elected.

During a visit to the northwestern city of Tabriz on Monday, Rohani also said that he will establish an academy of Azari language and literature in the city of Tabriz.

The presidential candidate promised to design a smart card for patients suffering from refractory and rare diseases, adding that his administration would also shoulder the duty of treating such patients.

Rohani, who is currently the director of the Iranian Expediency Councilâ„¢s Center for Strategic Research, will be competing with Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili, Secretary of the Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi.

Two presidential candidates, former First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref and former Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, withdrew their candidacy bid on Monday.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election. Nearly 50.5 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

MYA/HSN/HJL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/is_the_surveillance_state_constitutional_20130611/

Posted on Jun 11, 2013

This article originally appeared on: TruthDig

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/one_american_who_isnt_for_sale_20130611/

Posted on Jun 11, 2013

This article originally appeared on: TruthDig

Yemen has started the second round of its National Dialogue Conference (NDC), three months after the country held its first session of talks, Press TV reports.

The second session, which will last for a month, resumed on Saturday with [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council chief Abdullatif al-Zayani and United Nations envoy to Yemen Jamal Ben Omar arriving in Yemen.

Both figures played major roles in sealing a power transfer deal that eased former President Ali Abdullah Saleh from office following an uprising in 2011.

Following years of conflict between Yemen’s former government and the Houthis, the group also known as Ansar-Allah, is also seeking to play a role in the country’s affairs.

“The previous regime tried to tarnish Ansar-Allah’s image by propagating that this group is trying to cause problems in the country. They also tried to tarnish our political goals. However, the world now can see that Ansar-Allah have a realistic political vision…” NDC’s Ali al-Emad said.

The conference is also to focus on drafting a new constitution and preparing for elections next year.

“Our political goal today in the NDC is the same political goal which we have sacrificed for in the past. That goal is to build an independent sovereign nation free of all types of foreign intervention. We also seek to establish a new Yemeni constitution which projects the rights, freedom, equality, and religious views and methods of all Yemeni citizens,” NDC member, Abdullah Hassan al-Nakhebi said.

The dialogue is part of a peace transfer deal signed in 2011between Saleh and Yemen’s opposition.

On Sunday, 10 Houthi protesters were killed in clashes with police forces outside the headquarters of the countryâ„¢s internal security service, the National Security Bureau (NSB).

The protesters demanded the disbanding of the NSB over its suppression of demonstrations.

Yemenâ„¢s Shia Houthi movement draws its name from the tribe of its founding leader Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi.

On June 6, tens of thousands of Houthis reburied the remains of their leader, who was killed in 2004 by the forces loyal to the Saleh regime.

For years, the group has accused the Yemeni government of committing human rights violations, as well as political and religious

SZH/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

US National Security Agency (NSA) is the world’s largest spy organization.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has warned Ethiopia Å“all options are open on the table” to Egypt if the Ethiopian dam over Nile jeopardizes the countryâ„¢s water security, Press TV reports.

President Morsi, addressed a conference on Tuesday, discussing the Egyptian National Strategy over Ethiopiaâ„¢s building a new dam on the Nile.

During his speech, the president warned Addis Ababa over its action, saying, Cairo will not tolerate any violations of its water supply.

He also called for better relations between Nile-based countries.

Å“There has been a significant boost in ties between us and the Nile-based countries in the past two years,” President Morsi said during the conference.

He also mentioned the ever-growing trade relations between the two countries, saying, Å“There has been an increase in trade exchange by 50 percent and Egyptian investment in Ethiopia especially, are more than USD 2 billion.”

Earlier, Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Mohamed Qandil, while addressing the Shoura Council, the interim parliamentary body, condemned the Ethiopiaâ„¢s project on the Nile.

The premier described the water security for Egypt as Å“the matter of life or death.”

Egyptâ„¢s minister of foreign affairs is to travel to Addis Ababa in coming days to talk to Ethiopian officials over the controversial construction.

The issue of Ethiopian dam has sparked outrage in Egypt. It is also feared that the Nile dam cause serious water shortage in the country.

Å“We are completely against the construction of dam, because this is the matter of National Security. Nile water is vital for all Egyptians, we cannot waste a cubic meter of it,” said an Egyptian protester.

The Nile, located in the northeast Africa and the longest river in the world, supplies water to Egypt and Sudan. It is formed from two rivers: the Blue Nile that starts in Ethiopia and the White Nile, which starts in Uganda. Egypt is dependent on the Blue Nile, a tributary of the river.

Egypt is entitled to 55 billion cubic meters of Nile water per year, supplying around 98 percent of the water used.

MM/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Campaigners seeking global action to tackle tax-dodging by major companies internationally have expressed their frustration at the chances of the G8 leaders agreeing concerted efforts to crack down on tax avoiders.

While British Prime Minister David Cameron has touched on tax transparency as a key topic on agenda next week in the G8 summit, Robert Palmer from the campaign group Global Witness said an agreement on the matter does not seem likely.

Palmer said Canada, Russia, Germany and Japan are not convinced about cooperation on tax evasion and other G8 leaders do not see why they should share tax information with them.

“I don’t think we are going to get a commitment from across the G8 that they are all going to do this idea of public registries of beneficial ownership,” Palmer said.

This comes as tax evasion has turned into a public headache for the British government, with polls saying 41 percent of the Brits are ready to boycott big corporations accused of tax fraud.

The Guardian/ICM poll found that 21 percent of the British public are Å“very likely” to boycott big brands over tax with another 20 percent saying they are Å“quite likely” to do so.

The research was conducted after revelations that Britainâ„¢s largest water company, Thames water paid no corporation tax out of its reported profit of £550 million in 2012, and even got £5 million credit from the Treasury.

AMR/HE

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

File photo shows burnt cars at the scene of a powerful car bomb explosion near the headquarters of Syria’s ruling Baath party in the centre of Damascus on February 21, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian presidential candidate Ali Akbar Velayati says his administration will defend Iranâ„¢s right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, while seriously dealing with the issues in economy and foreign policy.

Addressing his supporters in the holy city of Qom on Monday, Velayati said his administration would aim to Å“strongly defend Iranâ„¢s right to [uranium] enrichment and peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to prudently resist the greed and aggression of foreigners,” while addressing the economic and foreign policy issues.

Velayati, who is a senior advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, said Iran had managed to enrich uranium and construct thousands of centrifuges thanks to the prudence and resistance of the Leader.

Å“That we managed to produce thousands of centrifuges is solely due to the prudence and resistance of the Leader and nothing else,” the Iranian presidential candidate stated.

The United States, the Israeli regime, and some of their allies have falsely accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program, with the US and the European Union using the allegation as an excuse to impose illegal unilateral sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Iran categorically rejects the allegation and argues that it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Velayati, a former Iranian foreign minister, also said that if he wins the election, he will Å“interact with the world, not with those who are expansionist and not those who, like the US, rattle sabers against the Islamic Republic.”

Velayati is competing with Secretary of Iranâ„¢s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili, Iranâ„¢s Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, Director of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council Hassan Rohani, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi.

Two other candidates, former First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, and former Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel withdrew their candidacy bids earlier.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election. This yearâ„¢s election will be held on June 14.

Nearly 50.5 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

YH/HSN/HJL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranâ„¢s former President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami has announced his support for presidential candidate Hassan Rohani.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Khatami said that, due to the responsibility he feels toward the country and the fate of the Iranian nation, he would vote for Rohani in the June 14 presidential election.

Khatami expressed gratitude for his former First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, who withdrew from the presidential race on Monday to increase the reformist campâ„¢s chances of winning.

Aref said he had made the decision after consultations with Khatami.

Rohani, who is currently the director of the Iranian Expediency Councilâ„¢s Center for Strategic Research, will be competing with Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili, Secretary of the Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi.

Another candidate, former Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel also withdrew his candidacy bid earlier.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election. Nearly 50.5 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

MYA/HSN/HJL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Rescue workers search through rubble at the site of a collapsed residential building in Mumbai early June 11, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Caracas says it has detained a number of foreign criminals who were allegedly planning to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez said on Monday that two groups, including nine Colombian paramilitaries, were arrested over the weekend in the countryâ„¢s northwest, before they were able to reach the capital, Caracas.

“This may be part of a plan that was orchestrated from Colombia to kill President Maduro and de-stabilize the Venezuelan government,” Rodriguez said.

Six men were reportedly arrested in the western state of Tachira, while the remaining three were detained in Portuguesa state.

The minister added that the heavily armed men were under the command of Colombian paramilitary leader Jose Maria Barrera, known as Chepe Barrera.

Rodriguez added that weapons, ammunition, cell phones, cash, and military uniforms were also confiscated.

Late last month, Maduro censured his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos for his Å“betrayal” over meeting with Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles.

Prior to the meeting between the two sides, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua accused the opposition leader of going to Colombia to come up with “economic sabotage plans in Venezuela.”

Maduro was elected president on April 14 after defeating Capriles by receiving 50.7 percent of the votes against 49.1 percent, with a difference of about 235,000 ballots. Capriles claims irregularities took place during the election.

Maduro replaced late President Hugo Chavez, who lost a two-year-long battle with cancer on March 5. He has promised to continue the socialist policies of the former leader.

SZH/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

People jubilating in the center of Qusayr on June 9, 2013 as they celebrate the Syrian government’s recapture of the town earlier in the week after nearly three weeks of heavy fighting.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The Ethiopian military and paramilitary forces, operating in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, are, it is alleged, carrying out extra judicial killings and gang rapes; falsely arresting and torturing innocent civilians; looting and destroying villages and crops in a systematic attempt to terrify the people. This is the consistent message coming out of the region and from those who have fled persecution and are now in the world’s largest refugee camp, in Dadaab, Kenya. It is a message of government brutality and collective suffering taking place not only in the Ogaden but in a number of areas of Ethiopia, including the Amhara region, Gambella, Oromia and the Omo valley. Regime brutality that Genocide Watch (GW) consider “to have already reached Stage 7 (of 8), genocide massacres, against many of its peoples, including the Anuak, Ogadeni, Oromo, and Omo tribes”. They call on the EPRDF regime to “adhere to it’s own constitution and allow its provinces the legal autonomy they are guaranteed.”

Around five million people live in the Ogaden (or Somali) region of Ethiopia. Predominantly ethnic Somali’s, mostly pastoralists, they live in what is one of the least developed corners of the world. Ravaged by drought and famine, the region has been the battleground for violent disputes between Ethiopia and Somalia for generations. The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), claim the people of the region want self-determination from Ethiopia, a right they have been fighting for since their formation in 1984. A right enshrined in the 19th Century agreement (enacted in 1948) with Britain, when sovereignty and control of the region was passed to Ethiopia. A crucial proviso, successive Ethiopian governments have conveniently ignored.

With the international media banned by the Ethiopian government since 2007 and with an economic and aid embargo being enforced the region is totally isolated, making gathering information about the situation within the five affected districts difficult. I recently spent a week in Dadaab where I met dozens of refugees from the Ogaden; men, women and children who repeatedly relayed accounts of murder, rape, torture and intimidation at the hands of government forces. Accounts that if true, — and we have no reason to doubt them, confirm reports from, among others — Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Genocide Watch — who make clear their view, that the Ethiopian government has “initiated a genocidal campaign against the Ogaden Somali population”, constituting “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

State Terrorism

The people, victims of terrible abuse, carry with them the scars, often physical, always psychological, of their horrific ordeal. Listening to their stories and the testimonies of former Liyuu personnel, a clear picture of the systematic approach being employed by the Ethiopian military and Liyuu Police operating within the Ogaden emerges.

Arbitrary killings, rape, torture, and destruction of property are the unimaginative preferred tools of terror, ‘use the penis as a weapon against the women’ the men are told, burn villagers homes and steal their cattle, confiscate humanitarian aid-including food, and create an intolerable fear ridden environment. Men joining the Ethiopian military and Liyuu Police, like 25 year old Abdi who arrived in Dadaab in January 2013 and like many was forcibly recruited, are told, “there is no court that can control you, that we were free from the law, enjoy your freedom, they told us.” The methodology of occupation, including extra judicial killing, is made clear, “we were told to rape the young women… When we went into the rural areas, we were 300 men. When we saw a young mother with children aged from one years old to five years old, we would rape her.”

Soldiers that commit many rapes, murders and robberies, Abdi tells us, are “rewarded and praised. They were given bonuses of around 5000 ETB ($250), in addition to the salary that was 2000 ($100) ETB a month.”

Women, like 27-year-old Rohar, tell of arbitrary arrests and torture. Imprisoned with her husband when she was “in the ninth month of pregnancy. We were made to walk for three days and three nights before a bus collected us and drove us for one more day/night to Jijiga.” Detained for two years without charge in Jail Ogaden in Jijiga, Rohar, as most detainees are, was accused of supporting the ONLF and “repeatedly tortured from the very beginning even though I was pregnant. They would tie a rope around the branch of a tree and a noose around my neck, then they would pull on the rope to strangle me. The evidence is still on my body — (she shows me a terrible burn scar on her neck).” Throughout this time she reports being “raped by groups of soldiers. It used to happen around midnight. I can only remember the first three men who raped me. They would take me out and leave the child/baby in the room with the other women, and bring me back in the early morning.” Rohar was released when she was no more use to the soldiers after becoming unwell with abdominal pains, caused, she believes, by the repeated rapes. This account, from beginning to end is typical of many women’s experiences.

A divisional commander, now in Dadaab, related how during their three-month training in the Liyuu they were shown demonstrations in “how to rape a woman, and how to break a virgin”. They are carrying out atrocities in the region in order, “to make the people afraid and to place them under the control of the Ethiopian military, and fundamentally “because there is oil in the region and the government wants the oil for themselves. The military is there to make the people fearful so they won’t support the ONLF.”

Back in the late 19th century, when the region was under British control, oil was suspected to be present in the region, in 1936 under the Italian occupation geological mapping of the Ogaden Basin began by the Italian oil company AGIP. Their records were later used by other companies in early studies of the region and in the early 1940’s oil exploration in the Ogaden basin began.

In 1972 the American company Tenneco drilled a series of wells and found oil and gas. These discoveries mean the region, now desperately poor, is potentially the richest area of the country. In 1975 in the wake of the Ethiopian revolution, the company stopped operations and the military junta expelled all foreign companies. In the past fifty years or so it is estimated that 46 wells have been drilled searching for the black gold.

It would appear the Ethiopian government sees the natural resources of the Ogaden as another party asset to add to its burgeoning portfolio. People living within 100 km of oil exploration sites have been displaced, some GW tell us are herded into internally displaced camps, whilst others are simply made homeless. Sharing the view of the Liyuu recruit, the ONLF believes the Ethiopian military intends to secure the resources for the government and exclude local people. The Africa Faith and Justice Network confirms this view, saying: “With the discovery of petroleum leading to exploration missions by foreign companies, the government’s motives [in the region] are questionable.”

Donor neglect and self-interest

Why, In the face of such blatant state criminality, do donor countries — America, Britain and the European Union, who provide between a third and a half of Ethiopia’s federal budget, remain silent, this the common-sense question, repeatedly asked by victims of abuse. Ethiopia is of course a key strategic ally of America and the west in their fight against extreme Islamic groups, the US has military bases in Ethiopia from where it launches its unmanned drones into Somalia and Yemen. Add to this the potential oil bonanza in the Ogaden, and indeed elsewhere in the country, and a toxic cocktail of mixed motives and self-interest starts to ferment.

The EPRDF government, under the premiership of Mr. Hailemariam Desalegn, when confronted with accounts of military criminality issues blanket denials and accuses groups, such as HRW, of political bias and misinformation. Duplicitous and disingenuous, the regime, which owns most of the media in Ethiopia, seeks to control the flow of information within and without the country, and hide the atrocities being committed by the military and Liyuu to innocent civilians in the Ogaden and indeed elsewhere. If the government has nothing to hide Mr. Desalegn then open up the region to humanitarian aid groups and allow journalists unrestricted access.

Peace is the number one priority in the Ogaden and for humanity more broadly, and all measures to remove the obstacles to its realization should be made by those working for the people of the region. Discussions held in Nairobi in September 2012 broke down when the ONLF refused to accept the condition of constitutional recognition asked of them by the government team. This was unfortunate and to my mind ill judged, what should be insisted upon however, is that both the military/Liyuu and the ONLF lay down their arms and agree an unconditional ceasefire. It is hard to see how one can negotiate a long term solution whilst innocent men are being tortured, women raped, children terrified and homes destroyed.

Graham Peebles is director of the Create Trust. He can be reached at: graham@thecreatetrust.org

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

The Somali Bravanese Welfare Associationâ„¢s building was razed by an arson attack last week.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Former South African President and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela is reportedly still in a critical but stable condition in hospital, receiving intensive care for recurrence of lung infection.

The 94-year-old African hero was transferred to a hospital in Pretoria, a city in the northern Gauteng Province, South Africa, on June 8, as his lung infection deteriorated.

“He is receiving intensive care treatment,” said Presidential Spokesman Mac Maharaj on Monday.

Later in the day, the presidency announced that his condition was Å“unchanged”.

Mandela has a history of lung problems dating back to when he contracted tuberculosis as a political prisoner. On Mar 28, he was rushed to a South African hospital for the same problem. He also spent about three weeks in hospital for a similar infection and gallstones in December 2012.

Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation based in Cape Town praised Mandela as Å“the beloved father of our nation” in a statement, issued on Monday, saying, Å“Mandela, once again endures the ravages of time in hospital. We offer our thanks to God for the extraordinary gift of Mr. Mandela, and wish his family strength.”

This is while one of Mandelaâ„¢s old friends called Andrew Mlangeni, sympathized with the family of South Africa’s first black president, saying, “It’s time to let him go.”

“You have been coming to the hospital too many times. Quite clearly you are not well and there is a possibility you might not be well again,” Mlangeni said, adding, “Once the family releases him, the people of South Africa will follow. We will say thank you, God, you have given us this man, and we will release him too.”

The anti-apartheid hero suffered from respiratory disease during 27 years imprisonment. He was released in 1990 and then he made peacemaking efforts in the country. He was elected as president in 1994.

The former South African president has received more than 250 awards over four decades, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. In recent years, Mandelaâ„¢s health problems have worried his supporters.

MM/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]At least two people have been killed and 26 others injured in two bomb attacks that hit a square in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Edward Snowden, a former technical worker for the CIA, identifies himself as the source of a series of leaks about US phone and internet surveillance.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

In her recent CounterPunch column “The Left Hand of Darkness,” Julian Vigo is very concerned about the silencing of radical feminists by transgender people. Choosing to focus on a very small subset of radical feminists who pride themselves on being “trans-critical,” she goes through a laundry list of people all claiming the same thing: that transgender identities and specifically the existence of trans women is bad for women and a tool of the patriarchy. Despite the truncated timeline she provides, this is not a new topic. This sect of feminism has been making this claim since the 70’s. The arguments that Vigo reiterates here are not new, or radical, but regressive and patriarchal.

What these “radical” feminists want is not a dialogue, but the ability to critique a marginalized community from the outside, without having to engage at all with how that community defines or speaks about itself. An external critique of a marginalized community is not a value neutral action, and it certainly is not a dialogue. You can’t have a dialogue with people that you exclude from the conversation. All you can do is talk about them without having to be accountable to their experiences of their lives and the impact your words have on how they are treated. Could you have a conversation with someone who insists that you give up your identity before even speaking with them?

She begins by accepting, uncritically, that there is no such thing as being privileged for not being transgender. She mentions that transgender activists make this critique of radical feminists, and just lets it fizzle out, with no further mention. This is the last time that anything vaguely resembling the words of any transgender activist is seen. For a piece on dialogue, its rather startling that there are no voices from the trans community at all. She makes general statements about what trans activists are reported to have said or believe but no attributions, no names, no sources. Even when discussing threats made against the radical feminists she profiles, nothing is given to allow the reader to see these threats for themselves. Considering that there are entire websites, run by some of the people profiled in her column, devoted to profiling the dangerous threats of trans women existing, it shouldn’t be that hard. Instead, trans people are treated as a faceless monolith, and any actual words are not referenced.

Vigo doesn’t show any proof that the people she’s discussing are trying to talk to the trans community, only that they want to talk about it without having to listen to what the community says about itself. She conveniently forgets to mention the ways in which some of her featured folk have refused a dialogue all together.

One example of someone who has shut down this dialogue is Cathy Brennan.  Brennan is well known throughout the trans community for outing outing trans people she disagrees with, for stalking and harassing trans people , particularly trans women, and for working for a law firm that defends predatory payday lenders and financial firms that are known for fraudulently foreclosing on people’s homes. This is a person who has no feminist activism to her name that isn’t centered around attacking trans women, who uses the institutional violence of the American legal system as a cudgel against a community that makes up the majority of victims of physical violence against LGBT people and then uses their reaction to her as justification to antagonize them. She even attributes anonymous threats made against her to the trans community with no evidence in order to justify what she does. Please take note that none of this was mentioned in Vigo’s piece, and is all available with a few minutes of Googling.

How, exactly, are we supposed to have a dialogue with someone who does that? All attempts at dialogue have been not only rejected, but met with outright abuse. There is no opening for dialogue here, and there never was. To put the responsibility for dialogue on those being subjected to this treatment is expecting those who are imprisoned for surviving violence to ask nicely that the violence stop.

Likening accusations of transphobia to censorship, she states:

“As a result of this assault on dialogue, the true violence of transphobia (ie. assault, rape, murder and many other forms of discrimination) is cheapened and diluted in the larger space of discursive disagreements with feminists.”

Since when does someone who is not experiencing a particular form of oppression dictating how that community deals with its oppression a particularly radical thing to do? What gives her the perspective to say what the true violence against a community that she is not part of is? What gives her the unique perspective to know what “true violence” is? Surely a similar statement from a man telling feminists what to focus on would be seen as ridiculous, so what gives Vigo the ability to do the same to trans activists?

Vigo goes on to identify the problem that she sees at the base of the “discursive conflict” between transgender activists and radical feminists:

“This article attempts to examine the ways in which some feminists view discourses of transgenderism specific to trans women as problematic and harmful to women because transgenderism conflates sex and gender as a means to creating a superficial construction of woman by relying on gender stereotypes while erasing the very real violence and oppression that is part of the social reality of women.”

This is not a new argument. Nor is it a particularly good one. The one big issue that articles like this always fail to acknowledge is that the conflation of gender with sex that they perceive as being reified via the trans community is a structure that is imposed on the community from the outside. Trans people did not create the WPATH standards of care, and have been some of the only voices challenging the essentialism inherent in them without insulting those subject to them.

By assigning the responsibility for that assignation on the trans community itself, radical feminists like the ones quoted in Vigo’s article, and indeed Vigo herself, are in fact missing the forest by focusing on one of the trees. Certainly, there are elements within the trans community that accept these structures and even embrace them as a positive thing, as there are in any marginalized group. There are cis women that uphold patriarchal ideas and cling to them as positives, does that make cis women incapable of defining their own liberation? Does the existence of Phyllis Schlafly or Michelle Bachman negate feminism?

There are many references to the fear that gender non-conforming children are being forced to transition, despite the fact that there is little to no evidence that this is happening, and in fact a great deal more evidence that trans youth are often the sole driving force of their accessing transition when they can manage to clear the massive institutional hurdles. Hurdles which, incidentally, were until recently were the very things forcing trans people seeking treatment to present in a very heteronormative way in order to get any help at all. Vigo is even more willing to take the word of someone who participates in this gatekeeping, Dr. Az Hakeem, than to even mention any perspectives from the community that faces these regulations.

It doesn’t take very long to find trans people who are highly critical of these requirements, who are living in fear of being denied treatment if they don’t meet a specific doctor’s notion of what being a woman or a man looks like. Some of them have even written books! This appeal to someone who represents the organization which forces trans people to perform certain gendered behaviors in order to be allowed medical treatment as proof that trans people try to reify gender as natural goes beyond disingenuous.

In this case, the appeal to science as proof that trans people can’t possibly have the identities that they claim to have is appalling. I find it particularly appalling for the perspective that Vigo is writing from, considering that disproving transgender seems to be one of the few places where suddenly psychiatry is a trustworthy authority figure. After a long section of detailing the ways in which undesirable women were deemed unfit to reproduce were forcibly sterilized, along with a mention of mental illness as one of the justifications for that barbaric practice, what sense does it make to uncritically appeal back to someone entrenched in the same practice that once recommended those atrocities? Now that cis women are no longer the target psychiatry can be completely trusted! And let’s be real here, it’s only white, middle class cis women in this country who are relatively safe from being considered undesirable. The sterilization of disabled , transgender, intersex and poor people still happens, at considerably higher rates when those people are black or latin and perceived as women. So radical!

If gender is a construct (which I think it is, and shockingly so does a good portion of trans activists) why is it that our birth designations reign supreme in this radfem framing? “Gender is a social construct, therefore the status quo is true” does not really provide any radical analysis. The idea that men and women are biologically true categories that then dictate a specific socialization is as much a social construct, not to mention one that ignores the existence of intersex conditions at the absolute least. To say that is not to deny that misogyny exists, or that is creates structural violence against those perceived as women, and it also does not deny that when someone who is perceived as male attempts to express any identity associated with women they are punished for that association.

There is also such a thing as a non-binary trans person. There is evidence for identities such as these going back to antiquity across a multitude of human cultures . Many of these definitions used the same characteristics that we use today to enforce two categories, but interpreted them in a multitude of different ways. Many of them were forcibly destroyed by colonialization . The construct of sexual dimorphism in humans relies on the destruction of those potential categories. Again, radical!

In the end, the radical feminists that Vigo is defending have only one argument with regards to trans people’s identities: not just that the radical feminist’s experience of a trans person’s identity is more important than the ability of the trans person to self-determine, but that the identity of the radical feminist springs from some sort of essential truth. So if we can reject gender identity based on gender being a social construct, why is our experience of other people’s gender suddenly true just because we are calling it sex instead of gender? .

To be fair, Vigo does include some critiques that are worth considering, such as the point that the trans community has a problem acknowledging people who don’t fit a particular narrative of transition or trans experience, or that some discussions within trans organizing were handled poorly (ie: the Cotton Ceiling debacle.) I would like to point out though, that in the case of the first critique, the radical feminist community faces much of the same problem, and indeed a great deal of marginalized communities participate in this kind of internal conflict. Just look at the feminist movement.

In the case of the Cotton Ceiling issue that she raises, it was and is obvious within the community that the structure of that particular event was not well conceived and that there were distinct problems with the framing. It has not been repeated and is largely considered to have been a bad idea. The only people that keep talking about it are the radical feminists listed in Vigo’s piece. Again, if one were to google the phrase, almost all of the first page of hits would be attributed to someone that Vigo spoke to in order to write this piece.

The same is true of the claim that a Molotov cocktail thrown through the window of a bank in Oregon was in response to the Radfem 2012 conference. It was actually thrown by an anarchist protesting the imprisonment of black trans woman CeCe McDonald in Minnesota, and nowhere in this anarchists letter taking credit for this act was the conference even mentioned. This makes me wonder if anything Vigo writes about this subject is to be trusted at all, since she has shown herself to be perfectly capable of repeating outright lies in order to present the radical feminists in her piece as some embattled minority, when they are more like a shrinking relic.

One of the complaints she quotes from Leirre Keith is the outrageous claim that being accused of transphobia is the new McCarthy-ism, as though trans women have the institutional power to haul radical feminists into a court of law and accuse them of thought crimes. Considering the behavior of the aforementioned Brennan, or instances like Janice Raymond’s collaboration with Jesse Helms to block Medicare coverage for transition care, that seems like a bit of projection on Keith’s part. Especially when you consider that there are next to no protections for trans people in employment, housing, or even general non-discrimination.

Trans women have been left to die  because EMT’s that came to treat them didn’t want to touch “it,” or have frozen to death after being refused entrance to men’s or women’s shelters. This is not some hypothetical boogeyman, like the children being forced to transition. When you also stop to consider the history of critiques regarding the theories that these “radicals” rely on from Women of Color, LGBT activists, and anti-colonial feminists, you have to wonder if the charges of transphobia are even their biggest problem. Maybe it’s just that they are relying on views of the world that are so limited that they don’t actually help anyone but themselves? And maybe other radical and progressive movements have no interest in hanging that albatross around their own necks?

There will be a “discursive conflict” between any two groups where one requires that the other abandon its right to self-determine in order to even begin the dialogue. Disingenuous articles which exclude the voices of half of the conversation certainly don’t help things move along.

Dorian Adams is a queer theorist, activist and grad school applicant, who has been published previously in Loyola University’s Broad Magazine. Her preliminary work on Non-Binary Identities and Trans Political Narratives will be presented at this year’s Philadelphia Trans* Health Conference. She can be contacted at dorian.adams22@yahoo.com

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

French air traffic controllers are planning a three-day strike. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Russian floors started off Tuesday lower on negative international outlook. A lower close on Wall Street, falling oil and weaker performance in Asia influenced the downward movement.

On Monday Russian stocks ended on the negative territory with the
MICEX slipping 0.64 percent to 1335.25, and RTS losing 1.06
percent to 1300.54 on falling oil prices and mixed sentiment on
the European floors.

Asian stocks were mixed Tuesday after the previous day’s rally,
with all eyes focused on a Bank of Japan policy meeting.

The Nikkei 225 dropped 1.06 percent to 13370.81 on the news that
the Bank of Japan held its asset-buying and other policy elements
unchanged Tuesday and offered no fresh moves to curb the recent
volatility in the markets.

South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.68 percent to 1919.59, while the
mainland China stock exchange remains closed for the holiday.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.94 percent to 21411.81 on weak
Chinese economic data. Consumer inflation in the world’s second
largest economy slowed down to a three-month low of 2.1 percent.
Producer prices dropped to 2.9 percent, the lowest since
September 2012.

Stocks in Australia were up Tuesday, adding 0.38 percent after a
long weekend.

The US dollar edged lower in early Tuesday trading, with the yen
higher after Japan’s central bank offered no new easing moves in
its latest policy decision. The Bank of Japan held its
asset-buying and other policy elements unchanged Tuesday, while
using slightly more upbeat language on the economy.

Monday’s session on Wall Street ended mixed, having advanced on a
revised credit outlook for the United States from negative to
stable presented by Standard & Poor’s, one of the world’s
largest credit rating agencies.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed slightly lower, at
15,238.52. The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ Composite ended flat.

Stocks in Europe closed slightly lower on Monday, pulled down by
analysts’ warnings that growth in China would slow further after
weaker-than-expected economic data.

“The macro data for May have confirmed that the economy is stuck
in stagnant growth again after a brief rebound. The risk for
growth is now predominantly on the down side,” CNBC quotes
Xianfang Ren, senior economist at HIS, who underlined that
persistent deflation in producer prices and the pullback in fixed
asset investment growth are two major dangers.

The UK’s FTSE100 slipped 0.18 percent closing at 6,400, while the
German DAX added 0.64 percent and France’s CAC40 shed 0.21
percent.

Brent oil futures remained under $104 per barrel on Tuesday after
the US nearly doubled its estimate of its shale oil reserves.
Brent is currently 0.3 percent lower trading at $103.6, while the
US oil, WTI, is also down 0.1 percent trading at $95.9.

This article originally appeared on: RT

This article originally appeared on: RT

Stan Cox got quite a few folks a bit hot and bothered when his book Losing Our Cool critiqued air conditioning during the middle of the 2010 heat wave. Now, in the middle of massive joblessness and economic downturn, his new book, Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present and Future of Rationing (The New Press, May, 2013), is based on the assumption that humanity needs to massively reduce consumption if it is to have any chance of surviving.

Is the guy nuts? Does he hate the working class and poor? Or does he have very keen vision into a topic that few progressives and socialists have even thought about? Peeking beneath the surface, Slice It has the potential to spark serious discussion about the role of social wages in challenging climate change as well as control over production during the transition to a post-capitalist society.

Away With Confusion

The book challenges many conceptualizations, beginning with the faith that unlimited expansion of the economy is possible or even desirable. A direct challenge to green growth enthusiasts, Slice It minces no words regarding the multitude of environmental catastrophes that require an entire re-thinking of what the “good life” is all about.

Another misunderstanding is that rationing occurs rarely and only under special circumstances. In fact, virtually everyone participates in rationing every day. It is not an issue of “Will we ration?” The question is “How will rationing occur?” In a typical capitalist society, goods and services are rationed by the amount that people can pay for them – what economists call “implicit rationing.” Anyone can obtain what they can afford and cannot buy what they cannot pay for.

A third source of confusion is idea is that rationing is always by quantity: a certain amount of this and so much of that. Though this type of “unit rationing” occurs, there is a vast array of rationing systems. Much more frequent is “rationing by points,” when people choose between multiple items.

By far, the biggest misconception regarding rationing is that it is always hated. Not only is it not universally disliked, there are many times when people want rationing.

– US citizens supported food rationing during WWII if it would help feed Europe.
– Life expectancy increased in England with the rationing of medical care during WWI and WWII.
– During the 1970s gas shortage, Americans expressed preference for rationing over tax schemes.
– Despite food shortages, rationing eliminated childhood malnutrition during Cuba’s “Special Period” after the fall of the USSR.
– People accept rationing of emergency room care by need and reject care going to those who pay more.
– In lab experiments, participants prefer that scarce water go to “weak people first.”

Actually, claims that rationing is liked and disliked tend to both be true. The rich try to stir their allies into an anti-rationing frenzy even though they adore “implicit” rationing by price, which guarantees them what they want. Those who are less well off prefer rationing of basic goods and services, especially when they are in short supply as in times of war.

Rationing what?

The central theses which Cox drives home are (a) the Earth sets limits to human activity; (b) this means that there are limits on human consumptions; (c) “explicit” or openly defined rationing is the only fair method of distributing goods; and (d) the importance of fairness will increase as environmental crises worsen. The book draws on academic literature, a vast array of stories and extensive personal experience. The author shares with readers his knowledge of water rationing in India, bread rationing in Egypt and medical rationing in England.

What is clearly the major interest of the author and probably readers is the urgent need to ration CO2, or carbon dioxide. The idea behind carbon rationing plans is that everyone has a certain amount of CO2 to use. There would be a dual price for everything: first would be the regular price we are used to; and, second would be the estimated amount of CO2 required to produce it, or its “embodied” CO2. Each purchase would eat into the amount of embodied CO2 allotted to the person.

What happens when CO2-thrifty people use less than their allowance? Some propose that they be able to sell allowances to others. Cox warns that this would create a two-tier system. Those who are well off would be able to buy extra carbon credits, undermining the whole idea of universal fairness. Instead, Cox supports an idea derived from Michal Kalecki’s thinking: people would sell unused carbon credits back to the government, which would maintain the fairness aspect of the system.

I think that problems could emerge with a cash buy-back of carbon credits. First, the buy-back means that people have more money to spend, which means that extra CO2 is produced by creating and/or using extra commodities. Additionally, cash buy-backs would encourage the thinking that happiness comes from having more physical objects, which Cox debunks in other chapters.

The question is: What could be used as a reward that is not money or material objects? Praise? Recognition? It is unlikely that adults would be motivated by goody-goody stickers. There is one reward that just about everyone likes. (When I ran it by Cox, he agreed with the suggestion). That reward would be working less. The government could give people the option of receiving cash or a shorter work week (by its buying working hours from the employer). That would give people more free time and encourage the idea that the good life comes from living well rather than acquiring things.
The opposite problem is actually more frequent: people wanting more than their rations permit. The book emphasizes that voluntary restraint, though pointing in the right direction, is insufficient for enormity of changes that need to be made. This is significant for eating meat, which is widely ignored as one of the most important sources of CO2 (with estimates of meat accounting for between 18—51% of total greenhouse gas emissions ). Cox suggests that voluntarily reducing consumption of meat might be “far-fetched.” But maybe not. For a very long time, Catholics did not eat red meat on Fridays.

If the Pope were to receive a divine inspiration that people should eat no red meat on Fridays, eat vegetarian on Wednesdays, and vegan on Mondays, this “rationing by faith” might do more than all the current schemes and practices to reduce CO2 emissions combined. Catholic meatless days would certainly have powerful effects if followed by other Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists. Such “rationing by faith” may extend beyond religion and indicate that people committed to a belief (such as the need to win WWII or a War for Human Existence) might very well change their behavior by the hundreds of millions.

Rationing as Social Wages

Slice It covers food, water and medical care because rationing them is so widespread due to their necessity for life. Areas not covered include schools, roads and parks. These are rationed, usually by being made available to all citizens. In the early 21st century, each of these is under “privatization” attacks which would force citizens to pay for access. As is typically the case with rationing, the rich want services to be provided on a cash basis while progressives wish them to be citizen rights.

Another way of understanding the conflict is the contrast between individual and social wages. Each worker receives individual wages. Social wages are collective benefits received from the combined labor of all. They can include schools, parks, roads, water, food, housing, libraries, postal services, pensions (such as social security), and medical care. Efforts to expand social wages appears the same as efforts for fair shares rationing. Whenever the powerful are forced to grant social wages, they insist on having a two-tier system: the smallest amount of rations possible for the general public; and, a higher quality product that goes to those who pay.

Does the concept of rationing CO2 fit into the framework of social wages? On the surface, it appears that people receive goods for every other type of social wage; but with CO2 rationing, their consumption would be restricted. In actuality, there is little to no difference. This becomes clear upon understanding that climate change has altered human history –future societies must limit carbon emissions if they are to survive.

All goods are limited in quantity because human labor is required to produce them. (If this were not the case, they would be a “free gift of nature” and there would be no need to either ration or purchase them.) CO2 rations are unique only because they are the embodiment of the carbon, rather than labor power, required for production. But CO2 and other social wages are identical in their need to be rationed to ensure that everyone receives enough for a good quality life.

Rationing Production

Almost all of Slice It deals with rationing of consumption. The author provides a glimpse of what rationing by production might look like when discussing medical care. In the United Kingdom and with Oregon’s Medicaid payments, limitations have been made on expensive procedures with a low level of benefit. This is discrimination against procedures rather than discrimination based upon age or ethnicity. By focusing on preventive and community care, Cuba devotes less of its scarce resources on high cost equipment.

More needs to be written on the concept of rationing by producing less of what society determines is less useful. One of the clearest examples of the intense need for rationing by production is the limitation of arms production, which [some] nations have attempted for a long, long time. If each country were to have a cap on its arms spending that would be proportional to its population, the US and Israel would need to have a dramatic downscaling. The only change in individual life styles required by such rationing would be the need to shift jobs from damaging to useful production.

What about food? Instead of focusing on food eaten by individual consumers, rationing by production would severely limit the amount of resources going into packaging, processing, chemicalizing, storing, transporting and genetically engineering food.

Since this accounts for the vast majority of the food industry, rationing by food production would have a much greater effect on reducing carbon emissions than would targeting consumer choices. Those who would be annoyed the most would be corporations whose production potential would be lost. Consumers would lose those things they care about the least. The challenge would again be to ensure work for those whose income had depended on the production of useless or harmful goods.

Food is intimately connected to water. As Cox notes, 86% of water goes to agriculture, 9% to industry and only 5% to residential use. [p 125] Yet, the majority of discussion of water shortages is directed to homeowners watering their lawns. Rationing of water in the stage of production would sharply decrease the misplaced focus on consumers. It would also dovetail perfectly with religious and non-religious inspirations to eat less meat. Since the most wasteful agricultural use of water is for meat and meat-related products, rationing of agricultural water would decrease the production of meat.

Transportation illustrates how rationing by production can lead to a very different path than rationing by consumption. The latter results in a variety of schemes that are proven failures. For example, limits on gas per car lets those with more money buy more cars and travel more. Ability to travel based on license plate numbers again lets people with more cars change their tags.

In contrast, rationing car use by production would be based on the assumptions that (1) 80% of trips could be made by bicycle and foot if neighborhoods had essential services available; (2) 80% of remaining trips could be made by bus or train if they were affordable; and (3) this would leave only 4% of trips to be made by rent-a-car or car sharing. Neighborhoods would need to be walkable and mass transit abundant before rationing began. Only after these preliminary steps were taken, transportation production could be rationed by …

1. reducing the number of cars produced;
2. increasing lanes available to buses and emergency and shared cars, reducing lanes available to private cars, and giving buses remote radio control over lights at intersections; and,
3. reducing parking lots.

Rationing of transportation by consumption would begin with ignoring people’s need to get from here to there and then have complex, unworkable schemes to punish them for doing what they need to do. Rationing of transportation by production would begin with developing alternative ways to get from here to there and then allow people to drive as much as they wanted to, though there would be no cars to buy [individually], few if any lanes to drive on, and no place to park once they got there.

It may seem that rationing by production is merely the creation of scarcity, which would cause shortages, which would lead to rationing by consumption of the smaller number of goods remaining. In the case of items like meat production this would be the case, and, a change in social attitudes (such as occurred with meat consumption during WWII) would be necessary for rationing to maintain popularity.

But most rationing by production would differ fundamentally from rationing by consumption:

1. some rationing by production would be items that consumers do not purchase, such as nuclear weapons; and,
2. a large portion of rationing by production would be eliminating entire product lines, such as individually owned cars. The goal would be to build only cars for emergency use and car-sharing.
The most important topic of rationing, whether by consumption or production, is the issue of who determines what items are restricted. True fairness goes beyond having equal shares to everyone. It includes equal power in deciding what items are limited and what form that limitation takes. Slice It cites considerable research showing that a sense of fairness in distribution is essential for rationing to work. This implies that fairness in making decisions concerning production would strengthen support for rationing even more.

Challenges

In describing the role of rationing in capitalist society Slice It offers glimpses of contradictions that a post-capitalist society will have to face if it is to have equitable distribution of goods and services. Clearly, it is environmentally destructive to project a post-capitalist society which maintains a fetish on the individual accumulation of objects. Instead, it is time to visualize a society which decides democratically how to share (i.e., ration) what humans produce from Earth’s resources.

There is no better way to concretize that vision within capitalism than to oppose the gluttony of the rich, resist all forms of “austerity” programs, and demand fair shares rationing that respect environmental limits.

The use of rationing to create a new society will not begin with a mechanistic formula, but with a change in consciousness. As Slice It reminds us, previous rationing systems have been based on scarcity while future rationing must be based on restraint in the extraction of natural resources that are in abundance but will cause environmental collapse if removed from the ground. WWII showed that rationing will be accepted in times of intense crisis. The issue is: Will enough people believe that environmental damage has reached a state of intense crisis? Slice It does not provide the answers to this essential question, but lays out the framework for beginning the discussion.

Don Fitz produces Green Time TV in conjunction with KNLC-TV in St. Louis and is active in the Greens/Green Party USA. He can be contacted at fitzdon@aol.com

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Richard Gregory (“Richie”) Phillips, former general counsel and executive director of the MLUA (Major League Umpires Association) from 1978 to 1999, died May 31, 2013. He was 72. To describe Phillips as a “hard-nosed negotiator” doesn’t really do him justice. His extremely confrontational style and relentless determination (a combination of Bobby Knight, Jimmy Hoffa and Marvin Miller) were legendary.

Richie Phillips will be remembered for two things, one good, one horrendously bad.

(1) During his 22 years as executive director, major league umpires went from a group of underappreciated and undercompensated “adjuncts,” to a highly organized and universally envied cadre of sports professionals. With Phillips at the helm, the umpires’ salaries quadrupled.

(2) One of Phillips’ tactical moves backfired so badly, it resulted in the ruination of the very union he helped transform.

In 1999, Phillips tried running an astoundingly brazen play on major league baseball. Knowing it was illegal to use a strike as a negotiating tool (there was a contract in place with an unequivocal “no strike” provision), he got the umpires to agree to resign from their jobs en masse, convincing them that the League would be unable to replace them on short notice, and would balk at having to cough up $15 million in severance pay.

It was an audacious and nutty move. Unfortunately, management called his bluff. The League responded to the mass resignations by instantly hiring minor league umps to replace the major leaguers. Predictably, many of the umpires who, in the heat of battle, had signed letters of resignation now regretted their decision. Some even claimed to have signed them as a “symbolic gesture,” after being assured they would never be delivered.

Accordingly, these umpires contacted the League office and formally requested that their resignations be withdrawn. The League refused. These umpires were told that, even if their letters had been submitted impulsively or on the basis of inaccurate information, a resignation was a resignation. Sorry, boys, but you no longer have a job.

One can imagine the fallout. All hell broke loose. A group of umpires, led by Joe Brinkman and John Hirschbeck, began an NLRB decertification drive that resulted in Phillips being fired, and the formation of another union (the World Umpires Association) to replace the MLUA. While many of the umps were eventually rehired, 22 of them (those viewed as trouble-makers or misfits) never got their jobs back. Their careers were over.

You occasionally hear Richie Phillips’ name linked to that of Robert Poli, the hapless president of the air-traffic controllers union (PATCO), whom President Reagan summarily fired in 1981. While that comparison may seem appropriate (because both guys managed to get their rank-the-file members fired), it is not. The comparison is not only inappropriate, it’s ridiculous.

Phillips was a seasoned pro with an impressive list of accomplishments to his credit, and Poli was an untested rookie, in office for barely a year, with nothing more to brag about than having won a union election. And while Phillips’ resignation stunt was, without question, a monumental blunder, what Poli did by taking federal workers out on an illegal strike (in clear violation of their contract) was immeasurably worse.

Robert Poli not only committed institutional suicide by handing Ronald Reagan on a silver platter the ironclad legal grounds for destroying a labor union, he managed to awaken and refocus America’s dormant anti-union sentiment, something that organized labor is still paying for, thirty years later.

So rest in peace, Richie. Even though you screwed everything up in the end, you did it with the best of intentions and with your inimitable style and flair. Disgraced hero or not, the American labor movement could use a hundred more leaders just like you.

David Macaray, an LA playwright and author (“It’s Never Been Easy: Essays on Modern Labor” 2^nd edition), was a former union rep.  Dmacaray@earthlink.net

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

June 4, 2013
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A resurgence of death squad activity targeting suspected gang members and others is exacting a mounting toll in Honduras, a country already wracked by violence and impunity. As documented in a series of AP investigative reports, it is increasingly apparent that US-funded Honduran National Police are dispatching summary justice to gang members, in a policy of “social cleansing”, with complete impunity.

Since evidence has surfaced linking the Honduran police to death squad activity, US support for the police would violate the ” Leahy Law“, which mandates withholding aid to foreign security forces when credible evidence exists that they have committed human rights abuses.

Most notably, the director of the Honduran Police, Juan Carlos “El Tigre” Bonilla, is suspected of previous involvement in death squad activity, including three homicides, and is allegedly linked to 11 other deaths and disappearances.

Despite the US’ position that funds are carefully administered to avoid supporting human rights abuses, a March AP investigative report found that the US was sending aid to Honduras in contravention of the restriction. Yet the US State Department continues to claim that funding only flows to specially-vetted forces outside of Bonilla’s control.

Even though under Honduran law all police operate under the aegis of the director general, the US government has refused to take any remedial measures. US legislators have expressed concerns for years about human rights abuses associated with Honduran security forces.

In March 2012, 94 members of Congress asked the State Department “to suspend US assistance to the Honduran military and police given the credible allegations of widespread, serious violations of human rights attributed to the security forces”. Less than a year later, 58 members of Congress asked for an investigation of four civilian deaths in a joint US-Honduran counter-narcotics operation gone awry.

A disturbing follow-up to the initial AP reports reveals even more incriminating evidence linking the Honduran police to ongoing death squad activity. Witnesses have provided additional testimony, backing up their claims with credible evidence, such as the fact that perpetrators of extrajudicial killings were outfitted with police identification badges. A spokesman for the Honduran National Police dismissed witness reports by claiming that gangs kill each other disguised as police officers, an allegation that strains credulity.

When serving as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last year, John Kerry suggested that the US should exercise prudence in limiting the administration of funds to forces under Bonilla until he is cleared of wrongdoing. Yet under Kerry’s watch, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs William Brownfield seems to be circling the wagons, embracing instead of distancing the administration from Bonilla.

Seeming to contradict the approach previously articulated by his boss, Brownfield recently expressed his respect and admiration for Bonilla’s effective police work. Although members of the US Congress and human rights groups have repeatedly expressed concern about Bonilla’s human rights record, Brownfield said he had yet to see any conclusive evidence linking him to misconduct.

Bonilla has not been convicted, but the credibility of the allegations levelled against him raised enough concern to trigger a prohibition on US aid to forces under his control. Notorious corruption in the judiciary and legendary impunity minimise the significance of Bonilla’s acquittal on the murder charges, and suspicions about Bonilla have never been thoroughly investigated, by either US or Honduran authorities.

Maria Luisa Borjas, the head of the police internal affairs department in charge of Bonilla’s case, said that internal police investigations were impeded by top agency officials, and noted that she was subsequently terminated when she complained about the obstruction.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

June 9, 2013
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Editor’s Note: This is the first article of a four-part series by Fred Branfman on the U.S. Executive Branch’s military, police and intelligence agencies which have aggregated far more power, committed far more evil by destroying the lives of countless innocents, and operated far more illegally, than any other governing institution in the world today.

The Executive Branch is also America’s most undemocratic and thus unamerican institution. The U.S. Executive justifies its mass murder, incarceration of the innocent, authoritarianism, secrecy, deceit, lawlessness, spying, and prosecution of whistleblowers, the press and activists on the claim that it is protecting U.S. “National Security.” As this article and chart below it entitled “Experts Say U.S. Secret War Is Not Working” demonstrate, however, the Executive’s present campaign in the Muslim World is only the greatest of its many strategic failures to protect U.S. national security. It is in fact today endangering American lives and democracy as never before. A U.S. Executive Branch which constantly deceives its own people, robbing them of the “informed consent” required by the Constitution, cannot legitimately claim to rule in their names. And its citizens are under no moral obligation to obey or support it with their tax dollars, sons or daughters until such time as public and Congressional action have made it subject to truly democratic rule.

If you aren’t familiar with Branfman’s work, here’s some background from his long-time colleague and collaborator, Noam Chomsky: Branfman “worked for years, with enormous courage and effort, to try to expose what were called the ‘secret wars’ [against Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War]. The secret wars were perfectly public wars which the media were keeping secret, government. And Fred …  finally did succeed in breaking through, and [helped prompt] a tremendous exposure of huge wars that were going on.”

Many have expressed surprise that under President Obama – a former Constitutional Law Senior Lecturer who promised transparency, protection for whisteblowers and respect for international law when running for office – U.S. Executive Branch agencies have:

• Built up a fleet of 7,000 drones, operating from a growing number of secret bases around the world, as they train more drone than conventional pilots; waged automated war in an ever-expanding number of nations, lawlessly murdering thousands of human beings without even knowing their names, while greatly strengthening America’s foes (see chart below), destabilizing allied governments and, in the case of Pakistan, greatly increasing the risk of nuclear materials falling into anti-American hands;
• Created the top-secret Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) consisting of 60,000 persons operating in 75 nations, the first unit of American assassins in U.S. history, who have illegally murdered many thousands more people and conducted night raids recalling World War II Gestapo movies which, according to Afghan President Karzai, have helped strengthen the Taliban and destabilize his government;
• Prosecuted more whistleblowers and journalists than even Messrs. Cheney and Bush;
• Collected records of millions of phone calls of Americans citizens from Verizon, Sprint, ATT and other phone carriers, and spied on millions more Americans’ search histories, email content, file transfers and live chats while on the Internet;
• Authorized the use of drones in the United States, which the Federal Aviation Administration estimates could lead to 30,000 drones in U.S. skies by 2020, leading privacy advocates to fear their massive use by police departments to spy on Americans;
• Claimed the President’s right to kill or imprison without trial any American citizen;
• Increased paramilitary training and equipment, and created secret police spying operations in thousands of states and cities around the nation (see chapter 7, “Report Suspicious Activity”, Top Secret America, by Dana Priest and William Arkin);
• Created “huge biometric databases — with fingerprints and iris scans — of nearly 100 million people” ( Top Secret America , p. 53);
• As Priest and Arkin have also revealed, the Executive Branch has created “a jaw-dropping 1,074 federal government organizations, and nearly two thousand private companies involved with programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security, and intelligence in at least 17,000 locations across the United States — all top secret. The biggest growth had come within the many agencies and large corporations that had existed before the attacks and had since inflated to historic proportions.” This has amounted to “a parallel top secret government whose parts had mushroomed in less than a decade into a gigantic, sprawling universe of its own, visible only to a carefully vetted cadre, and its entirety, as Pentagon intelligence chief James Clapper admitted, visible only to God.” (pp. 52, 86).

Under Mr. Obama, America is still far from being a classic police-state of course. But no President has done more to create the infrastructure for a possible future police-state. This infrastructure will clearly pose a serious danger to democratic ideals should there be more 9/11s, and/or increased domestic unrest due to economic decline and growing inequality, and/or massive global disruption due to climate change, and/or a President with even less scruples than Mr. Obama.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

June 10, 2013
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Conservative Republicans in our nation’s capital have managed to accomplish something they only dreamed of when Tea Partiers streamed into Congress at the start of 2011: They’ve basically shut Congress down. Their refusal to compromise is working just as they hoped: No jobs agenda. No budget. No grand bargain on the deficit. No background checks on guns. Nothing on climate change. No tax reform. No hike in the minimum wage. Nothing so far on immigration reform.

It’s as if an entire branch of the federal government — the branch that’s supposed to deal directly with the nation’s problems, not just execute the law or interpret the law but make the law — has gone out of business, leaving behind only a so-called “sequester” that’s cutting deeper and deeper into education, infrastructure, programs for the nation’s poor, and national defense.

The window of opportunity for the president to get anything done is closing rapidly. Even in less partisan times, new initiatives rarely occur after the first year of a second term, when a president inexorably slides toward lame duck status.

But the nation’s work doesn’t stop even if Washington does. By default, more and more of it is shifting to the states, which are far less gridlocked than Washington. Last November’s elections resulted in one-party control of both the legislatures and governor’s offices in all but 13 states — the most single-party dominance in decades.

This means many blue states are moving further left, while red states are heading rightward. In effect, America is splitting apart without going through all the trouble of a civil war.

Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, for example, now controls both legislative chambers and the governor’s office for the first time in more than two decades. The legislative session that ended a few weeks ago resulted in a hike in the top income tax rate to 9.85 percent, an increased cigarette tax, and the elimination of several corporate tax loopholes. The added revenues will be used to expand early-childhood education, freeze tuitions at state universities, fund jobs and economic development, and reduce the state budget deficit. Along the way, Minnesota also legalized same-sex marriage and expanded the power of trade unions to organize.

California and Maryland passed similar tax hikes on top earners last year. The governor of Colorado has just signed legislation boosting taxes by $925 million for early-childhood education and K-12 (the tax hike will go into effect only if residents agree, in a vote is likely in November).

On the other hand, the biggest controversy in Kansas is between Gov. Sam Brownback, who wants to shift taxes away from the wealthy and onto the middle class and poor by repealing the state’s income tax and substituting an increase in the sales tax, and Kansas legislators who want to cut the sales tax as well, thereby reducing the state’s already paltry spending for basic services. Kansas recently cut its budget for higher education by almost 5 percent.

Other rightward-moving states are heading in the same direction. North Carolina millionaires are on the verge of saving $12,500 a year, on average, from a pending income-tax cut even as sales taxes are raised on the electricity and services that lower-income depend residents depend on. Missouri’s transportation budget is half what it was five years ago, but lawmakers refuse to raise taxes to pay for improvements.

The states are splitting as dramatically on social issues. Gay marriages are now recognized in 12 states and the District of Columbia. Colorado and Washington state permit the sale of marijuana, even for non-medical uses. California is expanding a pilot program to allow nurse practitioners to perform abortions.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

June 10, 2013
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As members of the class of 2013 stepped on stage to receive their diplomas, the unemployment rate in America stood at 7.6 percent – a bit better than the past four years, but that ain’t saying much. Before the financial crisis, students graduating in 2007 faced a much rosier jobless rate of only 4.7 percent. The fact of the matter is that the past four years of high unemployment numbers represent the worst economy the country has suffered in 70 years, and young adults are shouldering a hefty part of the burden.

When you look at the specific numbers for Millennials, things look even bleaker. As of April, the jobless rate for workers under age 25 was an alarming 16.2 percent. A study by the think tank Demos found that 18- to 34-year-olds make up 45 percent of those who can’t find work. That’s a lot of stifled human potential.

In a paper , The Class of 2013, researchers at the Economic Policy Institute showed that young people are not searching in vain for jobs because they lack the appropriate skills or the right education, as many pundits would have it. Rather, they can’t find work because of the weak demand for goods and services. It’s actually very simple: when a company can’t sell its goods and services because customers don’t have enough money to spend, it can’t hire more workers. You can be Super-Skilled Super Student, and if the economy isn’t humming, you’ll have trouble landing a job.

The EPI study also found that young people aren’t able to “shelter in school” and wait out the bad economy: the Great Recession didn’t make much of an impact on enrollment rates at college and universities. It also found that the wages of college grads between 2000 and 2012, adjusted wages for inflation, fell 8.5 percent.

“I’m starting to feel numb,” said Karen S., who is trying to find a job while ringing up groceries at a Whole Foods in Manhattan. The 24-year-old from Queens graduated in 2012 with a degree in broadcasting. “I did well in my classes, and I looked forward to putting my knowledge and skills to use. Instead I ask, ‘Would you like a bag today?’”

Like Karen, many recent graduates are forced to take McJobs. EPI researchers found that their chances of getting employer-provided health insurance or pensions are fading fast. Between 2000 and 2011, the number of college grads receiving pension coverage from their employer plummeted from 41.5 percent to just 27.2 percent. Many graduates find that when they do get a job, there’s no real opportunity for advancement. They’re stuck on a treadmill.

An increasing chorus of voices warns that college has become a bad investment, but the numbers don’t support that theory. Young people who hold a bachelor’s degrees have about half the unemployment rate of those with only a high school diploma. When college grads have difficulty finding a job, it tends to worsen the problem for those with less education because they are forced to take less skilled positions, which squeezes out high school grads, and on down the line. It’s a chain reaction.

Humanities-bashing has become all the rage as critics point to lower salaries for those majors when compared to majors like engineering, and unclear job paths. Florida governor Rick Scott is among a group of right-leaning politicians aiming to use the employment crisis as an opportunity to defund the humanities altogether: “If I’m going to take money from a citizen to put into education, then I’m going to take that money to create jobs,” he told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. “Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don’t think so.” Leon Wieseltier, an editor at The New Republic, suggested in an address to Brandeis University that the anti-humanities crew may be more worried about what those students learn to think about than what sort of job they get, calling “a commitment to the humanities as nothing less than an act of intellectual defiance, of cultural dissidence.”

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

June 10, 2013
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Knowledge is power. But insider knowledge is more lucrative than power, because it offers the surest path to vast riches. If you know something that will move markets before everyone else does, you will profit mightily.

Normally, we think of insider trading as a Wall Street crime of illegally obtaining corporate information before the rest of the investing public. But the same game can be played with governmental information concerning changes in health care rules or military programs. If you know in advance that an important change is about to take place in a Medicare rule, for example, you can win enormous returns on your investments in key healthcare corporations.

So a new game is afoot as Wall Street hedge funds, acting through “political intelligence” consulting firms, are on a crusade to gain information from congressional staff and even key White House officials.

Is the White House Open for Hedge Fund Business?

The latest outrage concerns a series of private meetings between White House healthcare officials and hedge funds that are betting on the healthcare industry. As the Washington Post reports:

“Wall Street investors hungry for advance information on upcoming federal healthcare decisions repeatedly held private discussions with Obama administration officials, including a top White House adviser helping to implement the Affordable Care Act.”

This comes on the heals of similar meetings between congressional staff and hedge funds via political intelligence firms that led to enormous jumps in stock activity. The Securities and Exchange Commission issued subpoenas in early May to look into an incident that emerged on April 1, “when Height Securities, a Washington-based stock brokerage firm, alerted its clients that the government would soon make a decision favoring private health insurers who participate in a Medicare program. The alert went out 18 minutes before the end of the trading day, sparking a surge in trading in the shares of several major healthcare firms, including Humana and Aetna. The official government announcement was made after trading closed for the day.”

Hedge funds and their never-ending lust for lucre are the driving force behind this gold rush for insider governmental information. And you can understand why: The secret to making a million dollars an hour is coming up with sure bets. Insider trading leads to the surest of sure bets.

There Ought To Be a Law

There already is.

In 2012, President Obama signed a bill disallowing government insider trading of all kinds. You see, academic studies figured out that on average congressmen miraculously earned returns that were 6 percent higher than the average market returns. And senators did even better by scoring 10 percent higher returns. Either these elected officials are really, really smart investors (of course, doing all their prodigious stock research on their own time), or they are trading on insider knowledge. Then again, they also might profit handsomely by pushing legislation to feather their own investment portfolios. Either way, it’s good work, if you can get it.  

Knowing how difficult it would be to police thousands of government officials, the new law relied on sunshine: All federal elected officials and key staff would have to put the investment portfolios online so that we could see the results of their prescient investment decisions.

Well, a funny thing happened as the law was about to be implemented–the sunshine provision was dropped for all staff. (It’s still there for elected officials.) That means thousands of government officials might be further tempted to feather their own nests through sharing insider knowledge with predatory investors.

Trading on their own accounts is risky since it leaves behind an electronic record, and beside, these staffers aren’t rich enough to place the kind of bets needed to cash in big-time. But giving a tip or two to a hedge fund via a political intelligence firm might, one day, land you a fat job on Wall Street. Meanwhile, the spigot is open, meaning that hedge funds will make more money on one illicit trade than all the staffers combined can make in a lifetime of investing.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

June 10, 2013
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“I have a proposition,” Jack said, a whiff of Maker’s Mark on his breath as he spoke over the din of the dive bar on a Saturday night. “Maybe tonight, if you see a cute guy, you could bring him back to my place.”

My voice rose, along with a sense of dread. “For a threesome?”

“No, for you – to sleep with,” he said. “I could watch. From the closet. He wouldn’t know I was there.”

I fought a swell of revulsion. Jack wanted me to sleep with other men? And he wanted to watch? It defied the laws of romance.

Jack and I met online four months earlier (although his name isn’t really Jack). He was cute, with blue eyes and dark stubble. Feeling lonely after having recently moved 3,000 miles from Brooklyn to San Francisco, I ignored my initial anxiety about his age (39 to my 29). He was an accomplished artist and musician and, being a sucker for tortured creative types, I invited myself over to his place at the end of our first date, where we finished off a bottle of cheap Cabernet before having hazy sex that I could barely remember the next day.

That wasn’t unusual: As a near-daily drinker since college, I’d had plenty of blackout one-night stands. Vodka had been a way to overcome shyness and depression since my misfit teens. I had long been self-medicating with alcohol and men.

That evening with Jack bled into weekends of Netflix marathons, chocolate in bed, and sex on the kitchen floor while making dinner. Alcohol was almost always involved; we’d go through a bottle or two of wine with dinner, and when we went out to shows or art openings (which we did often), we’d grab a drink or four from the bar. Nothing seemed amiss at first, and I didn’t ask many questions of him, or of myself. I mainly wanted someone to spoon with – though, having been single for a while, having regular sex again wasn’t a bad thing, either. Jack suggested we become exclusive.

Soon, Jack’s sexual appetites … ripened. “Want to check out Power Exchange sometime?” Jack asked one night, glass of Riesling in hand as we shared a blanket on his living room couch. Power Exchange was a local sex club where leather-leaning types could get whipped and fornicate in front of masses of probing-eyed strangers.  “Hrrrmm,” I said, my eyes skimming the TV as I changed the subject.

At a bar a couple of weeks later, we ran into Abby, a friend of Jack’s from the art scene. She had long, straight red hair in ponytails, and a perkily upturned nose. He introduced us, then after she swished away, he whispered, “You should hook up with her. She’s bi.”

This again? “I’m not,” I snapped. I didn’t understand this need to bring others into our sex life. Was I not enough for him? Eyes fixed on the exit sign, I reached for my purse. “Jack, if you need to watch me with other people to get off, you should get a new girlfriend.” I stood up, but he tugged me down and hugged me close.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed into my hair.

Jack never outright pressured me, which made his suggestions easier to ignore (as did the merlot). And so I stuck around. A cozy warmth had developed between us. He was the most physically affectionate boyfriend I’d ever had. He treated his cat like a little Buddha. And he was unashamed to admit that he wanted marriage and kids, like, yesterday. I wasn’t ready, but I found that endearing.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

June 10, 2013
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My wife and I have family in Barcelona, Spain, including a seven-month-old grandson. We also have a family member who is a successful artist and has a piece in this year’s famous Venice biennial art show. Thus it was that my wife and I went from Barcelona to Venice at the end of May.

We decided to travel from one city to the other by sea and so ended up on the Regent Line’s Seven Seas Mariner, a relatively small ship with only 700 passengers. This turned out to be a very odd cruise, and that is the subject of this essay.

For, as it turned out, some 270 of the passengers on board were fans of the libertarian right-wing talk show host and Fox TV commentator Neal Boortz. This was Boortz’s retirement celebration cruise, and his most devoted fans were on the Seven Seas Mariner, at their own expense, to help him celebrate.

Until his recent retirement, Neal Boortz (aka The Mouth of the South, aka The Equal Opportunity Offender, aka Mighty Whitey) was the seventh most popular talk show host in the United States. His show was nationally syndicated and averaged 4.25 million listeners per week.

The positions he has taken to achieve this status are remarkably diverse and often contradictory. For instance, Boortz has a rather progressive stance on some social issues (angering most conservatives), such as abortion rights, same-sex marriage, ending the “war on drugs,” and supporting various other civil liberties. Yet at the same time he is adamant about reducing the federal government’s tax and regulatory powers (pleasing most conservatives).

When it comes to taxes, Boortz advocates doing away with income tax, payroll taxes, estate taxes and the like and replacing them with a national retail sales tax. He has written a book on the subject, co-authored with Georgia Congressman John Linder, entitled The Fair Tax Book.

Leaving aside his tax-reform idea for the moment, Boortz’s view of the regulatory powers of the federal government is dangerously naive. He seems unaware that in the United States the ability to create and protect the civil liberties he supports comes from the legislative action of a strong federal government that then oversees the implementation of those laws against historically prejudiced, racist state and local governments.

The same dangerous naivete is revealed in Boortz’s promotion of “small government” and “deregulation” of the economy so as to promote “personal responsibility.” These are typical Tea Party positions and they too betray historical ignorance.

It has become clear to the less ideologically driven economic historians that, ever since the end of World War II, the only thing that has prevented another Great Depression (and, in essence, smoothed out potential depressions into periodic economic recessions) is, once again, effective and consistent government regulation.

As the savings and loan fiasco of the 1980s and 1990s and other more recent bank crises have shown, if you start deregulating strategic parts of the economy (as happened under Ronald Reagan), the capitalists will immediately revert to acts of maximum (and self-destructive) greed.

When it comes to foreign policy, Boortz favors an aggressive, interventionist approach to “fight terrorism” and “spread freedom.” After the 9/11 attacks, Boortz repeatedly complained about the “lack of Muslim outrage” over the event. In this Boortz shares an almost universal American provincialism. He fails to realize the causal connection between traditional American foreign policy in the Middle East (and elsewhere) and the terrorist attacks the U.S. has suffered.

He is also ignorant of the fact that after the 9/11 attacks Muslims worldwide condemned terrorism and expressed sympathy for the American victims. At the local level this sympathy was expressed by thousands of mosque-based sermons declaring that the al-Qaida attacks were “un-Islamic.”

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

June 10, 2013
 |

Washington was struggling to contain one of the most explosive national security leaks in US history on Monday, as public criticism grew of the sweeping surveillance state revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Political opinion was split, with some members of Congress calling for the immediate extradition of a man they consider a “defector” but other senior politicians from both parties questioning whether US surveillance practices had gone too far.

Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who revealed secrets of the Vietnam war through the so-called Pentagon Papers in 1971, described Snowden’s leak as even more important and perhaps the most significant leak in American history.

In London, the British foreign secretary, William Hague, was forced to defend the UK’s use of intelligence gathered by the US. Other European leaders also voiced concern.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is expected to grill Obama next week, during a much-awaited summit in Berlin. Peter Schaar, Germany’s federal data protection commissioner, told the Guardian it was unacceptable for the US authorities to have access to EU citizens’ data, and that the level of protection is lower than that guaranteed to US citizens.

In Washington, the Obama administration offered no indication on Monday about what it intended to do about Snowden, who was praised by privacy campaigners but condemned by some US politicians keen for him to be extradited from Hong Kong and put on trial.

The White House made no comment beyond a short statement released by a spokesman for the US director of national intelligence on Sunday. Shawn Turner said Snowden’s case had been referred to the Justice Department, and that US intelligence was assessing the damage caused by the disclosures.

“Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law,” Turner said.

Snowden disclosed his identity in an explosive interview with the Guardian, published on Sunday. He revealed he was a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden worked at the National Security Agency for the past four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

He left for Hong Kong on 20 May. He chose Hong Kong because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent”.

In his interview, Snowden revealed himself as the source for a series of articles in the Guardian last week, which included disclosures of a wide-ranging secret court order that demanded Verizon pass to the NSA the details of phone calls related to millions of customers, and a huge NSA intelligence system called Prism, which collects data on intelligence targets from the systems of some of the biggest tech companies.

Snowden said he had become disillusioned with the overarching nature of government surveillance in the US. “The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to,” he said.

“My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.”

Snowden drew support from civil liberty activists and organisations. Ellsberg wrote for the Guardian: “In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden’s release of NSA material — and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago”.

Thomas Drake, a former NSA executive who famously leaked information about what he considered a wasteful data-mining program at the agency, said of Snowden: “He’s extraordinarily brave and courageous.”

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

This file photo shows a Russian S-300 missile defense system.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Two bomb attacks have hit a square in the Syrian capital, Damascus, with early reports indicating that there may be casualties.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The British police have arrested a man in connection with a blast that hit the constituency office of Conservative planning minister Nick Boles.

Bolesâ„¢s office was attacked by a home-made bomb thrown through a window of the building early on Monday.

The Conservative MP was not in his office at the time of the attack, which caused minor damage to the Conservative Association office in Bourne, Lincolnshire.

Boles, who represents the Grantham and Stamford constituency in Lincolnshire, condemned the bombing as an Å“act of violence”.

“Officers attended the scene and minor damage had been caused to the building. No one had been hurt,” the police said.

“Initial inquiries were carried out and a 24-year-old local man was arrested in connection with the incident,” the force added.

Media reports have quoted local residents as saying the office was hit by two explosions rather than one.

AMR/HE

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The Shenzhou-9 blasts off from the Jiuquan space base, northwest China’s Gansu province in the remote Gobi desert on June 16, 2012.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A Turkish riot police officer prepares to fire a tear gas canister during running battles with demonstrators, central Ankara, June 11, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says he does not plan on replacing European Commission (EC) president Jose Manuel Barroso despite speculation.

“I decided that I want to remain Polish prime minister and that until 2015 I will engage only in domestic issues,” Tusk said on national television on Monday, adding that he planned on leading his Civic Platform party to victory in 2015 parliamentary elections.

The announcement comes as many EU officials had seen the Polish premier as a leading candidate to replace the EC president because of pro-European credentials. Barrosoâ„¢s term will come to an end in 2014.

“I’m aware that some opportunity has appeared, but when I weigh what’s important for me as a man, I will not experience any greater honor, satisfaction, than that of the role of prime minister. To be a Polish premier is 100 times more important for me than any European promotion,” the Polish prime minister added.

However, analysts say Tusk may seek a position in the EC after the next elections.

During a radio interview last week, Tusk said he would be a Å“good candidate” for EC president, but said that he would announce plans to seek the position later in the summer.

In Poland, speculations regarding Tuskâ„¢s departure to Brussels had led several leading political figures to eye his position.

Under financial pressure, the prime ministerâ„¢s popularity has slumped over the past year.

Opinion polls suggest that his party has been overtaken by the conservative opposition Law and Justice Party.

Europe plunged into financial crisis in early 2008 and most European governments have taken tough austerity measures to contain their debt crises.

SZH/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

This article has been generously contributed by Michael Snyder. You can follow his regular writings, research and analysis at The Economic Collapse Blog and The American Dream. Read his recent book The Beginning of the End to get an idea of what America may look like in the very near future.

Are you on the list? Are you one of the millions of Americans that have been designated a threat to national security by the U.S. government? Will you be subject to detention when martial law is imposed during a major national emergency? As you will see below, there is actually a list that contains the names of at least 8 million Americans known as Main Core that the U.S. intelligence community has been compiling since the 1980s. A recent article on Washington’s Blog quoted a couple of old magazine articles that mentioned this program, and I was intrigued because I didn’t know what it was. So I decided to look into Main Core, and what I found out was absolutely stunning — especially in light of what Edward Snowden has just revealed to the world. It turns out that the U.S. government is not just gathering information on all of us. The truth is that the U.S. government has used this information to create a list of threats to national security that the government would potentially watch, question or even detain during a national crisis. If you have ever been publicly critical of the government, there is a very good chance that you are on that list.

The following is how Wikipedia describes Main Core…

Main Core is the code name of a database maintained since the 1980s by the federal government of the United States. Main Core contains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security. The data, which comes from the NSA, FBI, CIA, and other sources, is collected and stored without warrants or court orders. The database’s name derives from the fact that it contains “copies of the ‘main core’ or essence of each item of intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community.”

It was Christopher Ketchum of Radar Magazine that first reported on the existence of Main Core. At the time, the shocking information that he revealed did not get that much attention. That is quite a shame, because it should have sent shockwaves across the nation…

According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, “There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources tell Radar that the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

Of course, federal law is somewhat vague as to what might constitute a “national emergency.” Executive orders issued over the last three decades define it as a “natural disaster, military attack, [or] technological or other emergency,” while Department of Defense documents include eventualities like “riots, acts of violence, insurrections, unlawful obstructions or assemblages, [and] disorder prejudicial to public law and order.” According to one news report, even “national opposition to U.S. military invasion abroad” could be a trigger.

So if that list contained 8 million names all the way back in 2008, how big might it be today?

That is a very frightening thing to think about.

Later on in 2008, Tim Shorrock of Salon.com also reported on Main Core…

Dating back to the 1980s and known to government insiders as “Main Core,” the database reportedly collects and stores – without warrants or court orders – the names and detailed data of Americans considered to be threats to national security. According to several former U.S. government officials with extensive knowledge of intelligence operations, Main Core in its current incarnation apparently contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies. One former intelligence official described Main Core as “an emergency internal security database system” designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law.

So why didn’t this information get more attention at the time?

Well, if Obama had lost the 2008 election it might have. But Obama won in 2008 and the liberal media assumed that he would end many of the abuses that were happening under Bush. Of course that has not happened at all. In fact, Obama has steadily moved the police state agenda ahead aggressively.  Edward Snowden has just made that abundantly clear to the entire world.

After 2008, it is unclear exactly what happened to Main Core. Did it expand, change names, merge with other programs or get superseded by a new program? It appears extremely unlikely that it simply faded away. In light of what we have just learned about NSA snooping, someone should ask our politicians some very hard questions about Main Core. According to Christopher Ketchum, the exact kind of NSA snooping that Edward Snowden has just described was being used to feed data into the Main Core database…

A host of publicly disclosed programs, sources say, now supply data to Main Core. Most notable are the NSA domestic surveillance programs, initiated in the wake of 9/11, typically referred to in press reports as “warrantless wiretapping.” In March, a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal shed further light onto the extraordinarily invasive scope of the NSA efforts: According to the Journal, the government can now electronically monitor “huge volumes of records of domestic e-mails and Internet searches, as well as bank transfers, credit card transactions, travel, and telephone records.” Authorities employ “sophisticated software programs” to sift through the data, searching for “suspicious patterns.” In effect, the program is a mass catalog of the private lives of Americans. And it’s notable that the article hints at the possibility of programs like Main Core. “The [NSA] effort also ties into data from an ad-hoc collection of so-called black programs whose existence is undisclosed,” the Journal reported, quoting unnamed officials. “Many of the programs in various agencies began years before the 9/11 attacks but have since been given greater reach.”

The following information seems to be fair game for collection without a warrant: the e-mail addresses you send to and receive from, and the subject lines of those messages; the phone numbers you dial, the numbers that dial in to your line, and the durations of the calls; the Internet sites you visit and the keywords in your Web searches; the destinations of the airline tickets you buy; the amounts and locations of your ATM withdrawals; and the goods and services you purchase on credit cards. All of this information is archived on government supercomputers and, according to sources, also fed into the Main Core database.

This stuff is absolutely chilling.

And there have been hints that such a list still exists today.

For example, the testimony of an anonymous government insider that was recently posted on shtfplan.com alluded to such a list…

“We know all this already,” I stated. He looked at me, giving me a look like I’ve never seen, and actually pushed his finger into my chest. “You don’t know jack,” he said, “this is bigger than you can imagine, bigger than anyone can imagine. This administration is collecting names of sources, whistle blowers and their families, names of media sources and everybody they talk to and have talked to, and they already have a huge list. If you’re not working for MSNBC or CNN, you’re probably on that list. If you are a website owner with a brisk readership and a conservative bent, you’re on that list. It’s a political dissident list, not an enemy threat list,” he stated.

What in the world is happening to America?

What in the world are we turning into?

As I mentioned in a previous article, the NSA gathers 2.1 million gigabytes of data on all of us every single hour. The NSA is currently constructing a 2 billion dollar data center out in Utah to store all of this data.

If you are disturbed by all of this, now is the time to stand up and say something. If this crisis blows over and people forget about all of this stuff again, the Big Brother surveillance grid that is being constructed all around us will just continue to grow and continue to become even more oppressive.

America is dying right in front of your eyes and time is running out. Please stand up and be counted while you still can.

Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years. Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The American Dream. If you want to know what things in America are going to look like in a few years read his new book The Beginning of the End.

This article originally appeared on: SHTF Plan

Anti-capitalist campaigners will protest in London later today in a Å“show of anger” at the Group of Eight countries, ahead of their summit next week in Northern Ireland.

The Stop G8 campaign group, which has organized the demonstrations, has published a map of the location of international banks, hedge funds and other targets where people can meet capitalists head-on.

“For billionaires, dictators, and other parasites London is a safe place to hide out, launder money, and go shopping,” the Stop G8 group said on its website.

“These people are not untouchable. They are right here on our doorstep, and they have names and addresses,” it added.

Tuesday is part of the Stop G8â„¢s week of action that will lead to protests on June 17 and 18, when the G8 leaders are to meet in Northern Ireland.

The map published by the campaign group features some 100 addresses of the Å“hiding places of power” in the West End London including the US embassy and banks and hedge funds owned by the Israeli regime, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Some of the locations will be targeted by todayâ„¢s anti-capitalist street party named the Piccadilly Circus.

The West End of London is home to several elite areas like Piccadilly, Mayfair and Knightsbridge where, according to Stop G8, Å“power and greed are most concentrated”.

The group said they want to take back the central part of the British capital from the powerful, who Å“feel safe in London so long as they go unchallenged”, for at least a day, by protesting at their hiding places.

AMR/HE

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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Iranian presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei says strengthening ties with regional countries will be the priority of his administrationâ„¢s foreign policy if he gets elected.

In a televised interview on Monday, Rezaei said he plans to bypass the current sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic and avoid new sanctions by enhancing relations with regional countries.

Å“We will establish an Asian union by inviting the leaders of regional countries,” Rezaei stated.

The presidential candidate, who is currently the secretary of Iranâ„¢s Expediency Council, added that he plans to reduce inflation by addressing issues such as the budget deficit, economic sanctions, domestic production and subsidies.

Stressing his intention to continue certain economic policies such as the subsidy reform plan, Rezaei said he would add 650,000 rials to the amount of subsidies currently being paid to the people.

Rezaei is facing five rivals, namely, President of the Expediency Councilâ„¢s Center for Strategic Research Hassan Rohani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi.

Two other candidates, former First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, and former Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel withdrew their candidacy bids earlier.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election. This yearâ„¢s election will be held on June 14.

Nearly 50.5 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

MYA/HSN/HJL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights has condemned the Israeli regime for its long-time occupation of Palestinian territories and violation of the human rights of the Palestinians.

Richard Falk made the remarks on Monday while presenting his latest report at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Å“Forty-six years ago today Israel’s occupation of Palestine began. Six days of war has turned into 46 years of occupation,” Falk told the Geneva forum.

He described the treatment of Å“thousands of Palestinians detained or imprisoned by Israel” as being Å“extremely worrisome,” and called for an international inquiry into the situation of Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

He said there are 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli custody at the moment and 750,000 Palestinians have gone through detention in Israeli jails since the regimeâ„¢s occupation of the Palestinian territories began in 1967.

The Israeli violations were happening on a Å“massive scale,” and included detention without charges, Å“torture and other forms of ill, inhumane and humiliating treatment,” solitary confinement and the denial of family visits, the UN rapporteur said.

Falk, who visited Gaza in December 2012, also called on the Tel Aviv regime to end the blockade of Gaza, which he said is a Å“collective punishment of 1.75 million Palestinians.”

Å“With 70 percent of the population dependent on international aid for survival and 90 percent of the water unfit for human consumption, drastic and urgent changes are urgently required if Palestinians in Gaza are to have their most basic rights protected,” he added.

The representatives of the Israeli regime and the United States were absent as the UN rapporteur made his comments.

SAB/HN/HJL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranâ„¢s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi says the establishment of peace and security in the region is the top priority of the Islamic Republic.

Salehi made the remark in a meeting with Australiaâ„¢s new Ambassador to Tehran Paul Foley on Monday, where he also stressed the importance of Iranâ„¢s geopolitical position in the region.

The Iranian foreign minister also commented on the ongoing crisis in Syria and said terrorism and extremism were two major risks that threatened the entire region.

The foreign-sponsored militancy in Syria has been taken its toll on the lives of many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel, since March 2011.

Salehi expressed hope that the international community would make collective efforts to bring peace and stability to Syria.

Iran has repeatedly voiced opposition to any foreign intervention in the internal affairs of Syria. Tehran says inclusive dialog and national reconciliation as well as free elections are the keys to resolving the unrest in the country.

Meanwhile, the new Australian envoy to Tehran praised Iranâ„¢s historical and cultural grandeur and hoped for the further development of ties between Tehran and Canberra.

In a separate development, Iranâ„¢s foreign minister also met with Germanyâ„¢s outgoing Ambassador to Tehran Brand Erbel on Monday. During the meeting, Salehi called for the development of bilateral relations in the fields of trade and industry between Iran and Germany.

Erbel, for his part, lauded Iranâ„¢s numerous capacities and said Germany would proceed with efforts to promote relations with Iran in the field of science and technology.

YH/HSN/HJL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Israeli settlement construction on the West Bank has accelerated to a seven-year high as Israel and the Palestinians face lingering diplomatic obstacles to peace negotiations.

Israeli NGO Peace Now released a report detailing the
construction activities in the first quarter of 2013 on Sunday,
saying that “between January 2013 and March 2013, construction
of 865 new housing units began.” It adds that “If compared
to the final quarter of last year (October-December 2012), this
is an astonishing 355 per cent increase.”

In the meantime, US Secretary of State John Kerry readies his
fifth trip to Israeli and Palestinian lands in order to broker
negotiations between the two, which have been at an impasse for
three years now. Kerry had said the week before that time was
running out for a peace deal and that he feared that if this
attempt fails, there may not be another chance to get Israel and
the Palestinians talking.

Kerry has had to postpone his latest Israeli trip due to a White
House talk on Syria, according to an official statement to AFP.
Official and media sources said Kerry was supposed to meet with
Israeli President Shimon Peres on June 11, but one source then
added that the delay had been put in place to allow more time for
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to decide if he wants to stop
insisting that Israel put a hold on their settlement expansion.

The Palestinian pre-conditions for talks hinge on the Israelis
stopping their settlement construction in the West Bank —
something Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu says he cannot,
and will not, do. While the Palestinian Authority urges that
everyone remember the borders that existed between the two before
the 1967 War, when Israel took control of Gaza and the West Bank
— Netanyahu demands talks “without preconditions,”
refusing to stop building settlements.

Peace Now adds to the Palestinian argument, saying that “any
government committed to peace would not allow, nor continue to
build settlements that inevitably harm the chances for
peace.” It goes on to say that, “These findings provide
further evidence of a continuing government policy to prioritize
settlement expansion.”

Netanyahu has occasionally clarified his position on the
settlements, saying he does not believe the matter of the
settlement housing 360,000 Israelis to be an obstacle to
negotiations — though he admitted that withdrawing from smaller,
isolated settlements is an option.

“We need to be smart not just right,” Netanyahu told MPs.
“Settlement in the blocs will not significantly affect the
ability to reach an agreement.”

He went on, however, to say that sharing a country with the
Palestinians was out of the question. “If we go into direct
negotiations, it is likely to be very hard, but the alternative
of a bi-national state is one we do not want,” Netanyahu
said.

Speaking on the possibility of a two-state solution, which he
advocated back in 2009, Netanyahu said he imagined the agreement
“will be based on a demilitarized Palestinian state that
recognizes the Jewish state, and on firm security arrangements
based on the [Israeli Defense Forces].”

Abbas’s cabinet retorted that Netanyahu’s words were themselves
preconditions and that he was trying to leave Abbas without a
choice in the matter.

“It is very clear that the comments of Netanyahu and his
government show that he is preparing to place the blame on
President Mahmud Abbas,” a Palestinian official told AFP.
“This is the start of trying to shift responsibility for the
non-resumption of negotiations to the president and the
Palestinian leadership.”

This article originally appeared on: RT

This article originally appeared on: RT

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Police have entered the iconic Takism Square in the Turkish city of Istanbul, the heart of the recent anti-government demonstrations.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Alaa (R) and Gamal Mubarak, sons of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, stand inside a cage in a courtroom during their verdict hearing in Cairo on June 2, 2012.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has once again condemned the US drone strikes as violation of sovereignty of Pakistan.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed former German diplomat Martin Kobler as his special envoy to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Kobler, currently UN top envoy in Iraq and previously deputy UN representative in Afghanistan, succeeds former US diplomat Roger Meece who will complete his assignment in July, Reuters reported.

On Monday, Ban said that Kobler “brings with him a vast experience in shaping international policies in conflict areas” and praised Meece’s “outstanding contribution and dedicated service for the past three years.”

Kobler will head the existing 17,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, which will shortly include a new UN Intervention Brigade of 3,000 troops tasked with neutralizing armed groups in the troubled east.

The most recent round of the peace negotiations between the Congolese government and the March 23 Movement (M23) rebels, convened by the Conference on the Great Lakes Region under the chairmanship of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, broke down in April.

Several armed groups, including the M23 rebels, are active in the east of the DRC and fighting for control of the countryâ„¢s vast mineral resources, such as gold, the main tin ore cassiterite, and coltan (columbite-tantalite), which is used to make many electronic devices, including cell phones.

The M23 rebels seized Goma on November 20 after UN peacekeepers gave up the battle for the frontier city of one million people. M23 fighters withdrew from the city on December 1 under a ceasefire accord.

The M23 rebels defected from the Congolese army in April 2012 in protest over alleged mistreatment in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) had previously been integrated into the Congolese army under a peace deal signed in 2009.

Since early May 2012, nearly 3 million people have fled their homes in the eastern Congo. About 2.5 million have resettled in Congo, but more than 460,000 have crossed into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.

Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on since 1998 and left over 5.5 million people dead.

MN/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Community activists are furious over a new video that appears to show Brooklyn police roughly detaining a gay man and pepper-spraying him while hurling homophobic slurs at his friends.

The incident took place at approximately 4:00 am on Sunday, June
2 when an NYPD officer reportedly accused Josh Williams, a
26-year-old waiter who lives in the Williamsburg section of
Brooklyn, of public urination outside Brooklyn’s 79th Police
Precinct. Williams and his roommates, Tony Maenza and Ben
Collins, claimed he was innocent of the claim, at which point the
officer “snapped.” 

“He rolled his eyes and sort of snapped, twisting an arm
behind my back and slamming me against a car,” Williams said.
“I was able to ask him what was going on, and he slammed me
against the car and pepper-sprayed me. I was blinded and
disoriented.” 

The video recorded by Maenza and Collins and posted online shows
more officers rushing to the scene, crowding the two away from
Williams with vulgar threats. Williams is shown being held
against a fence before being thrown to the ground. His friends
were also detained after demanding the officers’ badge numbers
and telling them the entire assault had been caught on
film. 

“I believe they arrested us because when the last officer who
called us faggots, Tony told him that we had the incident on
video, and I’m sure he relayed that information inside and they
then decided to follow us outside and arrested us,” Collins
told the Village Voice. 

“It felt as if we were an exhibit at a zoo,” he continued.
“It felt demeaning and dehumanizing to be treated this way.
Our safety concerns ignored by the officers.” 

The NYPD informed the Voice that the incident would be subject to
an internal investigation, but the excessive force and homophobic
taunts have already caught the attention of LGBT groups in the
city. 

“This case is so extreme in how the encounter escalated so
fast over something so silly and turned so violent,” said
Cynthia Conti-Cook, Williams’ attorney. “Based on how the
incident started, there’s very little to justify such extreme
action other than homophobia.” 

Anti-gay hate crimes have increased by 70 per cent so far in
2013, with city officials offering special self-defense classes
for anyone who feels they may be at risk. A gay couple was
recently assaulted outside Madison Square Garden, raising the
number of bias-related crimes up to 24, according to NBC News,
ten more than the 14 reported during the same time period in
2012. 

The New York City Anti-Violence Project announced it will hold a
press conference on June 11 at 2:00 pm EST to address both the
incident in question and the broader unease.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Turkish police use water cannon and tear gas trying to disperse thousands of protesters in central Ankara on June 8, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

In 1994, the Mexican military faced an uprising by the Zapatistas in Chiapas state.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked detailed National Security Agency documents on how information is stockpiled on millions of Americans, said he could have “shut down the surveillance system in an afternoon” had he intended to harm the US.

Snowden, 29, said that by releasing the trove of documents to The
Guardian and Washington Post last week his only goal was to
inform US citizens on how the government continues to gather
phone and computer information about them under the Patriot Act
of 2001.

“The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for
America, of these disclosures, is that nothing will change,”
he told The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald in an interview published
June 8. 

“People will see, in the media, all of these disclosures.
They’ll know the lengths that the government is going to grant
themselves powers, unilaterally, to create greater control over
American society and global society.”

“But they won’t be willing to take the risks necessary to
stand up and fight to change things, and force their
representatives to actually take a stand in their interests,”
Snowden continued. “In the months and years ahead it’s only
going to get worse, until there’s a time where policies will
change because the only thing that restricts the activities of
the surveillance state is policy.” 

Snowden revealed his identity from Hong Kong, where he fled on
May 20 from his position with the defense contractor Booz Allen
Hamilton. A former technical assistant for the Central
Intelligence Agency, Snowden had been working with the NSA
earning approximately $200,000 per year and living in
Hawaii. 

“I’m willing to sacrifice all that because I can’t in good
conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, Internet
freedom and basic liberties for people all around the world with
this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building,”
he told The Guardian. 

Snowden copied the last of the documents he planned to release
three weeks ago, telling his bosses he needed time off to be
treated for epilepsy. He has also said he has a girlfriend who
was unaware of his plans to seek refuge in Hong Kong, an
ignorance Snowden said is not an “uncommon occurrence for
someone who has spent the last decade working in the intelligence
world.” 

He was last seen checking out of his Hong Kong hotel on Monday,
ahead of likely US extradition requests with influential
lawmakers calling for his prosecution or even possible
extrajudicial rendition. 

If Snowden’s story sounds like it was ripped from the pages of a
Cold War spy novel, he seems aware of his role as the story’s
main character. The whistleblower comes off easily in the little
video footage that has been released of him. As the New Yorker
put it, he does not have the affect of “a haunted informant in
the dark corner of a bar.” 

Snowden was raised in North Carolina then moved to Maryland
before dropping out of high school, although he earned an
equivalency degree. He spent five months in the Army, where — he
told The Guardian — he “broke both legs in a training
accident.” He was eventually recruited by the intelligence
community and spent time in Geneva, Switzerland before taking a
job in Hawaii with Booz Allen. 

While Snowden said he sought refuse in Hong Kong because of the
region’s premium on free speech, international security experts
warned that if he is trying to keep out of the US government’s
grasp, permanent residence in the special administrative Chinese
city could prove dangerous. Snowden said he is also considering
asylum in Iceland, while Russian authorities said they would
consider granting him political asylum if approached. 

During his recent visit with US President Barack Obama, Xi
Jingping, the president of the People’s Republic of China, pushed
for warmer relations with America. Those hopes would certainly be
dashed by a decision from Beijing allowing Snowden political
asylum. 

“Hong King, they should not make the decision. They have to
listen to Beijing,” Shen Dingli, a foreign policy analyst at
Fudan University in Shanghai, told NPR. “China will not take him. We don’t want
to be implicated in such a case, which will not be good for
building a new type of great power
relationship.” 

Snowden, while confessing no regret for the information dump,
admitted the road ahead could be a long one. 

“All my options are bad,” he said. “We have got a CIA
station just up the road — the consulate here in Hong Kong — and
I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And
that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life,
however long that happens to be.”

This article originally appeared on: RT

Iraqis gather at the site of a car bombing in Baghdadâ„¢s Sadr City. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranâ„¢s highest electoral supervisory body, the Guardian Council, has dismissed media reports that it will bar reformist presidential candidate Hassan Rohani from running in the June 14 election.

Å“The reports are not true. Of course, we have cautioned some candidates for some incidents that happened during their campaigns, and they have acknowledged them. But I donâ„¢t think, in such a short period of time, the council will try to consider disapproving any of them,” Guardian Council Spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei said on Monday.

He added that the council — a 12-member body consisting of six jurists and six clergymen — can disapprove any candidate according to Article 58 of the election law if he breaks the law in his campaign.

Some media outlets had earlier reported that the Guardian Council was considering disapproving Rohani.

The six candidates in Iranâ„¢s presidential election are Hassan Rohani, who is the president of the Expediency Councilâ„¢s Center for Strategic Research, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi.

On June 10, former candidates Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel and Mohammad Reza Aref dropped out of the presidential election.

In an official statement, former Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel said he would continue to make efforts to help the principlist camp win the election.

Haddad-Adel said he stepped aside after evaluating the situation and the reality on the ground.

Former Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref announced his decision to drop out of the election in a statement issued late on Monday, in which he said the decision was made after he received suggestions from former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who advised to stand aside.

The reformist also called on the Iranian people to vote en masse in the upcoming presidential election to create a political epic and maintain the dignity of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election after the Guardian Council vets the candidates.

Nearly 50.5 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

MP/HGL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Reformist presidential candidate bids farewell to a group of his supporters in the central city of Isfahan on June 9, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/we_still_need_this_debate_20130610/

Posted on Jun 10, 2013

This article originally appeared on: TruthDig

The US State Department may have hushed up allegations of misconduct by its employees worldwide that range from soliciting prostitutes to getting narcotics from a drug ring, a report says.

The CBS News uncovered on Monday a memo that showed the departmentâ„¢s security force, the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), tried to cover up sex and drugs charges against agents and diplomats working for the State Department.

The DSS is responsible for protecting nearly 70,000 employees at the State Department and 275 US embassies around the world.

The memo by the State Department inspector general made direct reference to eight specific cases in which inquiries into alleged criminal activities by diplomatic security agents or contractors were “influenced, manipulated, or simply called off” by more senior officials.

The cases included an unnamed US ambassador who repeatedly solicited prostitutes, a security official “engaged in sexual assaults” on foreign nationals hired as embassy guards in Beirut, and the members of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security team who “engaged prostitutes while on official trips in foreign countries.”

The ambassador involved in the case was called to Washington D. C. to have a meeting with Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy about the issue but was permitted to go back to his regular duties, the report said.

The document also revealed details of an alleged “underground drug ring” close to the US embassy in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, which provided the DSS staffers with drugs.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Monday did not deny any of the allegations in the CBS report, but refused to go into details.

“We take allegations of misconduct seriously and we investigate thoroughly. All cases mentioned in the CBS report were thoroughly investigated or are under investigation,” she said.

MA/AS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The Persian Gulf state of Qatar has been preparing for major leadership transitions in its body, Arab and Western diplomats say.

On Monday, senior figures said that Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, who also serves as the foreign minister, is preparing to step down.

The Persian Gulf Stateâ„¢s prime ministerâ„¢s resignation seems to be part of a larger transition. There are reports that the Emir — Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani — is also expected to give up power to crown prince Sheikh Tamim.

Despite briefing foreign counterparts in the US, Britain, France as well as key regional countries including Saudi Arabia and Iran about the plan, officials in Qatar did not release an exact timetable for the succession.

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa who is struggling with health problems seized power from his father in a bloodless coup in 1995.

IA/AS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The Syrian Army has made more gains in its fight against foreign-backed militants across the country, less than a week after the decisive takeover of the strategic city Qusayr.

On Monday, the army troops killed at least 35 foreign-backed militants in an ambush in Ghouta, an eastern suburb of the capital Damascus.

The troops seized different types of weapons as they fought the militants.

Army units also restored security to villages in the central province of Hama. They also repelled an attack on the 17th Division base in the northeastern province of Raqqa.

Meanwhile, Syrians in the western province of Homs rallied to celebrate the liberation of Qusayr. People marched through the streets waving Syrian flags and chanting slogans.

Last week, Syrian troops established control over the city of Qusayr following weeks of heavy clashes with foreign-backed militants.

Syrian troops were backed by forces from the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah during the Qusayr operation.

The Syrian Army is now in control of most of the towns and villages near the border with Lebanon.

The Syria crisis began in March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.

The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.

Damascus says the West and its regional allies, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, are supporting the militants.

MN/AS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili, the commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base (file photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Documents obtained from an internal watchdog for the US State Department have revealed the potential coverup of alleged illegal behavior ranging from sexual assaults to an underground drug ring.

According to CBS News, which first reported on the information
obtained from a memo produced by the Diplomatic Security Service
(DSS), that agency has followed leads on a number of cases that
implicate the State Department in potentially damaging and
illegal situations.

Aurelia Fedenisn, a former internal investigator, told CBS News
that DDS agents were often told to go easy with investigations of
high-ranking members of the State Department — a working
environment that only allowed criminal behavior to continue, she
says.

The DSS memo contains information on at least eight examples of
improprieties, like claims that a State Department official in
Beirut, Lebanon had “engaged in
sexual assaults” of foreign nationals employed as embassy
guards. The memo further included information that members of
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security detail had
“engaged prostitutes while on
official trips in foreign countries,” characterizing the
issue as “endemic.”

It is possible that State Department staff were trying to avoid
unwanted publicity, such as that generated by a prostitution
scandal in Colombia which involved 11 Secret Service agents and
five military servicemen in 2012. That controversy partly
derailed US participation in that year’s Summit of the Americas.

Fedenisn was part of the team that drafted a whistleblower report
detailing another coverup, this one involving a US ambassador
suspected of soliciting prostitutes at a public park. According
to that report the high-ranking official was allowed to return to
his post despite having “ditched” his protective security
detail in order to engage with the sex workers.

The undersecretary of state for management, Patrick Kennedy,
reportedly interviewed that ambassador, who shortly thereafter
returned to his post without being disciplined.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told Foreign Policy
Magazine that Kennedy is “not a
central player in this at all.”

“Depending on the facts, an
investigation may result in administrative action or criminal
charges, or it may be concluded without further action,”
added Jen Psaki, a colleague of Ventrell.

The report indicates that State Department agents claim they were
told to stop investigating certain cases, for example that of the
ambassador who had solicited sex workers. CBS News also reports
that two hours after the whistleblower report surfaced,
investigators from the State Department’s Inspector General
showed up at Fedenisn’s residence.

According to a draft of a report prepared for the Inspector
General’s office, the “hindering” of investigations into
misconduct “calls into question
the integrity of the investigative process” and
“can result in
counterintelligence vulnerabilities.” That line was later
removed from the final version of the report, Fedenisn says,
after a high-ranking security official told her that “this is going to kill us.”

This article originally appeared on: RT

Yemenis protest the killing of Shia Houthis in Sanaâ„¢a. (file photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Despite an increasing level of uncertainty surrounding his conviction, Valentino Dixon continues to be imprisoned at the Attica Correctional facility in upstate New York for a 1991 crime that another man has confessed to.

Dixon told the Associated Press he was near a street corner on
the East Side of Buffalo, New York when he heard someone firing a
gun into a crowd. Four people were sent to the hospital but
Torriano Jackson, 17, was killed after being shot 27 times. 

Now 43 years old, Dixon said he could sense trouble brewing at
the time and went directly home after overhearing the shooting
from inside a liquor store. He was on bail for drug and weapons
possession at the time. The following day, police showed up at
his door to arrest him. 

“I wasn’t nervous,” he told the Associated Press from
inside the maximum security penitentiary. “I thought, ‘The
truth will come out.’”  

“To this day, I’m trying to figure out why they arrested me in
the first place,” he said, adding that more witnesses have
come forward to testify to Dixon’s innocence. “I’ve been
drawing the golf courses ever since.”  

“He’s had at least three appeal proceedings and each time the
courts have upheld his conviction,” said Belling, now a
senior trial counsel in the Erie County District Attorney’s
Office.  

Lamar Scott, then 18, confessed to the shooting, but Dixon says
Prosecutor Christopher Belling inexplicably ignored the
admission, saying Dixon’s family had coerced the statement from
Scott. 

Dixon’s case has attracted attention as his artwork has gained
notoriety. He now spends between 10 and 12 hours a day using
colored pencils to draw pictures of golf courses and other serene
outdoor settings. His case was profiled on the Golf Channel show
“In Play” in March of this year and, according to the Buffalo
News, Dixon’s work has been published in Golf Digest
magazine. 

The attention has not been enough to sway Belling, however, who
maintains that Dixon, not Scott, murdered Jackson. 

While her son is not due to be released until 2030, Barbara Dixon
insisted to the Buffalo News that Valentino, who dealt cocaine as
a teen, is now a productive member of society. Making the story
even more remarkable is that Dixon has never set foot on a golf
course. 

“I go and pick up his drawings every two months from the
prison, and when I look at them I feel amazed and proud,” she
told the Buffalo News last month. “This is not the artwork of
a murderer.” 

This article originally appeared on: RT

Presidential candidate Mohammad Gharazi during a press conference in Tehran on June 10, 2013

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to meet the leaders of the groups that have held anti-government demonstrations for the past 11 days.

After a cabinet meeting on Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said Erdogan would meet the protest leaders on Wednesday, but did not say exactly who would be invited to the meeting.

However, he added that “illegal demonstrations” would no longer be allowed in Turkey.

“Our prime minister has given an appointment to some of the groups leading these protests… They will be briefed on the facts and our prime minister will listen to their thoughts,” Arinc stated.

On Monday, Republican People’s Party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu advised Erdogan to stop escalating the tension.

He said Erdogan is “trying to hold on to power by creating tensions” and is “throwing society into the fire.”

On Sunday, Erdogan made a series of speeches in which he said there is a limit to his patience, demanded an end to the protests, and threatened to hold those who do not respect the government to account.

He also called on his supporters to stage major pro-government demonstrations in Ankara and Istanbul next weekend.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahceli called for early elections in order to end the turmoil.

For the past 11 days, tens of thousands of anti-government protesters have held demonstrations in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Mugla, Antalya, and many other cities and towns.

Two protesters and a policeman have been killed and almost 4,800 people have been injured in the unrest, according to the Turkish Human Rights Association.

Erdogan has been harshly criticized for the way he has handled the crisis, and Amnesty International has censured the Turkish police for using excessive force against peaceful protesters.

The anti-government unrest began on May 31 after police broke up a sit-in staged in Istanbulâ„¢s Taksim Square to protest against the demolition of Gezi Park.

The protesters say Gezi Park, which is a traditional gathering point for rallies and demonstrations as well as a popular tourist destination, is Istanbul’s last green public space.

IA/HGL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Reformist candidate Mohammad Reza Aref addresses a group of his supporters in the southeastern city of Kerman on June 10, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

US Secretary of State John Kerry has put off a visit to Israel this week to stay in Washington for the White Houseâ„¢s key meetings on Syria with the US close to deciding on arming the militants in the Arab countryâ„¢s conflict.

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Monday that Americaâ„¢s top diplomat would not take the trip this week as planned Å“to attend meetings in Washington.”

Kerry had been due to arrive in Israel on Tuesday, according to Israel HaYom, a newspaper considered close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The debate in Washington would have telling significance in charting the Obama administrationâ„¢s course on Syria as it weighs arming the militants now that the battlefield has tilted in favor of the Syrian forces.

Fredrick Hof, a former senior US official who worked on Syria policy and is now at a think tank, said on Monday that the White House may decide to provide the militants in Syria with weapons.

The desperate urge to finalize the US policy comes days after the Syrian troops, backed by Hezbollah forces, wrested the control of the town of Qusair, near the Lebanese border, and the villages in the strategic area from the militants.

The Syrian government is also preparing for a major offensive on areas in the northern city of Aleppo that are still under the control of the militants.

The Syrian army is now “deploying heavily in the countryside near Aleppo in preparation for a battle that will be fought inside the city and on its outskirts,” read an article in Syriaâ„¢s al-Watan newspaper on Monday.

Israeli minister for international affairs, strategy and intelligence Yuval Steinitz said on Monday that the Syrian forces would probably Å“gain the upper hand” in the fight against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The Assad’s government “might not just survive but even regain territories” from the militants, Steinitz said.

In June 2011, only three months into the crisis in Syria, Israelâ„¢s then-Minister of Military Affairs Ehud Barak predicted that Assad would fall Å“within weeks.”

MA/AS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Turkish police have used tear gas against protesters in Ankara on the eleventh day of anti-government demonstrations in the country.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV