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The United States Army private responsible for the biggest intelligence leak in US history will finally be tried in a military court starting Monday after more than three years of pretrial detainment.

The court-martial of Private first class Bradley Manning will
begin in Ft. Meade, Maryland this week and is slated to run
through the summer. Manning, 25, could be sentenced to spend the
rest of his life behind bars if convicted of aiding the enemy,
the most serious of the more than 20 counts he’s been charged
with by Army prosecutors.

US authorities arrested Manning in May 2010 and accused him of
sending hundreds of thousands of sensitive government files to
the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Earlier this year Manning
admitted to sharing the documents, including State Department
diplomatic cables and military war logs, and pleaded guilty to a
number of lesser counts carrying a maximum sentence of only 20
years. Prosecutors say those files benefited the operations of Al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, however, and are asking for life
in prison.

Dozens of witnesses are expected to be called during the trial,
including a handful of military personnel whose testimonies will
be conducted behind closed doors to protect the sensitive nature
pertaining to Manning’s alleged crimes. Pretrial hearings in the
case have been conducted off and on at Ft. Meade since late 2011,
but Manning himself has only had the opportunity to address the
court at length on a few occasions, including in February when he
testified to leaking the documents.

Speaking of the Iraq and Afghan war logs that were leaked by
Manning, he said at that hearing, “I believe and still believe
that these tables are two of the most significant documents of
our time.”

During Saturday’s rally in Maryland, former Defense Department
staffer Daniel Ellsberg said, “There would be tens of
thousands of American troops in Iraq right now and many others
would have died if Bradley Manning had not revealed
atrocities.”

Ellsberg, like Manning, was charged with violating the Espionage
Act after he gave military documents to the New York Times in
1971 that became known as the Pentagon Papers and has been
credited with many for helping end the Vietnam War. Manning
“saved American lives” by going to WikiLeaks, Ellsberg
said.

A vigil for Manning is planned for early Monday outside the gates
of Ft. Meade, and supporters that have traveled from around the
world to attend the proceedings hope to secure a seat in the
courtroom during the first day of hearings. The Army has already
set aside 12 weeks for the hearing and acknowledged last week
that hundreds of media organizations requested credentials to
cover the trial.

RT plans to provide updates on the case Monday and throughout the
trial.

This article originally appeared on: RT

It’s official: RT is the first TV news channel to reach 1 billion views on the video-sharing website YouTube, beating its long-established rivals to the mark.

RT is the first dedicated news network to join YouTube’s elite “1 billion club”,
more typically dominated by comedy clips, music videos and
entertainment shows produced by such networks as BBC or CBS.

“We proved that the mass YouTube audience isn’t just about
kittens and Justin Bieber. There’s real demand for serious news
online delivered in the right way,” RT chief online content
editor Kirill Karnovich-Valua comments on RT’s breakthrough.

“It’s a massive landmark,” Google VP and Head of Content
for YouTube Robert Kyncl commends RT’s achievement,attributing
the network’s success to “learning and earning” an online
viewer base.

To celebrate the success, RT will broadcast a special “Billion
Bulletin”, featuring our biggest viral stories and their heroes,
on Monday at 18:00 GMT – on air, online and of course on YouTube.

RT began broadcasting in 2005 — the same year YouTube came online
— challenging consensus positions in the news media mainstream
and reaching out to a savvy viewer base.

“Our viewers are people who think deeply about what is
happening in the world today. The things that really matter.
Those who get tired of, say, round-the-clock coverage of the
Royals, or a celebrity death. They are people with a broad range
of opinions,” says Karnovich-Valua.

After low returns from early ventures on YouTube, the channel
came to a policy decision. “YouTube must be a showcase of your
brand. Every posted clip must provoke a response, spark a
debate. That’s why we have a very selective editorial policy. Our
YouTube channel is a kind of a deep digest – where you can find a
dynamic mix of RT’s best news reports, raw videos, in-depth
documentaries and shows.”

“RT was one of the first TV channels to come to YouTube, and
one of the first to really ‘get’ the YouTube generation — those
who seek out videos themselves, and then share them with their
friends,” said Danielle Tiedt, YouTube’s VP of
marketing.

What at first seemed an underground phenomenon, relying entirely
on digital word-of-mouth, soon exploded to become one of the key
hubs of the internet. In turn, RT surfed the wave – 19,000 videos
have attracted over 6 million comments. 

As millions tuned in, the broadcast channel and RT on YouTube
found their voice (or rather, many articulate, persuasive, and
sometimes angry voices).

Keiser Report, the hard-hitting financial
show presented by Max Keiser with his wife Stacy Herbert has been
a hit since its launch in 2009. And while not everyone agrees
with his views, the endlessly watchable Nigel Farage has been known far longer to the
RT audience than most of the British electorate.

On of RT’s biggest coups was The
Julian Assange Show. Hundreds of thousands watched lengthy
and dense conversations between the WikiLeaks founder and some of
the world’s iconoclasts like Slavoj Zizek, Noam Chomsky, and
Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah.

Amid widespread media cheerleading during 2011’s Arab Spring,
RT’s experts and correspondents were
some of the first to anticipate the fallout of
the seismic political shift in the Middle East.

RT was the only large TV channel to send its cameras to what
seemed to be a marginal New York protest on September 17, 2011,
under the strange name of Occupy Wall Street. As that demonstration
grew into a worldwide phenomenon, encompassing millions in dozens
of countries, RT remained the portal of choice for Occupiers
everywhere.

Yet it’s not just big stories. Internet privacy and piracy, US
drones, GM-food safety — RT has produced arguably more
in-depth coverage of these 21st-century issues than any of its
rivals. 

“We know drone warfare always provokes heated debate among our
audience. There are so many issues there — freedom, security,
accountability — touch-paper issues to web users and this is the
conversation we want people to have,” says
Karnovich-Valua. 

Yet despite creating thousands of hours of specially-tailored
content, the most viewed videos are inevitably the awe-inspiring,
and often terrifying moments in which news media is merely the
witness. The cameramen are often not professionals, and sometimes
not even human, but the impact is undeniable.

RT’s most watched video, with nearly 38 million views, is of the
various recordings of the meteorite that hit Siberia earlier this year, while
the horror of witnessing the Japanese tsunami in March 2011 put a stop to the
endless verbal battles in the comments section as people from
around the world registered their shock.

“Videos like this are universal to audiences in the US, Europe
or Mexico. This is real life. And often people respond to just
being shown videos, where they can judge what is happening by
themselves,” says Karnovich-Valua.

Together with RT Spanish, Arabic and other programming, content
produced by RT has already been seen over 1.4 billion times.

So, what next?

“Our audience makes our news relevant itself — with their
ratings, shares and comments. It is the most rewarding thing,
working with an online audience — we will innovate and try new
projects, and we will see what our audience wants to
watch,” says Karnovich-Valua.

The next milestone is just around the corner. RT aims to become
the first news channel to attract 1 million loyal subscribers on
YouTube. So stay tuned, search on and Question More!

Igor Ogorodnev, RT

This article originally appeared on: RT

Iranian director Vahid Vakilifarâ„¢s second feature-length Taboor has been selected to contend for award at Olhar de Cinema International Film Festival in Brazil.

Taboor which means the naval of the earth in old mythology is about human beings trapped in the surrounding environment.

Distributed by the French company DreamLab Films, the movie was awarded at several international festivals such as the Criticâ„¢s Prize at the 15th Deauville Asian Film Festival in France in March, 2013.

Taboor also received the First Special Mention of the 2012 Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece and Special Jury Prize of the 2012 International Film Festival of Marrakech in Morocco.

Born in 1981, Vahid Vakilifar graduated in film directing from Iran’s Soureh University and worked as an assistant director on several features before starting his filmmaking career.

The 2013 Olhar de Cinema International Film Festival is programmed to take place in the Brazilian city of Curitiba from June 6 to 14.

FGP/FGP

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The Indian Express
June 2, 2013

Britain’s cash-for-questions row on Sunday got murkier as it claimed the scalp of three peers who have been accused of agreeing to carry out parliamentary work for money offered by undercover reporters.

Labour party suspended Lord Jack Cunningham, the former Cabinet minister, and Lord Brian Mackenzie of Framwellgate, the former police chief. Lord John Laird resigned the Ulster Unionist whip and has also referred himself to the House of Lords sleaze watchdog.

Undercover ‘Sunday Times’ reporters, posing as a South Korean solar energy company, secretly filmed Lord Cunningham, Lord Mackenzie and Lord Laird as they revealed their readiness to wield their influence in the halls of power to paying clients, escalating what is being referred to as ‘cash-for-questions’ row.

Read full article

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This article was posted: Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 10:29 pm

Tags: foreign affairs, government corruption

–>

This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Suzannah Hills
Daily Mail
June 2, 2013

The Foreign Office has warned against travel to various parts of Turkey except in cases of emergency following another day of rioting.

Tens of thousands took to the streets in the country’s four biggest cities yesterday — the third day of anti-government protests — with demonstrators clashing with riot police, who repelled them with tear gas.

The unrest initially erupted on Friday when trees were torn down at a park in Istanbul’s main Taksim Square under government plans to redevelop the area. But they have widened into a broad show of defiance against the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Read full article

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This article was posted: Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 10:35 pm

Tags: activism, foreign affairs

–>

This article originally appeared on: Infowars

There is no doubt the former soldier broke the law, but he didn’t sign up to ‘abandon his moral conscience’ and the leaks need to be put in context, Kevin Gosztola, author of Truth and Consequences the US against Bradley Manning, told RT.

RT: Kevin, it looks like Manning has got supporters all
over the world, do you think it has the potential of growing,
this support for him, if he does get a heavy sentence?

Kevin Gosztola: Well, we don’t know what he’s going to be
sentenced yet, so I wouldn’t put it in that way. I would suggest
that as people follow the trial over the course of this entire
summer as its going to last, that there will be more exposure of
his story that more around the world will be introduced to what
he did, his act, and it will resonate with people.

RT: The prosecution is playing on the dangers of leaked
information getting into Al Qaeda’s hands, what he did was leak
sensitive information, highly classified information. How
dangerous was that leak to US security?

KG: I haven’t seen any proof that it was dangerous to US
security yet, nor do I expect to see it. For two reasons, one if
they do present any proof, it will be behind closed doors during
the trail as it will be classified information, but also from
listening to Bradley Manning’s lawyer David Coombs speak, he has
said that what he been given shows that for the most part there
wasn’t any sort of damage. He’s gotten evidence back that said
there was something but they are not sure, their looking into it
and there’s nothing conclusive that Bradley Manning did harm
national security.

RT: But never the less he did leak information and he
signed up as a soldier not to do that, so he should be punished
shouldn’t he?

KG: Well, he signed up to be a soldier who followed the
rule of law, who abided by the constitution, I don’t think he
signed up to abandon his moral conscience and within the military
what he saw in the collateral murder video deeply disturbed him,
this Apache helicopter attack in 2007 in Baghdad in Iraq. He also
was aware that opponents of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki were
being turned over to Iraqi federal police and tortured and that
deeply bothered him, his role in that. So I think nobody expected
that this soldier would abandon that, so I think the question
becomes how much punishment should he endure? There’s no question
that he violated the law, but the larger question here with this
trial is what sort of punishment does he deserve for violating
the law, given that there has been such a great benefit because
of the release of information.

RT: As you say it’s going to be a lengthy trial so
we’re going to find out about that punishment much later on.
Briefly you’re the co-author of the book Truth and Consequences
the US against Bradley Manning, did you face any hindrance from
US authorities when doing your research? 

KG: I haven’t had any sort of persecution but what I would
say is there is really little access to court records so that’s a
limit on my ability to do reporting and then also I would share
that because his audio statement was leaked, the statement he
made on February 28th, there was a higher ranking military
officer who did scold the press and said that if it happened
again everyone in the media center would feel the heat.

This article originally appeared on: RT

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/father_greeley_loving_pugilist_20130602/

Posted on Jun 2, 2013

This article originally appeared on: TruthDig

A powerful earthquake has jolted Taiwan, killing two people and injuring 21 others, officials say.

The quake occurred at 1:43 p.m. local time (0543 GMT) on Sunday. It was centered 32 kilometers east of the central county of Nantou at a depth of ten kilometers, Taiwanâ„¢s Seismology Center said.

The center measured the tremorâ„¢s magnitude, which rattled buildings in the capital Taipei, at 6.3 on the Richter scale, but the US Geological Survey (USGS) put it at 6.2.

According to Taiwanâ„¢s National Fire Agency, a mountain climber lost his life when falling rocks hit him in Mount Ali in central Taiwan. The second victim was also killed after being knocked down by falling rocks.

Rescue operation is underway in Chushan town of Nantou to save a male angler.

Å“The rescuers have been working hard to search and rescue the missing person, even though, Iâ„¢m afraid, the odds of finding him alive are slim,” a National Fire Agency official stated.

Meanwhile, Lu Pei-ling, deputy chief of the seismology center told reporters that the earthquake has been the biggest to happen in 2013.

Å“As the origin of the quake was shallow and it happened in the center of the island, its velocity could be felt islandwide,” the official said.

On March 27, another strong earthquake hit the Taiwanese capital and injured at least 20 people.

MR/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

James B. Comey (shown), the man reported to be President Obama’s choice to succeed Robert Mueller as director of the FBI, vigorously supported the decision to imprison Jose Padilla indefinitely as an “enemy combatant.” Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was arrested at O’Hare International Airport in May 2002 for what then-Attorney General John Ashcroft said was his participation in a plot to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in a major city somewhere in the United States. He was held without charge and without trial in a solitary confinement at a U.S. Navy bring in Charleston, South Carolina, for three and one-half years before being tried in a civilian court in Miami on charges unrelated to the alleged “dirty bomb.”

Padilla and two co-defendants were found guilty by a federal jury of conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and maim overseas, and of conspiring to provide and of providing material support for terrorists. Padilla is currently serving a sentence of 17 years and four months in a federal prison in Florence, Colorado. His lawyers claimed he was unable to participate in his own defense at trial after years of solitary confinement in a nine-foot-by-seven-foot cell, where, they said, he was frequently chained in painful “stress positions” and injected with mind-altering drugs.

Comey, a Republican, was a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York at the time of Padilla’s arrest. He “aggressively defended” the designation of Padilla as an enemy combatant designation, according to the New York Times.

Comey also prosecuted attorney Lynne Stewart on charges arising from her representation of Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and is now serving a life sentence. Stewart ran afoul of the special administrative measures governing public statements about a terror suspect, as well as communications between the suspect and his attorney. Stewart read at a press conference a statement of Rahman’s that authorities interpreted as an encouragement to violent insurrection in Egypt. She was convicted in 2003 of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to provide, and providing, material support to terrorism. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Aside from the free speech issues involved in prosecuting an attorney for a public statement made on behalf of her client, some of the evidence used against Stewart was obtained through the use of wiretaps and secret cameras to record her conversations with Rahman. The electronic eavesdropping, authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, makes a mockery of the longstanding legal principle of privileged conversations between attorney and client.

Comey nailed another Stewart, publisher and TV celebrity Martha Stewart, on charges stemming from an investigation into her sale of ImClone stock shortly before the Food and Drug administration announced its decision not to approve ImClone’s anti-cancer drug, Erbitux. If her sale were, as alleged, evidence of “insider trading,” the insiders were a remarkably large group. ImClone’s stock had been steadily falling for at least two weeks before Stewart unloaded her stock, as thousands of others had already done and were doing. No fewer than 7.7 million shares of ImClone stock were sold the same day Stewart sold her 3,298. That was on December 27, 2001, amid widespread and growing anticipation of an imminent negative FDA decision on ImClone’s application.

“After all,” wrote economist and syndicated columnist Alan Reynolds, “the FDA had only until the end of the year to decide one way or the other. It didn’t take a financial genius to figure out that every passing day of delay looked more ominous.”

Stewart was eventually convicted of making misleading statements to federal investigators and obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to a five-month jail term, followed by two years of supervised release. The quality of the justice she was convicted of obstructing is itself suspect. The House Energy and Commerce Committee had been investigating Stewart when it sent a letter to Attorney General Ashcroft on September 10, 2002, urging her prosecution because she “repeatedly has refused to be interviewed by committee staff – and her attorneys have stated that she will invoked her Fifth Amendment right.” Invoking one’s constitutionally guaranteed right is apparently grounds for prosecution in the minds of members of Congress and an ambitious U.S. attorney.

On the plus side, Comey, while serving as deputy attorney general under Ashcroft in 2004, is said to have argued strenuously against renewal of a secret, warrantless eavesdropping operation called the “President’s Surveillance Program.” Several Justice Department officials, including Comey and Mueller, reportedly threatened to resign if the program were continued. They stayed on when it was modified to meet their objections.

On the whole, Comey’s record does not inspire confidence that he would be a respecter of the Constitution and rights of the accused if, as expected, he is nominated and confirmed as the next director of the FBI.

When he was named deputy attorney general in late 2003, Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said, “Nothing about Mr. Comey’s tenure in New York suggests he will be a friend of the Constitution when he joins John Ashcroft in Washington.” Dunn sounded a bit more optimistic on May 31, telling the New York Times that Comey’s confirmation hearing “will provide an important opportunity to assure that the F.B.I. fully understands its role in protecting civil liberties.”

^{Photo of James Comey: AP Images}

This article originally appeared on: The New American

An Iranian lawmaker says the Islamic Republicâ„¢s petrochemical industry will not be influenced by the United Statesâ„¢ illegal sanctions imposed against a number of Iranian companies.

On Sunday, Mousa Ahmadi, member of Iranâ„¢s Majlis (parliament) Energy Committee, made the remarks regarding recent US sanctions on the Iranian companies.

Å“The US and its allies know that the sanctions cannot prevent the petrochemical industry from development,” Ahmadi said.

The MP added that the Iranian nation have experienced sanctions already, and know how to turn them into opportunities.

On Friday, the US Treasury Department issued a statement, announcing sanctions against eight Iranian petrochemical companies.

The Treasury Department blacklisted Bou Ali Sina, Mobin, Nouri, Pars, Shahid Tondgouyan, Shazand, Tabriz, and Imam petrochemical companies.

At the beginning of 2012, the US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iranâ„¢s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.

The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

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

In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

NT/AS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian presidential candidate Mohammad Gharazi says the next administration should first control price hikes before resolving any other issues.

Å“Any problem in the country you (try to) take care of without solving the issue of inflation will remain unsolved,” the reformist candidate said during a televised message broadcast on Sunday.

Gharazi said he would decentralize the administration and privatize state-run entities under the Iranian constitution if elected president in the June election.

He reiterated that the people of each province in the Islamic Republic should choose their own governors.

He also promised to avoid favoritism and seek help from former officials in his future administration.

In Iranâ„¢s upcoming presidential election, Gharazi will be competing against lawmaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili, Hassan Rohani, the director of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, former First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, and former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election, and the Guardian Council vets the candidates.

Iranians go to the polls in the nationâ„¢s 11th presidential election on June 14. Over 66,000 polling stations will be set up across the country. Expatriates will also be able to cast ballots at 285 polling stations that will be set up in foreign countries.

NT/AS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The river Rhine floods buildings near Rheinfelden, southern Germany, on June 2, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman speaks during the memorial service for Aaron Swartz held at Cooper Union’s Great Hall in Manhattan, New York City, on January 19, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Protesters hold banners during a protest rally against nuclear power plants, following the March 2011 Fukushima meltdown-disasters, in Tokyo on June 2, 2013. (AFP Photo / Rie Ishii) Thousands of people, including victims from the Fukushima disaster in 2011, took to a central park in Tokyo on Sunday to protest the Japanese government’s intent to restart the nation’s nuclear reactors.

Agence France-Presse reports:

Protesters later marched through the capital, holding anti-nuclear banners including one which read: “No Nukes! Unevolved Apes Want Nukes!”

They also demonstrated outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co, operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant which was crippled by meltdowns after the March 2011 tsunami.

[Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe], whose Liberal Democratic Party has close ties with the nation’s powerful business circles, has repeatedly said he would allow reactor restarts if their safety could be ensured.

Japan turned off its 50 reactors for safety checks in the wake of the disaster but has restarted two of them, citing possible summertime power shortages.

And RT adds:

Shortly after the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, the Japanese government pledged to fully abandon atomic energy by the 2030s. However, in about a year authorities realized their promise was a hasty one, as the archipelago nation had hardly any other means to ensure sufficient electric energy supply but to return to nuclear power generation.

Earlier this year two nuclear reactors were put back into operation in Japan and plans were announced to restart six more by the end of 2013.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly promised the reactors would only be restarted if their safety is ensured by a special supervising body – Nuclear Regulation Authority. But his words could never quell the anti-nuclear moods in the country, where the tsunami disaster took 19,000 lives and lead to some 150,000 residents of the Fukushima area being displaced.

It’s estimated the post-disaster clean-up would take about 30 to 40 years and cost around US$15 billion.

Protesters hold banners during a protest rally against nuclear power plants, following the March 2011 Fukushima meltdown-disasters, in Tokyo on June 2, 2013. (AFP Photo / Rie Ishii)Japanese authors, Kenzaburo Oe (front row L) and Keiko Ochiai (front row C) lead a march holding dove-shape balloons to protest against nuclear power plants, following the March 2011 Fukushima meltdown-disasters, in Tokyo on June 2, 2013. (AFP Photo / Toshifumi Kitamura)

__________________________________

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

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

(Image via twitpic)Following nearly a week of growing protest and a weekend that saw violent clashes between demonstrators and police, the supporters of the Occupy Gezi movement in Istanbul have not only grown in number but won a tactical victory by reclaiming the park in central Istanbul that first spawned the national outcry and has now garnered international attention.

Meanwhile, what started in Istanbul has spread to Turkey’s capital Ankara where youthful opposition forces condemned the prime minister, marched by the thousands on his government offices, and continued to call for his resignation.

Explaining the explosion of activism and protest, as one popular tweet phrased it, the growing popular movement in Turkey is “resisting for its future”:

And the #occupygezi hashtag was trending all over the world throughout the weekend:

The Guardian reports from Istanbul:

What started last Monday as a relatively small, peaceful protest to save an inner city park from having to make way for a kitschy Ottoman-style shopping centre, rapidly snowballed into the largest and most violent anti-government protests that Turkey has seen in years.

Hundreds were injured, some seriously, by the heavy-handed police response and excessive use of teargas. Riot police withdrew from the capital on Saturday evening, handing a victory to the demonstrators.

The protests spread across Turkey to half of its 81 provinces, the interior ministry said. It added that 939 people had been arrested in 90 demonstrations all over the country, while damage costs have not yet been announced.

On Sunday, Al Jazeera’s Gonca Senay reported from capital city of Ankara, where protests had also erupted over the weekend and police have fired tear gas and water cannons to keep protesters away from the office of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan:

And CCTV America reports:

Reporting from Al-Jazeera added:

The Turkish Doctors Association said the three days of demonstrations have left 1,000 people injured in Istanbul and 700 in Ankara.

Interior Minister Muammer Guler said more than 1,700 people had been detained in protests that have spread to 67 cities, though most have since been released.

“A large majority of the detainees were released after being questioned and identified,” he said in remarks carried by the state-run Anatolia news agency.

Protesters also clashed with police in Izmir and Adana, Turkey’s third and fourth biggest cities, on Sunday.

The ferocity of the police response in Istanbul on Saturday shocked Turks, as well as tourists caught up in the unrest in one of the world’s most visited destinations.

It has drawn rebukes from the US, European Union and international rights groups.

Helicopters fired tear gas canisters into residential neighbourhoods and police used tear gas to try to smoke people out of buildings. Footage on YouTube showed one protester being hit by an armoured police truck as it charged a barricade.

In this photo taken late Saturday, June 1, 2013, Turkish protesters clash with riot police near the former Ottoman palace, Dolmabahce, where Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan maintains an office in Istanbul, Turkey. Protests in Istanbul, Ankara and several other Turkish cities appear to have subsided Sunday, after days of fierce clashes following a police crackdown on a peaceful gathering as protesters denounced what they see as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian style. (AP Photo)A demonstrator wears a gas mask made out of a plastic water bottle during a protest against Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling AK Party in central Ankara June 2, 2013. Erdogan accused Turkey’s main secular opposition party on Sunday of stirring a wave of anti-government protests, as tens of thousands regrouped in Istanbul and Ankara after a lull and trouble flared again in the capital. Police used tear gas on protesters in Ankara but the clashes were relatively minor compared with major violence in Turkey’s biggest cities on the previous two days. (Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas) Protesters shout slogans from the windows of a building during a protest against Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in central Istanbul June 2, 2013. Erdogan accused Turkey’s main secular opposition party on Sunday of stirring a wave of anti-government protests, as tens of thousands regrouped in Istanbul and Ankara after a lull and trouble flared again in the capital. Police used tear gas on protesters in Ankara but the clashes were relatively minor compared with major violence in Turkey’s biggest cities on the previous two days. The banner at centre reads ”Long live our Taksim resistance”. (Photo: REUTERS/Murad Sezer)___________________________________

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

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Syria issues travel warning for Turkey over anti-govt. protests

Demonstrators carry an injured man during a protest against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in central Ankara on June 2, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Turkish protesters clash with riot police near the former Ottoman palace, Dolmabahce, where Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan maintains an office in Istanbul, Turkey, on June 1, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Libya seeks to recover Gaddafi-linked assets in S. Africa: Report

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

(Image via twitpic)Following nearly a week of growing protest and a weekend that saw violent clashes between demonstrators and police, the supporters of the Occupy Gezi movement in Istanbul have not only grown in number but won a tactical victory by reclaiming the park in central Istanbul that first spawned the national outcry and has now garnered international attention.

Meanwhile, what started in Istanbul has spread to Turkey’s capital Ankara where youthful opposition forces condemned the prime minister, marched by the thousands on his government offices, and continued to call for his resignation.

Explaining the explosion of activism and protest, as one popular tweet phrased it, the growing popular movement in Turkey is “resisting for its future”:

And the #occupygezi hashtag was trending all over the world throughout the weekend:

The Guardian reports from Istanbul:

What started last Monday as a relatively small, peaceful protest to save an inner city park from having to make way for a kitschy Ottoman-style shopping centre, rapidly snowballed into the largest and most violent anti-government protests that Turkey has seen in years.

Hundreds were injured, some seriously, by the heavy-handed police response and excessive use of teargas. Riot police withdrew from the capital on Saturday evening, handing a victory to the demonstrators.

The protests spread across Turkey to half of its 81 provinces, the interior ministry said. It added that 939 people had been arrested in 90 demonstrations all over the country, while damage costs have not yet been announced.

On Sunday, Al Jazeera’s Gonca Senay reported from capital city of Ankara, where protests had also erupted over the weekend and police have fired tear gas and water cannons to keep protesters away from the office of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan:

And CCTV America reports:

Reporting from Al-Jazeera added:

The Turkish Doctors Association said the three days of demonstrations have left 1,000 people injured in Istanbul and 700 in Ankara.

Interior Minister Muammer Guler said more than 1,700 people had been detained in protests that have spread to 67 cities, though most have since been released.

“A large majority of the detainees were released after being questioned and identified,” he said in remarks carried by the state-run Anatolia news agency.

Protesters also clashed with police in Izmir and Adana, Turkey’s third and fourth biggest cities, on Sunday.

The ferocity of the police response in Istanbul on Saturday shocked Turks, as well as tourists caught up in the unrest in one of the world’s most visited destinations.

It has drawn rebukes from the US, European Union and international rights groups.

Helicopters fired tear gas canisters into residential neighbourhoods and police used tear gas to try to smoke people out of buildings. Footage on YouTube showed one protester being hit by an armoured police truck as it charged a barricade.

In this photo taken late Saturday, June 1, 2013, Turkish protesters clash with riot police near the former Ottoman palace, Dolmabahce, where Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan maintains an office in Istanbul, Turkey. Protests in Istanbul, Ankara and several other Turkish cities appear to have subsided Sunday, after days of fierce clashes following a police crackdown on a peaceful gathering as protesters denounced what they see as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian style. (AP Photo)A demonstrator wears a gas mask made out of a plastic water bottle during a protest against Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling AK Party in central Ankara June 2, 2013. Erdogan accused Turkey’s main secular opposition party on Sunday of stirring a wave of anti-government protests, as tens of thousands regrouped in Istanbul and Ankara after a lull and trouble flared again in the capital. Police used tear gas on protesters in Ankara but the clashes were relatively minor compared with major violence in Turkey’s biggest cities on the previous two days. (Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas) Protesters shout slogans from the windows of a building during a protest against Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in central Istanbul June 2, 2013. Erdogan accused Turkey’s main secular opposition party on Sunday of stirring a wave of anti-government protests, as tens of thousands regrouped in Istanbul and Ankara after a lull and trouble flared again in the capital. Police used tear gas on protesters in Ankara but the clashes were relatively minor compared with major violence in Turkey’s biggest cities on the previous two days. The banner at centre reads ”Long live our Taksim resistance”. (Photo: REUTERS/Murad Sezer)___________________________________

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

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has termed the protesters demonstrating against his government extremists, adding that he is not a dictator as they have called him.

Since Friday, tens of thousands of anti-government protesters have held demonstrations in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Mugla, Antalya, and many other cities and towns.

On Sunday, about 10,000 demonstrators, many waving flags, chanting “victory, victory, victory,” again gathered in Istanbulâ„¢s Taksim Square, demanded that Erdogan resign.

On the same day, some 7,000 people held a demonstration in the capital Ankara that turned violent, with protesters throwing fire bombs and police firing teargas. Several protesters have denounced Erdogan as a dictator and fascist.

“If they call someone who has served the people a ‘dictator,’ I have nothing to say,” Erdogan said in an address on Sunday evening to a group representing migrants from the Balkans. “My only concern has been to serve my country.”

“I am not the master of the people. Dictatorship does not run in my blood or in my character. I am the servant of the people,” Erdogan said in another speech made an hour later.

The Turkish prime minister called the protests “ideological” and organized by an opposition “unable to beat (the government) at the ballot box.”

He added that 89 police vehicles, 42 private cars, four buses and 94 businesses were destroyed by the “vandalism” of the protesters.

On Saturday night, about 5,000 protesters surrounded Erdogan’s office in Istanbulâ„¢s Besiktas municipality, located on the European shore of the strait of Bosphorus, and threw stones, injuring at least seven policemen.

Special police forces used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the demonstrators.

Earlier on Saturday, 100,000 demonstrators gathered in Taksim Square, demanding that Erdogan step down and calling the government “fascist.”

Thousands of people also took to the streets of other Turkish cities, such as Ankara, Izmir, Mugla, and Antalya, in support of the protesters in Istanbul.

The anti-government unrest began after police broke up a sit-in staged in Taksim Square on Friday 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 the city’s last green public space.

Amnesty International censured the Turkish police for the tactics they used to control the protests.

Å“The use of violence by police on this scale appears designed to deny the right to peaceful protest altogether and to discourage others from taking part,” John Dalhuisen, the director of the Europe and Central Asia Programme of Amnesty International, said on Saturday.

Å“The Turkish authorities must order police to halt any excessive use of force and urgently investigate all reports of abuse. They have a duty to ensure that people can exercise their right to free expression and assembly,” Dalhuisen added.

GJH/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

US Republican Senator John McCain acknowledges that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has gained the upper hand in fight against foreign-backed militants.

In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, McCain said, Å“We are seeing unfortunately a battlefield situation where Bashar Assad now has the upper hand.”

McCain, who last week surreptitiously visited Syria, urged the administration of President Barack Obama to intervene immediately in the Syrian crisis, claiming that the longer the US waited the more the situation was unraveling.

He added that Assad is unlikely to step down, which is what the US and its allies want him to do.

Commenting on the expected participation of the Syrian government delegation in the upcoming Geneva peace talks, McCain said, “Anyone that believes that Bashar Assad is going to go to a conference in Geneva when he is prevailing on the battlefield, it’s just ludicrous to assume that.”

At a meeting in Moscow on May 7, Russia and the United States reached an agreement to convene an international conference on Syria, which would serve as a follow-up to an earlier Geneva meeting held in June 2012.

On Friday, McCain said the Syrian militants are in dire need of Å“ammunition and heavy weapons” as the government troops are gaining ground in the crisis-hit country.

Å“Thereâ„¢s no doubt that they (the militants) need some kind of capability to reverse the battlefield situation, which right now is in favor of Assad,” he said.

McCain, who is a member of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, has been an outspoken supporter of arming the militants in Syria, a stance the Obama administration has shied away from adopting officially though there have been reports of the US role in coordinating the shipment of arms to the militants through Turkey and Jordan.

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.

Assad said on May 23, Å“Syria is determined to tackle terrorism and those who support it regionally and globally, and to find a political solution to the crisis.”

GJH/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Robert Bales (L) at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California (file photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Serbia has seen a wave of new protests after the parliament approved a pact to ‘normalize relations’ with Kosovo. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić explains to RT why this deal does not mean Belgrade recognizes Pristina’s independence.

RT: Mr. President, it’s been a year since you took
office. Looking back, what have you managed to achieve during
those first 12 months? And how do you assess your work in
general?

Tomislav Nikolić: It was a productive year for me and the
Serbian government. For example, we have successfully reduced
crime. We have also been trying to find a solution to the issue
of Serbs in Kosovo, a solution that would rest on two principles
– first, Serbs should be able to live there in peace and, second,
Serbia will never recognize the independence of Kosovo.

Furthermore, we want Albanians to stop expropriating land and for
Serbs to stay where they are. I think we have made great
progress. Unfortunately, our economy is extremely weak, and it
will be a long time before we’ll see any real improvement. Our
budget relies on consumption, not production. And this is one
area where the government hasn’t been able to make any
significant headway. I hope that the date to start membership
negotiations with the European Union will be announced soon. That
would be a sign of our stability and send a positive signal to
foreign investors. That would help us repair Serbia’s economy.

RT: The visits of delegations from Serbia to Russia
have become more frequent lately, but the talks have been held
behind closed doors. What is Russia’s response to Serbia’s closer
ties the EU and those complicated compromises that Serbia has to
make? 

TN: Serbia will never have as close and as strong
relations with the West as Russia does. Co-operation with Russia
doesn’t mean we have turned away from the EU. Co-operation with
the EU doesn’t mean we have turned away from Russia. Moscow has
never told Serbia, directly or indirectly, that it should not
cooperate with the EU.

Russia wants the Serbian government to do whatever it takes to
improve the living standards of our people. We are leaning
towards Europe simply because of our geographic location: we are
in the heart of Europe, surrounded by EU countries. That’s why
European standards are the benchmark for us. But becoming an EU
member is not important in itself. Our primary goal is to catch
up with the developed European countries, and if we succeed, the
lives of our people will definitely improve.

Earlier, our relations with the West boiled down to Serbia doing
what the West says, but I refused to go along with such an
approach. I then drafted a platform which served as the basis for
a major resolution on the status of Kosovo Serbs. Serbia had to
face new conditions regularly being placed on it. Now we have set
our own conditions. You must have seen how the talks in Brussels
went – it is no longer easy to twist Serbia around their fingers.
We are ready for discussion, provided that everything is in
compliance with international law.

RT: With the EU now in a deep crisis, what does Serbia
expect from joining? Doesn’t the situation in Spain, Greece and
Portugal scare you?

TN: Well, there is an obvious difference. Serbia is not in
the same situation as the EU. I would say that some EU countries
haven’t been honest enough. They would overspend and send fake
budget reports to their partners. Many Europeans were spoilt by
their governments. The EU exploited the whole world to provide a
better life and huge welfare benefits for its citizens. But now
the reckoning is overdue. There is a time to cast stones and a
time to gather them. You may enjoy a free ride for a while, but
one day you’ll have to pay. And now unemployed EU citizens are at
a loss. How come they no longer have an extra 700-800 euro at
hand? How come there are no more social benefits, free-of-charge
accommodation, electricity or natural gas? The situation in
Serbia is different. It would take a long time before the EU
degenerated into the poverty that we are in at the moment.

We don’t really care about relations inside the EU. What we are
looking for is new joint projects, partners that could help us
enter new markets and those who are eager to invest in our
economy.

There are 7 million people in Serbia and it’s pretty easy for us
to overcome the crisis because we have always been a hard-working
nation.

There’s been little growth over the last 14 years, but it’s not
the EU that is to blame. It is us; we chose a government that
couldn’t care less about Serbians and their future. All it did
was please the strongest in the land. A small nation can be just
as strong as a big one as long as it’s united.

Serbians are great people, and I am sure that Serbia will benefit
from its cooperation with the EU. For years, I was a Eurosceptic.
There are even more reasons to be one now and say: why do we
would need Europe now that it’s in crisis? But in fact, they are
our neighbors, they have the best science and technology, and
that’s where we obviously belong.

RT: The Serbian government always puts a strong focus
on Serbia’s accession to the EU. What if it doesn’t happen; is
there a plan B?

TN: Right now we are not part of the EU. Over the last
year I’ve been able to restore a lot of friendships with those
who view Serbia as a successor to Yugoslavia: I mean, the Arab
world, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and others. They were very
keen to revive our relations. We do have a plan B. We enjoy
excellent cooperation with Russia, which heavily invests into
Serbia. We are also partners with China, Latin America, the
United Arab Emirates, other countries of the Arab world and
Israel. Joining the EU isn’t a question of life and death;
rather, it’s a question of a better life.

RT: Are you basically saying that Moscow is an
alternative plan for Serbia because it provides investment and
loans?

TN: I do not see this as an alternative. These two
blessings are not mutually exclusive.

RT: Do you mean that Serbia has no need to choose
between East and West?

TN: Serbia will never choose between East and West. It
wants to be part of both. This idea is nothing new: it was first
suggested by the Serbian socialists two centuries ago. Yes, we
are a Slavic Orthodox country, but we are bordered by Western
Europe. And while that might not feel like our natural
environment, we have to deal with it. 

Of course we have long-standing friends, with whom we share a
common past, a common language and religion. But it won’t do any
good for Serbia to look in one direction only. Sadly enough,
Serbia-Russian relations have never been truly sincere because
there were always people who thought they might be harmful to
Serbia. I think that those who want us to look in only one
direction don’t have the interests of Serbia at heart.

RT: Let’s go back to the Kosovo talks in Brussels.
Vladimir Putin is said to have talked to you during these talks.
What did he tell you? Did he back the agreement?

TN: We spent a lot of time discussing the current
situation, possible scenarios and steps that Serbia might take.
President Putin has never interfered in our internal affairs.
Both he and the Russian government are ready to help Serbia, but
Serbia is alone in this battle. Unfortunately, when the talks
started, Serbia decided to talk with Pristina within the EU
framework and never asked for someone to stand up for its
interests. That’s why quite often these days Serbia has to face
several opponents alone. The representatives from the EU and
Pristina often share the same stance. Sometimes they will bring
documents to the table which they clearly drafted together. So we
are left in the minority.

But if anyone thought that, to join the EU, we would be willing
to make concessions – or that it was just a question of time
before we change our minds – are sorely mistaken. We will not do
as the previous government did.

As for Russia, it will support any stance that Serbia takes.
Russia has made it very clear that it will never recognize an
independent Kosovo, and that means a lot to us. It’s one thing to
be the only country that refuses to recognize Kosovo and
Metohija. It’s a totally different thing when you are supported
by other powerful countries that haven’t recognized it either.
Those involved include, first and foremost, Russia. And of
course, we also sought to resolve the issue of Kosovo at the UN
Security Council.

When the last Russian troops were pulling out of Kosovo, I was in
the opposition and I realized that we’d have only NATO troops to
rely on in terms of security. I still regret that a lot because I
believe that things would have been totally different if Russian
forces had stayed. Unfortunately, this is only wishful thinking,
so Serbia has to work with NATO – the only military power that
can ensure the security of Serbs and other non-Albanian
ethnicities in Kosovo.

We introduced a provision into our agreement under which NATO is
to prevent any military intervention from Pristina in the area
populated by Serbs, at least over the next 10 years.

RT: Serbs in Kosovo are unhappy with the Brussels deal.
But the Serbian delegation insists that was the most Belgrade
could get at this time. Why is it so important to solve this
matter now? Do you think Serbia could wait and get a better
deal?

TN: Time is not on the side of Serbs in Kosovo, it’s on
the side of the Albanians. They enjoy overwhelming support. The
Serbian population in Kosovo is declining. They’ve been living in
these terrible conditions for 13 years. We have to convince them
that this is the only possible solution at the moment. My idea is
to form a Serbian autonomy that would be totally independent from
Pristina. They would have an independent budget, take care of
their own security, they would have Serbian law enforcement,
Serbian courts, education and health care.

If we recognize Kosovo’s unique status, and find a way to include
it in our constitution, then we would ask Pristina to recognize a
unique status of the Serbian community, to recognize its right to
function independently. It’s a de-facto situation in Northern
Kosovo right now, but it’s not legalized. Everyone attacks us,
and we fear that at any moment Albanians supported by NATO and
other forces may gain control over Northern Kosovo. The countries
that have recognized Kosovo say that Pristina has the right to
control the northern territories. The agreements signed in
Brussels will help us to legalize Serbian autonomy, and then
Kosovo will no longer be able to exercise its control over
Northern Kosovo and over four Serbian communities in the south. I
believe we can achieve this and that Serbs in Kosovo realize
that.

RT: Does it mean that Serbia has lost the Kosovo that
existed before the bombings in 1999 for good?

TN: This is a very complicated question. Serbia will never
lose Kosovo, but on the other hand, I’m not the President in
Pristina. This is painful, but unfortunately, there’s nothing I
can do about it.

RT: Would Serbia be willing to recognize Kosovo’s
independence if you get autonomy in the north?

TN: No, no, no, no, no. We can’t be that selfish.
Actually, only a third of Serbs who live in Kosovo are in the
north. The other two thirds live in the south, and nobody has
ever cared about them. The international community, even Russia,
is unaware of the Serbs who live in the south of Kosovo. I always
think of all the Kosovo Serbs, and I try to ensure they get equal
rights. The issue of Serbs in the north of the republic is just
brazenly cut off from that of the Serbs living in the south – and
the question remains open. We can either leave them to the mercy
of the authorities in Pristina, or make them move to the north.
This is a very complicated issue. You cannot simply swap the
north for recognition of Kosovo’s independence.

In my view, Serbia should never recognize Kosovo. We should
discuss this situation with our friends all over the world. I had
to write letters to the presidents of all countries which had not
recognized Kosovo’s independence. When the agreement was signed
in Brussels I had to explain to them that this did not mean that
we recognized Kosovo’s independence. At that time Albanians,
along with their Western allies, began pressuring those states
and saying, ‘Look, Serbia has recognized Kosovo, and so should
you.’

We have numerous difficulties and a lot of work to do in regard
to this matter. Several days ago, I visited Turkey and spoke
openly to our Turkish friends. I said, “You recognized Kosovo’s
independence, you even hurried to be the first to do that; but
now you should stop insisting that other Muslim countries do the
same. This isn’t a nice thing to do. This would impact our
relations.” Serbia cooperates with both those who have and who
haven’t recognized Kosovo’s independence. But we don’t want our
friends who have taken this step to try and expand the list. We
don’t want Kosovo to use it in their statehood bid with the UN
General Assembly.

RT: When we spoke a year ago in Moscow, you told me you
would respect the will of the people when deciding on Kosovo’s
status. Are you considering holding a referendum on the
issue?

TN: I am, but we first have to pick the right time for a
referendum, and decide what exactly we should ask the people.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Some 97 girls from two schools in northern Afghanistan have reportedly been hospitalized after falling sick as a result of suspected gas poisoning.

In Maimana, the capital of Faryab province, a total of 77 girls
from the same school were taken to hospital on Saturday afternoon
after they fell ill, Afghan Pajhwok news agency reported on
Sunday.

“When the girls started falling unconscious, our teacher saw a
man fleeing to the school’s orchard,” the agency quoted one
of the students from the Jamshidi School. The girls also asked
the government to step up security around schools and punish
those behind “poisoning children.”

Another similar incident occurred the same day in the town of
Behsud, where 20 girls in a local secondary school fell ill for
unknown reason. All of them were also taken to hospital for
treatment – their condition is non-threatening.  

Police, who searched the building, said they found no suspicious
objects that could cause health problems among the girls. They do
not rule out heat and the unhygienic conditions that the children
endure, as a reason.  

However, one of the girls who fell sick said that there was “bad
smell” in the classroom when they got there in the morning and
just an hour later several girls fainted. She pointed out that
serious attention is given to cleanliness in her school. 
 

Education Director Abdul Ghafoor linked the illness to fears
among schoolchildren about gas attacks.

These two incidents are the latest in a string of suspicious
cases when dozens of girls were simultaneously falling sick.
Similar cases were reported in May in Faryab and Balkh provinces
where 80 and 150 girls respectively fell ill after alleged gas
attacks on their schools.

In April, 74 girls were hospitalized when they became ill after
noting a gas smell in the air in their school in the Taluqan, the
capital of the Takhar Province. Four poisoning attacks in girls’
schools hit the province last year, prompting local officials to
order the head teachers to stay at school until late, to test the
water for contaminates and for staff to search the grounds for
suspicious looking objects.

Militants who oppose giving girls the right to education have
been blamed for the alleged poisonings. However, the Taliban
denied their involvement in the attacks, saying they “strongly
condemn” such actions, vowing to punish those behind them,
the movement’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the BBC earlier
in the week.  

Women in Afghanistan got back basic rights after the Taliban were
ousted in 2001. Females, especially in the capital Kabul,
returned to schools — which they were banned from during the
Taliban regime in 1996-2001. Now, as the Western coalition forces
prepare to withdraw their forces, it is feared that the situation
may get worse again.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Iranian presidential candidate Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel says all countries need to respect the Islamic RepublicËœs independence if they want to negotiate with the country.

On Sunday, Haddad-Adel said Iran does not oppress any other country, and would not allow to be oppressed either.

The principlist candidate noted that the power of Iranâ„¢s diplomacy would be based on honesty, logic, and justice.

He added that the United States will engage in fair negotiations with Iran when it sees that the Iranian nation will not give in to Washingtonâ„¢s pressure and sanctions.

In Iranâ„¢s June 14 presidential election, Haddad-Adel will be competing against Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili, Hassan Rohani, the director of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, former First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election, and the Guardian Council vets the candidates.

NT/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Some 2,000 homes have been evacuated in Southern California as firefighters struggle to contain tens of thousands of acres of wildfire amid extremely hot, dry and windy weather. Two major blazes in New Mexico have also spiraled out of control.

The Powerhouse Fire, which broke out near a Santa Clarita
hydroelectric plant in the Los Angeles County on Thursday, has
more than tripled in size overnight. A total of 2,100 personnel
are now fighting the fire, with air tankers and helicopters
deployed to the scene.

At least 19,500 acres are ablaze in Angeles National Forest, and
only 20 per cent has been contained so far, a report by USFS
Fire-California published on InciWeb says. The report notes
“rapid rates of spread with a high resistance to control
efforts” and “critically dry fuels.”

“The weather played a huge role in this fire,” the US
Forest Service spokesman Ron Ashdale said, as quoted by USA
Today. “Normally a fire will lay down a bit overnight and you
can get some containment. This one kept roaring.”

The fire has already destroyed six homes and damaged nine other
buildings, the USFS spokesman Lee Bentley said, according to NBC.
Residents of Lake Hughes and Lake Elizabeth communities were
forced to pack their belongings and flee the fire late Saturday.

“It’s got its own mind,” Bentley said, speaking of the
Powerhouse Fire. “Unstable air … no set pattern. We want to
get a handle on this thing as quickly as we can,” he added,
with officials hoping to have the blaze fully contained by
Wednesday.

At least three firefighters have reportedly been injured while
trying to extinguish the powerful blaze.

Meanwhile in New Mexico, there are two large wildfires burning in
similarly unpromising weather conditions.

The Tres Lagunas Fire has scorched some 6,200 acres of the Santa
Fe National forest near Santa Fe, while another 1,200 acres are
ablaze in the Thompson Ridge fire at the Valles Caldera National
Preserve.

Officials asked residents of about 150 homes to evacuate, and
those staying in several summer campgrounds had to flee the area
as well.

Thick smoke has covered nearby areas, including Santa Fe and Las
Vegas, New Mexico. The state Department of Health asked the
residents to avoid prolonged or physical activity outdoors.

The New Mexico fires have only partly been contained so far,
although the high winds have calmed down, allowing firefighters
to use helicopters and tanker airplanes.

The causes of the fires are yet to be investigated, although the
Tres Lobos blaze is said to have been sparked by a downed power
line, the Santa Fe New Mexican reports.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Acting Palestinian Authority (PA) Chief Mahmoud Abbas has appointed Rami Hamdallah, a senior academic, as the authorityâ„¢s next prime minister.

The official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, announced the appointment on Sunday.

Hamdallah replaces Salam Fayyad who resigned in April after a weeks-long row with Abbas’s Fatah party over his economic policies. Fayyad formally leaves office later this month.

Hamdallah is a British-educated professor of linguistics who has been president of al-Najah University in the occupied West Bank since 1998.

The Gaza-based Hamas movement, which won the 2006 general elections but was later pushed aside by rival Fatah, said the appointment of a new prime minister without their consultation was not a legal move.

“This Cabinet does not represent the Palestinian people,” said Hamas spokesman Taher al-Nunu.

“The status of the new Cabinet is illegal,” he added.

MN/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Infowars.com
June 2, 2013

This last May, the mainstream corporate collaborator media has been foaming at the mouth while attacking Alex Jones. Are we witnessing the end of the corporate television media?

Youtube user Infowarrior2020 breaks down why he thinks Matt Drudge’s prediction has already come true.

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This article was posted: Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 3:45 pm

Tags: activism

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

An Iraqi woman passes by the scene of a car bomb attack in the Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shia area of eastern Baghdad, on May 20, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The Islamic Republic of Iran has condemned the United States for its double-standard policies on terrorism.

On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Araqchi condemned the US Department of Stateâ„¢s action to include Iran in its yearly report on terrorism, ISNA reported.

Å“Releasing fictitious claims in the framework of yearly terrorism reports by the US government will not make the international community forget Americaâ„¢s all-out support for the state terrorism of the Zionist regime [of Israel] or ignore [its] committing numerous inhumane crimes under the guise of fighting terrorism,” Araqchi said.

The spokesman added that the international community is well aware of the US authoritiesâ„¢ double-standard policies.

He also stated the arming of terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda-affiliated group Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria is proof of Washingtonâ„¢s duplicity in its foreign policy.

The United States, Britain, and their allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey are providing weapons and funds to terrorist groups in Syria, such as the al-Nusra, which are fighting to depose Syrian President Bashar al- Assad.

In its annual “Country Reports on Terrorism” for 2012, published on May 30, the US State Department accused Iran, Cuba, Sudan, and Syria of supporting terrorist activities.

On Friday, spokesman for Iran’s UN mission in New York, Ali-Reza Miryousefi said the US is in no position to accuse other countries of supporting terrorism.

The United States and Israel have devised numerous anti-Iran plots over the years, including targeted assassinations of Iranian scientists.

NT/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

James B. Comey, the man reported to be President Obama’s choice to succeed Robert Mueller as director of the FBI, vigorously supported the decision to imprison Jose Padilla indefinitely as an “enemy combatant.” Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was arrested at O’Hare International Airport in May 2002 for what then-Attorney General John Ashcroft said was his participation in a plot to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in a major city somewhere in the United States. He was held without charge and without trial in a solitary confinement at a U.S. Navy bring in Charleston, South Carolina, for three and one-half years before being tried in a civilian court in Miami on charges unrelated to the alleged “dirty bomb.”

Padilla and two co-defendants were found guilty by a federal jury of conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and maim overseas, and of conspiring to provide and of providing material support for terrorists. Padilla is currently serving a sentence of 17 years and four months in a federal prison in Florence, Colorado. His lawyers claimed he was unable to participate in his own defense at trial after years of solitary confinement in a nine-foot-by-seven-foot cell, where, they said, he was frequently chained in painful “stress positions” and injected with mind-altering drugs.

Comey, a Republican, was a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York at the time of Padilla’s arrest. He “aggressively defended” the designation of Padilla as an enemy combatant designation, according to the New York Times.

Comey also prosecuted attorney Lynne Stewart on charges arising from her representation of Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and is now serving a life sentence. Stewart ran afoul of the special administrative measures governing public statements about a terror suspect, as well as communications between the suspect and his attorney. Stewart read at a press conference a statement of Rahman’s that authorities interpreted as an encouragement to violent insurrection in Egypt. She was convicted in 2003 of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to provide, and providing, material support to terrorism. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Aside from the free speech issues involved in prosecuting an attorney for a public statement made on behalf of her client, some of the evidence used against Stewart was obtained through the use of wiretaps and secret cameras to record her conversations with Rahman. The electronic eavesdropping, authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, makes a mockery of the longstanding legal principle of privileged conversations between attorney and client.

Comey nailed another Stewart, publisher and TV celebrity Martha Stewart, on charges stemming from an investigation into her sale of ImClone stock shortly before the Food and Drug administration announced its decision not to approve ImClone’s anti-cancer drug, Erbitux. If her sale were, as alleged, evidence of “insider trading,” the insiders were a remarkably large group. ImClone’s stock had been steadily falling for at least two weeks before Stewart unloaded her stock, as thousands of others had already done and were doing. No fewer than 7.7 million shares of ImClone stock were sold the same day Stewart sold her 3,298. That was on December 27, 2001, amid widespread and growing anticipation of an imminent negative FDA decision on ImClone’s application.

“After all,” wrote economist and syndicated columnist Alan Reynolds, “the FDA had only until the end of the year to decide one way or the other. It didn’t take a financial genius to figure out that every passing day of delay looked more ominous.”

Stewart was eventually convicted of making misleading statements to federal investigators and obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to a five-month jail term, followed by two years of supervised release. The quality of the justice she was convicted of obstructing is itself suspect. The House Energy and Commerce Committee had been investigating Stewart when it sent a letter to Attorney General Ashcroft on September 10, 2002, urging her prosecution because she “repeatedly has refused to be interviewed by committee staff – and her attorneys have stated that she will invoked her Fifth Amendment right.” Invoking one’s constitutionally guaranteed right is apparently grounds for prosecution in the minds of members of Congress and an ambitious U.S. attorney.

On the plus side, Comey, while serving as deputy attorney general under Ashcroft in 2004, is said to have argued strenuously against renewal of a secret, warrantless eavesdropping operation called the “President’s Surveillance Program.” Several Justice Department officials, including Comey and Mueller, reportedly threatened to resign if the program were continued. They stayed on when it was modified to meet their objections.

On the whole, Comey’s record does not inspire confidence that he would be a respecter of the Constitution and rights of the accused if, as expected, he is nominated and confirmed as the next director of the FBI.

When he was named deputy attorney general in late 2003, Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said, “Nothing about Mr. Comey’s tenure in New York suggests he will be a friend of the Constitution when he joins John Ashcroft in Washington.” Dunn sounded a bit more optimistic on May 31, telling the New York Times that Comey’s confirmation hearing “will provide an important opportunity to assure that the F.B.I. fully understands its role in protecting civil liberties.”

^{Photo of James Comey: AP Images}

This article originally appeared on: The New American

May 31, 2013
 |

In The Democracy Project: A History, A Crisis, A Movement (Spiegel & Grau, 2013), David Graeber’s engaging new book on Occupy Wall Street, the author writes of the dismal culture in Washington during the summer of 2011, a few months before the occupation of Zucotti Park:

Republicans were threatening to cause the US government to default in order to force massive cuts in social services intended to head off a largely imaginary debt crisis…President Obama, in turn, had decided the way to appear reasonable in comparison and thus seem as his advisors liked to put it ‘the only adult in the room’ was not to point out that the entire debate was founded on false economic premises, but to prepare a milder, ‘compromise’ version of the exact same program–as if the best way to expose a lunatic is to pretend that 50 percent of his delusions are actually true…This is how a ragtag group of anarchists, hippies, unemployed college students, pagan tree sitters, and peace activists suddenly managed to establish themselves, by default, as America’s adults in the first place.

Although OWS publicly had “no leaders,” it was obvious in those heady days that a few individuals held enormous sway on the anarchist presence in the movement. One name that invariably came up was David Graeber, an anthropology professor at the University of London (and formerly at Yale). He is one of several people who are credited with originating the phrase We Are the 99%, and he describes himself as an “anarchist with a small ‘a.’”

Graeber has a long affiliation with the Global Justice Movement and fondly recalls time he spent in Exarchia, a neighborhood in Athens “full of squatted social centers, occupied parks, and anarchist cafés where we’d spent a long night downing glasses of ouzo at street corner cafés while arguing about the radical implications of Plato’s theory of agape, or universal love.” But he has no trouble articulating the rationale for much of OWS: “Our government has become little more than a system of institutionalized bribery where you can be hauled off to jail just for saying so.”

Notwithstanding Graeber’s eloquence and moral clarity in describing the “mafia capitalism” of bankers and other oligarchs and the political system that further empowers them, he spends a lot of the book differentiating his brand of anarchism from other political tendencies on the left who share many of the same enemies. He rejects old-school communist and socialist radical groups, which he refers to as “verticles” to contrast their authoritarian hierarchies with the “horizontal” culture of anarchism. Above all, he wants to distinguish Occupy Wall Street from liberals. Graeber writes snarkily, “Liberals tend to be touchy and unpredictable because they claim to share the ideals of radical movements–democracy, egalitarianism, freedom–but they’ve also managed to convince themselves that these ideals are ultimately unattainable. For that reason, they see anyone determined to bring about a world based on those principles as a kind of moral threat.”

It is not at all clear whom Graeber is stigmatizing since he uses the word “liberal” (or interchangeably, to Graeber, “progressive”) to describe both the Obama administration and some of its critics on the left. Over the course of The Democracy Project he singles out leaders of the groups Moveon.org and Rebuild The Dream and readers of DailyKos, but it seems as if he views any person or group not committed to anarchist “horizontal” process as inherently suspect, or to use the ultimate anarchist insult, “reformist.”

Graeber writes “For ‘small a’ anarchists such as myself—that is, the sort willing to work in broad coalitions as long as they work on horizontal principals–this is what we’d always dreamed of.” Of course, to limit coalitions to partners who work on “horizontal principals” guarantees that they will not be very “broad” at all.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

This article originally appeared on: RT

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Turkish police have fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators who were protesting near Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office in Istanbul.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (C) met with a group of African ambassadors in Tehran on June 1, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

He’s a hero to tens of millions of Americans who have an almost cult-like belief in his demagogic super natural abilities to spread peace to the world, heal the sick and bring equality to the masses.

The mere mention of his faults elicits anger and outrage among his followers.

Suggest that he may have been involved in the targeting of Americans for tax audits on the basis of their political ideologies and you’re dismissed as a partisan. Provide evidence for the fact that he, and only he, was solely responsible for the lack of action in Benghazi, Libya that led to the deaths of four Americans, and you’ll be lambasted as a conspiracy theorist. Attempt to link him to his Justice Department’s wire tapping of independent journalists, and you’ll be called a hack.

Fast and Furious gun running, collusion with pharmaceutical companies, back-room deals with financial conglomerates — none of it matters when the savior is at the helm.

The President of the United States, for all intents and purposes, is considered above the law by his supporters.

More blatant, however, is that it’s highly likely that the President himself, just as Richard Nixon before him, believes that he lives by his own set of rules and isn’t subject to the same investigative and judicial proceedings as the rest of Americans.

And like President Nixon, who left office in disgrace for his crimes, President Obama is, as depicted in the video below, literally repeating the same excuses and deflections in a focused effort to avoid a similar fate.

The comparison is striking.

On August 9, 1974, president Richard Nixon resigned from office following damning revelations regarding a cover up relating to a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex. Eventually the scandal also resulted in the indictment, trial, conviction, and incarceration of dozens of Nixon’s top administration officials.

Prior to his resignation, Nixon’s responses to the scandal were to feign ignorance, point to inaccurate talking points provided by aides, cite national security, and encourage the media to let him do his job. Fascinatingly, Obama has made almost exactly the same comments.

Is history repeating itself? Are the two presidents singing from the same scandal-ridden hymn sheet? Judge for yourself:

Nixon: “I first learned from news reports…”

Obama: “I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this.”

Commentary and excerpts via Steve Watson at Infowars.com

Watch as the Revealing Politics Blog provides a striking resemblance between Nixon and Obama:

Equality already exists in America — at least it’s supposed to. That what the rule of law means. It is to be equally applied to every citizen of this country, including the President of the United States and his subordinates.

And for the Office of the President, we have a legal procedure to ensure he is acting lawfully as he presides over the highest elected office of our land as a representative of the people. It’s called impeachment, and it is a process by which the Executive in Chief is held accountable to the people he represents.

Somewhere along the way, it seems, the President, his millions of supporters and our Congressional membership lost their way and started living under the assumption that this elected representative can act with impunity and without being held to account for his actions.

Obviously, the President and his administration are hiding something — most likely their involvement in the aforementioned scandals and crimes. Like any American, regardless of his religion, political belief or perceived status, he must be investigated for these crimes by an independent prosecutor. And he must be judged by his peers, in an open and transparent court.

Otherwise, it’s time we openly admit that this country is no longer the Republic it was founded as.

This article originally appeared on: SHTF Plan

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This article originally appeared on: SHTF Plan

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This article originally appeared on: SHTF Plan

Editor’s Note: The following article has been generously contributed by Selco. He has experienced the ‘S’ hitting the fan for real, and lived through one year of hell during the Balkan war, where the only concern you had on a daily basis was surviving through to tomorrow. He has documented his experiences at his web site and in must-read articles like A Survival Q & A: Living Through SHTF In the Middle of A War Zone and Advice from a Collapse Survivor. 

He currently offers his online course One Year In Hell to subscribers and provides a detailed account of his life in the middle of a war zone, what he did to survive when his city was cut off from the rest of the world by an occupying military force, and what you can do to prepare yourself physically and mentally for similar events should they come to pass. 

Selco lives in the Balkan region and regularly shares his perspective on preparedness via his blog at SHTF School.

What Will People Need: Some Thoughts on Preparing for Bartering
by Selco

Buying stuff for your SHTF storage is good of course, and buying it the smart way so you can save some money is always welcome since most of us are not multimillionaires.

But have you ever thought about buying things for SHTF scenarios in some not so “regular” ways? It will save you money, but maybe even more important is that it will prepare you and show you how finding and buying stuff will probably look when the SHTF for real.

I am not advising you to do anything that might be against the law, I am simply gonna give you examples how I find some things. It is up to you how you or if you use any of it.

Have it when you do not need it (have it before you need it)

One of the most basic rules in preparing and acquiring things for SHTF is that you need to have it before you need it. You may think “oh, but it is so obvious.” Yes and no. Sometimes it is not. When SHTF you may find out that it is very important to have, for example, tetanus shots updated, but then it may be too late. You need to fix that before SHTF.

Simply, if you are going to look for the tetanus shots when SHTF, the price can be high. In every SHTF scenario anywhere in the world there is gonna be people who are gonna make a fortune and increase power by having the stuff that most of the other folks do not have, because it was not so obvious that it was going to be needed.

Ways to obtain things

Things can be bought in many ways. Some of them are illegal so no advice, just examples.

I buy my fuel from guys who sell it not from the gas station, I buy it always from the same guys so in that way they do not find it useful to cross me with adding strange stuff inside in order to make more money. Repeat customer is good customer.

Where do they get it? I do not know, and I do not want to know. But some examples would be that they are just dealers for the big guy who wants to “go across” some tax expenses, or they buying it as “agricultural” fuel etc. I do not ask. Is it illegal? Yes. Have I seen and did worse things than that? Yea, sure. Survival.

Ways to buy things do not necessarily need to be illegal, but it can be just strange and something other than you are used to. In that way you are just preparing yourself for finding things when SHTF.

It’s like practice for getting things directly from people. Why not start now and tell neighbors what you can get for them cheaply and ask them if they have connection to some stuff too?

I know people in different areas of life. So I know guys from local politics and guys from local small gangs. I like to keep my ear on ground as part of preparation for coming SHTF. Money is short here and during the [Balkan] war people got used to getting stuff through other people, so the same system still works.

I also often trade for something when it makes sense. I use my preps and trade two pairs of police boots for new jacket, for example.

What things do I need?

Do not think only about “what things do I need?” Feel free to think about “what things do other people need,” because you are going to be trading.

Look around you and keep in mind when the SHTF, the term “useful thing” takes on a whole new meaning. You’ll see ( I did) that for some people it is a priority to loot malls and take a TV set, stereo or something similar.

I saw few guys in the first days of chaos rolling 4 new car tires from a looted mall. They were laughing, very happy because they thought they made good “deal” with that. I guess pretty soon they realized that those 4 tires were worth one pocket knife or something similar.

Smarter folks, or you can say people with “vision,” look for the weapons, food or similar useful stuff.

The important thing to understand is that everyone took everything. It was like a storm. As time passed by and when everything “more useful” was gone, people took everything else, like pieces of shelves where stuff was kept. People find uses for that too.

For example, when SHTF I expect people to smash parking machines for the money inside. I am not gonna care for the worthless coins inside, but those machines work thanks to a small solar panels installed on the pole above it. I would go for the panels that most of the folks won’t notice at all.

Small things were always useful to trade. Also some bigger “invented” things had a good price, like small wood stoves made from cans or pressure cookers. Pretty soon people who were skilled made good trade with handmade portable wood stoves.

Maybe you can find something to build with empty cans or other waste products?

People tried to trade everything so you could see some funny stuff too. I wrote in another post about the old FM radio taped to some huge batteries handmade from other sized batteries and taped together. Or homemade teas guaranteed to cure something mixed from different kind of plants.

Of course scams were everywhere and you needed to be very cautious.

It was always better to have more small things to trade then bigger bulkier stuff. Easier to carry and easier to sell. Candles, batteries, lighters, canned food, spices, small tools, pocket knives…

What more you can do today

Of course preppers look for discounts and wholesale, yard sales and similar chances to save money. But you also need to think about practicing bargaining.

I am buying lot of things at the local flea market or through people I know. You can find lot of things on flea markets, and if you look hard enough you can find stuff that doesn’t  usually belong there.

Few rules :

• Never act like you really need the thing you want to buy (let it be your second choice for example)
• Split money in more pockets when you bargaining (do not bargain with a hand full of money)
• Many times seller will set the price based on how he sees you in that moment. So of course do not show off any symbol of wealth.

Also remember that buying things at the flea market (in your case maybe a yardsale or similar) is very good practice for trade in SHTF conditions simply because the act of negotiating is similar.

Prices are not fixed (they are more a thing of opportunity and skills). The way you look, act and talk can sometimes be more important than how much money (value) you have in your pocket.

Remember that when SHTF a lot of things can be valuable; things that you usually would not even notice in normal life.

For example when SHTF, batteries and candles had big value. The reasons are, of course, because people are still used to commodity of light at night, using it in every room etc.

But very soon folks realized that candles are something like luxury. So for example, if you wanted to read book you would read it by daylight, or people in the house simply gathered in one room under the light of one candle in order to spare the others.

So, the value of candles went high in beginning and then went down [as behavior changed].

So if you planned to make some big success with something for trade it can be said that you need to choose the correct time. Some things have the same high value almost all the time, like coffee or cigarettes.

Other things gain value over the time, multiple times [their original] value. Stuff like some seeds, plants and knowledge about plants like teas, and herbs for healing etc.

The point is, if you offered at the beginning stage of SHTF homemade teas as a remedies for something you would not have big success, because people did not believe that SHTF gonna last too long, or in other cases people still had some stash of antibiotics, painkillers etc.

After a few months passed and people realized the SHTF is gonna last for a longer period, and there were no doctors, no hospitals, and diseases were spreading, then of course those home made remedies suddenly became popular and at the same time much more expensive.

I have more examples about trading in my survival course.

So small things that are kinda ridiculously cheap in normal times and normal life become important, which equals expensive.

One more example would be flints for lighters.

Things like these are very important if you stash many things in order to do much trading to make life easier when SHTF.

Point is to carefully observe which things have what kind of value, and more importantly, what things have a chance to multiple their value in a few weeks or months.

I even knew guy who make small necklaces for luck, you know kinda of small metal on rope and if you carry that all the time you can be sure that bullet gonna miss you. He was something like a monk. He traded that for food and it worked.

When times are desperate people do and trust in lot of things.

This article has been made available by Selco of SHTF School. 

Check out his One Year In Hell Online Course in which he provides a detailed account of his life in the middle of a war zone, what he did to survive when his city was cut off from the rest of the world by an occupying military force, and what you can do to prepare yourself physically and mentally for similar events should they come to pass. 

This article originally appeared on: SHTF Plan

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It’s been said that all of the gold mined throughout the history of mankind could fit into just three Olympic-sized swimming pools.

With rising fuel and labor costs, successful mining operations have been few and far between, simply because there’s very little, if any, easily accessible gold, as well as its close cousin silver, left in the ground. According to Peak Resources, the supply of gold is now so limited that just 1 in 1600 new gold projects ever get off the ground. One of the key reasons for this is because mine operators have to dig deeper and spend much more money than ever before — often times just to break even.

When you consider the supply fundamentals, and couple them with the high levels of demand experienced in recent months, you can see that regardless of what is listed as the official ‘paper market’ price, gold is likely going much higher. And that’s before we even get into the monetary expansion aspect of the discussion.

While economists like Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke vehemently deny gold’s value as a mechanism of exchange, and leading market analysts take to writing obituaries for gold’s demise amid recent price swings, the fact is that all signs point to a continuation of the long-term trend.

Gold is going higher.

Michael Wittmeyer, the President of leading online gold and silver dealer JM Bullion, shares the sentiment of many precious metals investors regarding recent price movements:

There seems to be a segregation between paper and physical metals at the moment, as physical demand has never been so strong, yet metals continue to slide in the paper markets and fail to find support at any of the historical key levels thus far.

My personal recommendation is to stay the course, try to lock in the lower prices to average in a lower overall cost-basis on your metals portfolio, and stay focused on the big picture, where the fundamental reasons to own physical metals are as strong as ever.

If you’ve been paying attention, then you’ve no doubt realized that the fundamentals Mr. Wittmeyer speaks of are pretty clear cut.

The big picture is that the fundamentals for gold, despite a massive hit to its price in recent months, have not changed.

The following micro-documentary explains why we may well be on the cusp of Peak Gold, a turning point in the precious metals market that will continue to strain supply while demand across the world explodes to unprecedented levels:

Gold has no flag or allegiance… as the fiat currencies get devalued to deal with the sovereign debt crisis, gold demand will soar.

The problem and opportunity we see is that the supply is already maxed out. So, if a wave of demand comes, we can see the gold price move rapidly on supply and demand fundamentals.

The inflation will simply be icing on the cake.

Via Peak Resources:

So, the question is, do we follow the direction of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who suggests gold is simply a relic, and focus our investments on his preferred asset class — the US dollar denominated Treasury Bond?

Or, do we side with over 5,000 years of history, which has shown precious metals to be the go-to store of wealth during times of uncertainty and upheaval?

This article originally appeared on: SHTF Plan

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The 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery.  This means that if you are a slave today, it’s either illegal, or you have voluntarily accepted your servitude.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

You have a Constitutionally protected right to be free. If you aren’t free, then revolution is your duty.

Many people believe that revolution requires that they lead a march, stand in front of a crowd with a bullhorn, or form a militia. They feel like it’s a job for the Alex Joneses, the Adam Kokeshes,  the James Wesley Rawleses, and the Bradley Mannings of the world.

They’re wrong.  You don’t have to be a person with thousands of followers on Twitter and Facebook .  You don’t have to be a person with a military leadership position on  your resume. You need not get yourself arrested on the steps of the White House, got to prison forever for telling the truth about your unit in the army, or stare down a bunch of scary-looking thugs in jack boots.

But you do have to do something.

You can’t just sit there and complain unless you are really just another armchair Rambo.

The way you lead your life every single day can be an act of revolution.  By refusing to concede your natural rights, quietly and resolutely, you are performing an act of revolution. Walking the walk doesn’t always require civil disobedience or militia membership (although those actions definitely have their places).  It requires your consistent determination not to be infringed upon.

It doesn’t matter if you are a soccer mom from the suburbs, a college student in a dormitory, a church-going dad and husband, or a person who has found themselves homeless through the ongoing economic crisis — by living resolutely, you are performing an act of revolution.

Don’t get me wrong — we need the Alexes, the Adams, the militias, the Bradleys, and the JWRs.  We need the people who stand in protest.  We need those who expose wrongdoing.  We need the organizers, the shouters, the big personalities, the quiet strong types, and the leaders. But these are not the only ways to revolt.  If every single person was off organizing their own rally, there’d be no one left to march in it.

What it is imperative upon us to do is to find our compass and follow it.  We must make ourselves immune to control by not needing what “they” hand out.  We have to be armored against the way everyone else lives and choose our own paths.  We must stubbornly refuse to participate in the hoop-jumping that is everyday life in North America.  By all of us who believe in liberty doing this, we form an army of stubborn non-participants in the status quo.

Here’s an example. It’s a small thing, a battle that today only affected my daughter and me.  My daughter is not vaccinated.  She attends a public school where the kids must be vaccinated, or hoops must be jumped through. I filled out the initial forms stating that I had an objection of conscience to vaccines.  I was contacted by a representative of the school system who suggested that I sign instead the form that stated a religious objection, because that was “easier”.  I refused, because my objection is NOT one of religion, and I felt like that was a cop-out. I knew that I was within my rights to have an objection of conscience, and I felt that it was important to make a point that might make it easier for the next parent.  I was then told that I’d have to pay $25 and get a statement notarized to allow her exemption on my basis.  I said I’d be happy to get a statement notarized, but not at my expense. I pointed out that nowhere does our local law state that I should have to pay any money for my child to NOT do something.  Lo and behold, after 5 months of politely going back and forth,  being escalated through numerous different superiors of superiors in the school board and public health system, my daughter is still unvaccinated, I have not spent $25, and she was not suspended from school.  The point I’m making is not about vaccines, but about not stepping back from your rights, for your convenience or for the convenience of others. This requires that you read the relevant laws and understand them.  It requires a certain degree of persistence and a willingness to be a pain in the butt.

There are valid reasons for revolution.

One of the benchmarks of tyranny is the dizzying arrays of laws on the books, with more and more added every single day.  It is humanly impossible not to break multiple laws every single day.  Regulations are revenue builders and/or control mechanisms. If the “authorities” can ALWAYS find a law that you’ve broken, then they can ALWAYS give a “reason” for punishing you.  Punishment might include incarceration, hefty fines, or the removal of some privilege (like taking away your driver’s license or not allowing your child to go to school).

If the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

~ James Madison, Federalist Papers 62

The police state is growing at a dizzying rate, and often the news makes it look like we live in Nazi Germany. It is now or never.  Like cockroaches, “they” — the thugs in jackboots and their masters — multiply in the dark, and will soon overtake us if we don’t put a stop to it right now.  They want to take our guns because that would make our resistance more difficult.  They keep buying up ammo and now have more than enough to kill every man, woman, and child in America multiple times. The NDAA means that any person can be indefinitely detained. There has been a sustained attack on the Bill of Rights and one by one our rights are being submerged beneath the desires of those who would demand our submission.

How can you be an everyday revolutionary?

The most revolutionary act is to be self-sufficient and in need of nothing that the government can provide for you in exchange for some small liberty.  When there is nothing that you require enough to submit, then bullying you becomes much more difficult.

This list of suggestions is by no means comprehensive.  Please, add your own random acts of resistance in the comments below.

• Question absolutely everything you hear on the news.  Always be a sceptic. All major media goes back to just a few conglomerates.  The “news” is now all a propaganda ploy to help the rich get richer and the powerful remain in power. The media can make or break a candidate with unholy zeal in less than a week. These people and others like them are the ones that decide what “we the people” get to see. If they feel like a candidate or a news item might upset the status quo, they black it out by refusing to cover it.
• Call out the media.  Let everyone know that the mainstream media is the enemy of the people.  When you see coverage that is clearly biased, take a moment to call out the media about it. Take the time to comment on mainstream media websites and point out the unbalanced coverage.  If you use social media, share this information and post on the media outlet’s social media pages as well.
• Get out of the banking system. By opting to “unbank” or “underbank” there is a limit to what can be easily stolen from you.  When you have physical control of your financial assets, you are not at as high a risk of losing those assets, and therefore, less likely to be dependent on “the system.”
• Turn your savings into precious metals or tangible assets.  On the same note as unbanking, you definitely don’t want to rely on a 401K or savings account to provide for you in your old age. Ask the people of Cyprus how well that worked out for them.  Diversify with assets you can touch.  Purchase tangible goods like land, food, ammo, and seeds. Once you are well supplied, move on to precious metals to preserve your wealth.
• Educate others.  At the (very high) risk of people thinking you’re crazy, it’s important to let people know WHY you do what you do. If you are an anti-Monsanto activist, teach others about the dangers of GMOs.  If you object to a municipal policy, speak at a town meeting or send a letter to the editor of your local paper.  By ranting incoherently or by keeping your mouth shut, you influence no one. By providing provable facts, you can open minds and awaken others to tyranny.
• Get others involved in the fight.  For example, if you are fighting with the city council that wants to rip out the vegetables growing in your front yard, let  your friends and neighbors know, post a notice at the grocery store, and write a letter to the editor.  When injustice occurs, use the power of social media to spread awareness. Often a public outcry is what is necessary to get the “authorities” to back down.  Look at the case of Brandon Raub, the veteran who was kidnapped and taken to a mental hospital for things he posted on Facebook. Raub was not charged, but he was detained in the psych ward involuntarily. His friends and family immediately mobilized and spread the videos of his arrest all over the internet.  It snowballed and alternative media picked it up — soon Raub was released, and all because of a grass roots and social media campaign to bring the injustice to light.
• Grow your own food.  Every single seed that you plant is a revolutionary act.  Every bit of food that you don’t have to purchase from the grocery store is a battle cry for your personal independence.  When you educate yourself (and others) about  Big Food, Big Agri, and the food safety sell-outs at the FDA, you will clearly see that we are alone in our fight for healthy, nutritious foods.  Refuse to tolerate these attacks on our health and our lifestyles. Refuse to be held subject to Agenda 21′s version of “sustainability”.
• Take control of your health.  It is imperative that you not blindly trust in the medical establishment.  Many members of this establishment are merely prostitutes for their pimp, Big Pharma.  Millions of children are given powerful psychotropic drugs to help them fit into the neat little classroom boxes, and the numbers are growing every day.  Americans spent 34.2 BILLION dollars on psychiatric drugs in 2010. (Source) Big Pharma is an enormously profitable industry that only pays off if they can convince you that you’re sick.  Learn about the toxic injections and medications, weight the risks and benefits, and always look for second and third opinions before making a medical decision.  Maintain your health by avoiding toxins, exercising, and ditching your bad habits to reduce the number of doctor’s visits that are necessary.
• Refuse to comply.  If you know your natural rights, which are guaranteed under the Constitution and its Amendments, then it makes it much harder for “authorities” to bully you.  You don’t have to let them search your home without a warrant, you don’t have to answer questions, and you don’t have to comply with laws that are in conflict with the Constitution.
• Learn.  Every day, spend time learning. This shouldn’t stop once our formal education ends. Fill your mind with history, with current events, with constitutional law, and information about the natural world.  Learn about health, study economics, research things that interest you, and unravel the complicated conspiracies that are afoot.  To pursue unbiased knowledge is to free your mind from the prison of propaganda and indoctrination.
• Don’t consume chemicals that cause you to be dumbed down.  Avoid chemical-laden food with brain-killing neurotoxins like MSG and aspartame.  Don’t drink fluoridated water.
• Embrace your right to bear arms.  Be responsible for your own safety and security.
• Don’t be in debt.  No one can be free if they are in debt. If you are in debt, you are forced to work in whatever conditions are present, for whatever amount is offered, complying with whatever criteria is necessary to keep your job.  in order to either pay your debt or face penalties. As well, the high interest rates that you pay only serve to make the bankers more wealthy.  Instead of borrowing, save until you can afford something or realize that if you could actually afford it, you wouldn’t need to borrow money to have it.
• Be prepared for disaster.  Have enough food, water, and supplies to take care of your family in the event of a natural disaster. Don’t expect FEMA to take care of you.
• Be involved in your children’s education.  For some, this means homeschooling or unschooling, and for others this means being on top of what they are learning in a formal school setting. Join the PTA and actively volunteer if your child goes to school.  Be an advocate for your child and insist that the teachers teach. If your child goes to school, supplement this at home with discourse about current events and outings that help them learn about the world around them.
• Be the squeaky wheel. If you see something wrong, don’t just ignore it. Say something about it, and keep saying something until it changes.  Whether this is some process that infringes on your privacy, a job requirement that impedes your health, or another injustice, pursue it relentlessly. Ask questions publically, write letters, and use social media to bring pressure to encourage a change.
• Reduce your consumer spending.  Spending less helps to starve the beast by reducing the sales taxes you pay and withdrawing your financial support to big conglomerates. If we vote with our dollars, eventually there will, of a necessity, be a paradigm shift that returns us to simpler days, when families that were willing to work hard could make a living without selling their souls to the corporate monoliths. A low-consumption lifestyle reduces your financial dependency, which allows for more freedom.
• Ditch popular culture.  If reality TV isn’t a tool for dumbing people down, I don’t know what it is.  My daughter recently begged to watch an episode of a popular reality TV show that “everyone” was watching.  She managed about 15 minutes of it and then said, “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”  She decided to read a book instead.  Popular entertainment is a media tool used to change our perspectives about our personal values, and to tell us how to think and feel about issues.
• Buy locally.  Support local small businesses to help others who are fighting for independence from the system.  You might pay a little bit more than you would at your big box store, but the only people benefiting from your purchases made at the corporate stores are those with the 7 figure annual bonuses.
• Develop multiple streams of income.  Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.  Figure out several ways to bring in income.  Not only does this free you from being a wage slave, but it allows you to hire friends or family members.  You are less entangled in the system and not subject to corporate whims.  If one business fails, or becomes subject to regulations that make it no longer worthwhile, you are not forced to comply just to keep a roof over your head.
• Say thanks, but no thanks.  There is no such thing as a benevolent hand out.  Nearly anything offered for free (particularly by a government entity) has strings attached.  Maybe there is a handy-dandy registration form that you need to fill out. You might be influenced to vote a certain way just to keep the freebies coming. You might have to pee in a cup every two weeks. Perhaps one day you’ll need to have a microchip embedded in your hand.  Either way, by accepting handouts from those in “authority”, you become beholden to them or you need them, and someone who is free is neither beholden nor needy.
• Don’t take the easy road.  The PTB like to seduce people with simplicity.  ”If you just sign this paper, it will be much easier,” they say.  ”This chip is for your convenience,” they tell you.  ”By giving up this, it lets us take care of you and you will be much safer.”  The easy road only gets you to Slave Street a whole lot faster.  Take the difficult road and be responsible for yourself.  Don’t take shortcuts that compromise your beliefs. Go to court to fight a ticket, read the laws and defend yourself, and know that anything you give up, you willnever get back.

According to the Declaration of Independence,  ”Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

That means that you don’t have to accept the unjust laws. That means you don’t have to quietly take it, muttering under your breath that it isn’t right, but not daring to raise your voice.  That means that “they” are only in control of you if you allow it.

There are nearly 316 million people in the United States. (source)

Only 3% of the population fought in the Revolutionary War, and 10% actively supported them.

If 9,480,000 people quietly and peacefully revolted by withdrawing their consent to be governed by tyrants we could not be silenced.

If 31,600,000 people supported those revolting, we could not be stopped.

The government might  be watching us, but we can watch them right back.  Make the way you live your life a revolutionary act.

What random act of revolution did you commit today?  Please share it in the comments section below.

Please feel free to share any information from this site in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to this website and the following bio.

Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor.  Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca

This article originally appeared on: SHTF Plan

Editor’s Note: Coming soon to a neighborhood near you. These protests reportedly erupted a few days ago when activists staged a sit-in at a local park. Now there are thousands of Turks in the streets, hundreds arrested, and scores brutally beaten. So much so, that there are literally pools of blood flowing through the streets. It only takes a seemingly innocuous catalyst for all hell to break loose. These people aren’t being motivated because a park is being razed for commercial purposes. The resentment and anger goes much, much deeper than that.

Report Contributed by The Daily Sheeple:

Turkey is entering its third day of violent protests as police have withdrawn from Taksim Square and allowed the mass protests to continue.

Over 900 people have been arrested across Turkey for what the authorities called a security measure.

The first photo below was taken from a CNN IReport that CNN themselves have not vetted.

Blood in streets near Taksim Turkey

A shocking video report from RT shows violent clashes between police and protesters:

An RT article covered various aspects of the protests including how they started and what they stand for:

Police in Istanbul have withdrawn from Taksim Square, allowing the mass protest to continue unabated, Turkish media report. Istanbul and Ankara are entering the third day of violent protests, with tear gas and water cannon deployed and over 900 arrested.

Follow RT’s live updates on Taksim Square protest

Minor scuffles broke out after protesters lobbed fireworks at officers as they were drawing back, the state-run Anadolu Agency reports. Police removed barricades around the square, located in the heart of the city, which had previously been erected to prevent the anti-government protests, Private Dogan news agency said.

Despite the authorities decision to allow tens of thousands to flood onto the square, the main subway gateway to Taksim, the central station in the city’s metro network, has reportedly been shut down in an effort to keep more people from reaching the ongoing protests.

In the capital, Ankara, security forces battled with demonstrators who had amassed at a park near Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office. Rallies have also been staged in the cities of Bodrum, Konya and Izmir.

Protestors take care of an injured demonstrator during a demonstration in support of protests in Istanbul and against the Turkish Prime Minister and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), in Ankara, on June 1, 2013 (AFP Photo / Adem Altan)

Confronted with the growing street opposition, Erdogan remained defiant, demanding that protesters “stop their demonstrations immediately.”

“Police were there yesterday, they’ll be on duty today and also tomorrow because Taksim Square cannot be an area where extremists are running wild,” the PM warned.

In two days about 939 people have been detained across the Turkey as part of “necessary security measures,” Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Güler said.

Police use a water cannon to disperse protestors near the Taksim Gezi park in Istanbul after clashes with riot police, on June 1, 2013, during a demonstration against the demolition of the park (AFP Photo / Gurcan Ozturk)

Many have wondered how the protests originally erupted and the answer to that question is that it apparently started after dozens of activists decided to attempt a sit in at a park that was set to be destroyed for commercial use.

After the police became overzealous and clearly attacked peaceful protesters, many other people within Turkish society joined their ranks.

On Monday, several dozen activists tried to stage a sit-in in Gezi Park, the last area of green space left on Taksim Square, after several trees were torn up to make way for a commercial redevelopment.

Erdogan dismissed the small protest on Wednesday, saying authorities would go ahead with the plan, which entails the construction of a replica Ottoman-era barracks that could house a shopping mall or apartments.

Following three days of police pressure, which saw officers douse peaceful protesters with pepper spray and tear gas, the sit-in attracted support from broad sections of Turkish society.

Protestors run away from tear gas at the Taksim Gezi park in Istanbul after clashes with riot police, on June 1, 2013, during a demonstration against the demolition of the park (AFP Photo / Gurcan Ozturk)

The heavy-handed tactics deployed by police have been viewed by demonstrators as a sign of the government’s increasingly authoritarian bent, with the park demonstration turning into a broader, nationwide protest against Erdogan’s government.

Similar demonstrations have flared up around the country despite a court decision to temporarily halt demolition of the park.

Erdogan said that the Turkish Interior Ministry had launched an investigation into the use of excessive force by security forces. In a televised speech, the Turkish PM said police may have used tear gas excessively during their confrontation with protesters, although he insisted they did not represent the majority and were responsible for raising tensions.

However, protesters have countered the claim, saying the violent police crackdown is to blame for the recent unrest.

“This started simply as a peaceful sit-in to save a park, but it’s become one of the worst state attacks on protesters in recent memory – and a frightening example of the Turkish government’s growing eagerness to crack down on its own citizens,” an online petition demanding that Erdogan “End the crackdown now!” reads.

“The security forces have been individually targeting protesters to terrify, wound and kill us. 12 people have already suffered trauma injuries from gas canisters – one man died of heart attack, and hundreds are suffering from excessive gas inhalation,” it continues.

Riot police use tear gas to disperse the crowd during an anti-government protest in Istanbul June 1, 2013.(Reuters / Murad Sezer)

 

Turkish protestors arrive in Taksim square after a clashing with riot policemen on June 1, 2013.(AFP Photo / Bulent Kilic)

 

A woman opens her arms as police use a water cannon to disperse protestors on June 1, 2013 during a protest against the demolition of Taksim Gezi Park in Istanbul (AFP Photo)

 

Tear gas surrounds a protestor holding a Turkish flag with a portrait of the founder of modern Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as he takes part in a demonstration in support of protests in Istanbul and against the Turkish Prime Minister and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), in Ankara, on June 1, 2013 (AFP Photo / Adem Altan)

 

A protestor flashes a victory sign as he takes part in a demonstration in support of protests in Istanbul and against the Turkish Prime Minister and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), in Ankara, on June 1, 2013 (AFP Photo / Adem Altan)

Stay tuned as we will continue to monitor the increasingly violent situation in Turkey and bring any updates as they become available.

Related: The Day the People of Turkey Rose Up

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

This article originally appeared on: SHTF Plan

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Egypt’s top court has invalidated the upper house and the panel that drafted the country’s new constitution. The Senate though will only be dissolved after elections, the court said in a ruling that is likely to deepen Egypt’s political instability.

The Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) ruled on Sunday that the
laws governing the election of the Islamist-dominated Senate, or
Shura Council, and the constitution panel were illegal.

The court said that the Shura should remain in place until a new
parliament is elected, but it would reportedly have no
legislative authority. So far, no date has been set for the vote.
However, earlier Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said that
elections could begin in October.

Later in the day, the presidential office stated that the Shura
Council “will continue in its full legislative role until
power is transferred to the new assembly,” reported
Naharnet.com.

Under the constitution, the Council, or the upper house, cannot
be dissolved until a lower house is elected, Egyptian Ahram news
agency pointed out. But members of the lower house, the People’s
Assembly (also called the House of Representatives), had been
elected under the same law as the Shura members. The
Assembly was dissolved in June 2012 after the SCC deemed that law
invalid.

For several months after the dissolution of the Assembly, Egypt
lived without the parliament until November last year when
president Morsi issued a constitutional declaration giving Shura
Council — historically a powerless body — authority to make laws.
The declaration also stated that no authority could dissolve the
council as well as the constitution-drafting assembly.

Back then, the move yet again threw the post-revolution country
into a fresh wave of violent opposition protests and met strong
criticism from Egypt’s top judges who demanded that the president
reversed the decision.

Both the Shura Council and the constitutional panel were touted
by Islamist President Morsi as examples of Egypt’s new democracy.
It is not quite clear yet what impact Sunday’s court ruling will
have and whether it will affect the constitution ratified in
December by a referendum and whether the Council’s earlier
decisions will be overturned.

Some members of the Egyptian opposition believe the verdict is
unlikely to have a serious effect on the political situation.

Essam El-Erian, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s
Freedom and Justice Party and a Shura Council member, suggested
that the ruling could lead to a reduction of the Council’s
four-year term, cites Ahram. 

Former lawmaker, Ziad El-Elemy from the Egyptian Social
Democratic Party criticized the court’s ruling as being several
months late.

“Slow justice is great injustice. The delay of the verdict
makes it hard to implement. The Shura Council will remain in
place until after elections for the House of the Representatives.
And the Constituent Assembly is invalid, but the constitution
will remain because it was ratified by a national
referendum,” he twitted, as cited by the Egyptian news
agency.

The confrontation between Morsi and the country’s judiciary has
been ongoing since his election last June. His supporters staged
protests demanding to clear the courts of loyalists of ousted
President Hosni Mubarak. Morsi’s opponents accused the president
of trying to fill the posts with his own loyalists. The court
overturned several of Morsi’s decisions and suspended the
parliamentary elections that the president had planned to hold in
April.

This article originally appeared on: RT

At least two people have been killed in devastating floods gripping the western Czech Republic. The disaster caused by torrential rains has prompted the evacuation of metro stations, several hospitals and the zoo in the capital.

Heavy rain over the weekend has resulted in flood warnings in
west, north, central and south Bohemia.

At least one woman is dead, after her home collapsed in Trebenice
u Prahy, southwest of Prague and two people are missing after
their raft overturned on the River Berounka in Hlasna Treban in
central Bohemia.

In Prague, rescue workers, aided by the army, have set up flood
barriers for the first time since the devastating floods of 2002.
Hospitals, retirement homes and cultural institutions as well as
the zoo are being evacuated across the city.

A state of emergency has been declared in the Czech Republic due
to the threat of flooding, Prime Minister Petr Nečas announced in
a televised address.

He added that the government has allocated 300 million Czech
Koruna ($15 million ) to battle the flooding.

“The situation is very serious,” acting mayor Tomas
Hudecek stated, as water levels in the Vltava, the river that
flows through Prague, reached 1,513 cubic meters per second.
During the 2002 floods 5,000 cubic meters was flowing through the
city every second, according to the Prague Post.

The rising water levels have interrupted rail services between
Bohemia and Moravia, with trains being stopped near Kolin.

The flooding also partially damaged half of the 51 metro stations
in Prague, with 17 of them submerged, local media Ceskenoviny
reports adding that the total damage was put at 73 billion Czech
Koruna (about $4 billion) , 27 billion (about $1,5 billion) of
which in Prague only.

Elsewhere in central Europe, at least four people have died or
are missing because of floods in Germany and Switzerland
according to the Associated Press.

Heavy rain is affecting the rivers Danube and Inn in Bavaria,
while rivers in Saxony and Baden-Wuerttemberg have also burst
their banks.

In Austria, a man was found dead in Salzburg as he was swept away
while working on flood defenses and another two people are
missing in the Salzburg area, according to the Salzberger
Nachrichten.

This article originally appeared on: RT

As the US government pushes for a heavy sentence to be handed to Bradley Manning “for revealing US hypocrisy”, it doesn’t stand accountable for the crimes it committed, Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights told RT.

On Monday the whistleblower will stand trial for the largest
intelligence leak in United States history in Fort Meade,
Maryland. The trial is expected to continue for up to three
months.

Manning was arrested in Iraq in May 2010, accused of transmitting
digital materials connected with US military operations
abroad. Once detained he pleaded guilty to the charge
of handing over information to WikiLeaks. He has been held
in custody since.

The investigation into his case has been ongoing for three years
as he may be facing life in prison if the prosecutors prove his
links with Al Qaeda on which they insist and get Manning convicted of “aiding the
enemy.”

The Private’s detention conditions have sparked international
concern. December last year judge Army Col. Denise Lind accepted
terms that would allow Manning to plead guilty to lesser than the
presented 22 charges. Following Manning’s guilt plea to 10
charges, the judge ruled that any sentence should be reduced by
112 days because of the detention conditions, which were named by
the UN Special Rapporteur on torture “cruel, inhuman and
degrading.”

Demonstrations have been taking place across
the US and all over the world in support of Bradley Manning, the
US army private who revealed sensitive information to the whistle
blowing website WikiLeaks.

RT: Manning finally faces trial on Monday – three years
after he was arrested in 2010. Why has it taken so long?

Michael Ratner: There was a huge number of documents
involved in this case, half a million that they had to go
through. Two of the big reasons are that some of the pretrial was
devoted to how he was kept in custody , the torture, the cruel
treatment and actually he got some reduction in the ultimate
sentence because of that. Another part of the pretrial was when
he pleaded guilty to charges that could get him 20 years. It was
one of the most moving days I spent in court. He gave his
political reasons, why he wanted the American people to know
about the crimes of their own government in Iraq and Iran and all
around the world. What’s going on now I think sadly is the
punitive phase of the trial. He has pleaded guilty for 20 years,
the US government now wants to put him away for life.

RT: Some praise Manning as a courageous whistleblower –
others condemn him as a traitor who risked lives. How would you
describe him?

MR: One of the questions you get all the time is while he
was a soldier, he broke his duty, all of this stuff. The problem
for me is that no one is looking at the accountability of my own
government for the crimes it committed. They are only focusing on
‘yes Bradley’ — ‘no, Bradley’.

I support Bradley Manning, I support what he did, I support the
revelation of criminality of my own government and accountability
for my own government.

Why don’t they look at the torture centers they’ve set up in
Iraq? Why don’t they look at the illegal drones they are using
all over the world? That’s the accountability we’ve got to have.
We shouldn’t be taking one soldier and trying to put him in jail
forever, but revealing the secrets, criminality and hypocrisy of
the US.

RT: During one of the hearings Manning described some
harsh details about his confinement conditions – being stripped
naked at night for example. How can the US account for such
treatment?

MR: They can’t account for that kind of treatment. I was
there that day, I cried during that trial. Bradley Manning was
very dignified, smart, dealt with it. They can’t. It was torture
by all means you want to say. They did this to him in the face of
the public. It was only the protest of the public really that
eventually brought that to an end. It’s outrageous. 

This article originally appeared on: RT

Iran has held the third festival of photos and posters on the late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini in the capital city of Tehran.

The festival dubbed The Eye of the Heart hosted many artists and ordinary visitors at the Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) on June 1, 2013.

Some 36 posters and 45 photos, displaying personality and life of Imam Khomeini, were exhibited at the event.

Those artists who participated in the festival were required to centre on the themes of Å“The Image of Imam Khomeini” and Å“Imam Khomeini and the People.”

The competitionâ„¢s themes were offered by the Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeiniâ„¢s Works.

The one-day festival wrapped up during an award ceremony for both sections of poster and photo.

Vahid Bahrami, Masoud Shakibaie and Mehdi Mousavi won the awards of poster section while Eshaq Aqaie, Mona Ghaffari and Marzieh Heydarzadeh were named as the winners of photo section.

FGP/FGP

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iran has held the third festival of photos and posters on the late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini in the capital city of Tehran.

The festival dubbed The Eye of the Heart hosted many artists and ordinary visitors at the Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) on June 1, 2013.

Some 36 posters and 45 photos, displaying personality and life of Imam Khomeini, were exhibited at the event.

Those artists who participated in the festival were required to centre on the themes of Å“The Image of Imam Khomeini” and Å“Imam Khomeini and the People.”

The competitionâ„¢s themes were offered by the Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeiniâ„¢s Works.

The one-day festival wrapped up during an award ceremony for both sections of poster and photo.

Vahid Bahrami, Masoud Shakibaie and Mehdi Mousavi won the awards of poster section while Eshaq Aqaie, Mona Ghaffari and Marzieh Heydarzadeh were named as the winners of photo section.

FGP/FGP

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iran has held the third festival of photos and posters on the late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini in the capital city of Tehran.

The festival dubbed The Eye of the Heart hosted many artists and ordinary visitors at the Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) on June 1, 2013.

Some 36 posters and 45 photos, displaying personality and life of Imam Khomeini, were exhibited at the event.

Those artists who participated in the festival were required to centre on the themes of Å“The Image of Imam Khomeini” and Å“Imam Khomeini and the People.”

The competitionâ„¢s themes were offered by the Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeiniâ„¢s Works.

The one-day festival wrapped up during an award ceremony for both sections of poster and photo.

Vahid Bahrami, Masoud Shakibaie and Mehdi Mousavi won the awards of poster section while Eshaq Aqaie, Mona Ghaffari and Marzieh Heydarzadeh were named as the winners of photo section.

FGP/FGP

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

Iranian presidential candidate Mohammad Reza Aref says curbing inflation will be his top priority if he wins the June 14 vote.

On Sunday, the Reformist candidate pledged to end the countryâ„¢s financial and monetary irregularities, curb liquidity, and decrease the inflation rate to below 10 percent.

Aref, who is also a former first vice president, stated that unemployment and inflation are the most pressing issues in Iran, adding that joblessness among the youth, especially the university graduates, is alarming.

The Reformist candidate further said he would try to forge closer relations with Iranâ„¢s neighboring countries.

Other presidential candidates include Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, President of the Center for Strategic Research of the Expediency Council Hassan Rohani, lawmaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili, Secretary of Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi.

Iranians will go to the polls in the countryâ„¢s 11th presidential election on June 14. The fourth city and rural council elections are also scheduled to be held on the same day.

Nearly 50.5 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election with more than 1.6 million first-time voters.

MKA/HGH/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A firefighting helicopter attempts to extinguish a fire in California on May 31, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Experts warn that the UKâ„¢s new residency tests will leave vulnerable children at risk of exploitation.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

At least two people have been killed in devastating floods gripping the western Czech Republic. The disaster caused by torrential rains has prompted the evacuation of 8 metro stations, several hospitals and the zoo in the capital.

Heavy rain over the weekend has resulted in flood warnings in
west, north, central and south Bohemia.

At least one woman is dead, after her home collapsed in Trebenice
u Prahy, southwest of Prague and two people are missing after
their raft overturned on the River Berounka in Hlasna Treban in
central Bohemia.

In Prague, rescue workers, aided by the army, have set up flood
barriers for the first time since the devastating floods of 2002.
Hospitals, retirement homes and cultural institutions as well as
the zoo are being evacuated across the city.

“The situation is very serious,” acting mayor Tomas
Hudecek stated, as water levels in the Vltava, the river that
flows through Prague, reached 1,513 cubic meters per second.
During the 2002 floods 5,000 cubic meters was flowing through the
city every second, according to the Prague Post.

Elsewhere in central Europe, at least four people have died or
are missing because of floods in Germany and Switzerland
according to the Associated Press.

Heavy rain is affecting the rivers Danube and Inn in Bavaria,
while rivers in Saxony and Baden-Wuerttemberg have also burst
their banks.

In Austria, a man was found dead in Salzburg as he was swept away
while working on flood defenses and another two people are
missing in the Salzburg area, according to the Salzberger
Nachrichten.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Iranian Intelligence Ministry says it has uncovered a Mossad-trained network of terrorists with links to the spy agency of an Arab state, plotting to sabotage Iranâ„¢s upcoming election.

Å“The ringleader of this group was recruited by the spy agency of one of the most dependent and reactionary Arab countries in the region,” the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The dependence of this Arab country on the Israeli regime has become more obvious in recent years, it added.

Å“The prime suspect in the case … was assigned the mission to set up an operational group to carry out acts of terror in the country… on Election Day (June 14). A 12-member group was formed upon this order with the purpose of sabotage,” the statement read.

The ministry said the spy terrorist network had also been tasked with creating sectarian strife and religious rift across Iran and was also ordered to assassinate the prominent figures of religious and ethnic groups in the country.

The statement further stated that the ministry also confiscated large amounts of light weapons, including colt pistols and Tommy guns from the group.

The ministry warned the enemies of Iran and Islam, including the arrogant powers and certain reactionary countries in the region, that they would face harsh retaliation if they cross the Å“red lines” of the Islamic establishment.

This is not the first time Iran has arrested foreign spies.

On March 21, Iranian Intelligence Ministry disbanded two terrorist groups that smuggled weapons into the country and were making arrangements for different types of seditious acts ahead of the June presidential election.

SF/HGH/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has reinstated the country’s Senate, known as Shura Council, after the countryâ„¢s Supreme Constitutional Court voted to nullify the upper house of the parliament.

Egyptâ„¢s presidential office said in a statement on Sunday that the upper house of the parliament will maintain its legislative powers until a new parliament is elected.

Morsi overturned the court decision hours after the top court ruled earlier on Sunday that the countryâ„¢s Senate and the panel that drafted the constitution were illegally elected and must be dissolved.

Egyptâ„¢s highest court announced its decision to examine the legitimacy of the Senate days after the countryâ„¢s new constitution was signed into law.

The lower house of the parliament, dominated by Muslim Brotherhood lawmakers, was dissolved by a military decision in line with a ruling by the same court prior to the presidential elections in June 2012.

No date has been set for the parliamentary elections yet, but President Mohamed Morsi had previously hinted that the vote could be held in October 2013.

The latest developments spell a fresh political turmoil and the clash of institutions in Egypt.

JR/PR/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Egypt’s top court has invalidated the upper house and the panel that drafted the country’s new constitution. The Senate though will only be dissolved after elections, the court said in a ruling that is likely to deepen Egypt’s political instability.

The Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) ruled on Sunday that the
laws governing the election of the Islamist-dominated Senate, or
Shura Council, and the constitution panel were illegal.

Under the court decision, the Shura should remain in place until
a new parliament is elected, but it would reportedly have no
legislative authority. So far, no date has been set for the vote.
However, earlier Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said that
elections could begin in October.

Under the constitution, the Council, or the upper house, cannot
be dissolved until a lower house is elected, Egyptian Ahram news
agency pointed out. But members of the lower house, the People’s
Assembly (also called the House of Representatives), had been
elected under the same law as the Shura members. The
Assembly was dissolved in June 2012 after the SCC deemed that law
invalid.

For several months after the dissolution of the Assembly, Egypt
lived without the parliament until November last year when
president Morsi issued a constitutional declaration giving Shura
Council — historically a powerless body — authority to make laws.
The declaration also stated that no authority could dissolve the
council as well as the constitution-drafting assembly.

Back then, the move yet again threw the post-revolution country
into a fresh wave of violent opposition protests and met strong
criticism from Egypt’s top judges who demanded that the president
reversed the decision.

Both the Shura Council and the constitutional panel were touted
by Islamist President Morsi as examples of Egypt’s new democracy.
It is not quite clear yet what impact Sunday’s court ruling will
have and whether it will affect the constitution ratified in
December by a referendum and whether the Council’s earlier
decisions will be overturned.

Some members of the Egyptian opposition believe the verdict is
unlikely to have a serious effect on the political situation.

Essam El-Erian, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s
Freedom and Justice Party and a Shura Council member, suggested
that the ruling could lead to a reduction of the Council’s
four-year term, cites Ahram. 

Former lawmaker, Ziad El-Elemy from the Egyptian Social
Democratic Party criticized the court’s ruling as being several
months late.

“Slow justice is great injustice. The delay of the verdict
makes it hard to implement. The Shura Council will remain in
place until after elections for the House of the Representatives.
And the Constituent Assembly is invalid, but the constitution
will remain because it was ratified by a national
referendum,” he twitted, as cited by the Egyptian news
agency.

This article originally appeared on: RT

British Labour leader Ed Miliband has come under pressure form his own party MPs to offer a referendum on Britainâ„¢s membership with the European Union (EU).

Milibandâ„¢s leadership of the party is becoming fragile as a group of some 20 Labour backbenchers have signed up to a campaign called Å“Labour for a Referendum”, which is planned to be launched this week.

The Labour MPs are calling on Miliband to do a U-turn on his refusal to offer the British people an in/out vote on the UKâ„¢s relationship with the 27-nation bloc.

The Labour for a Referendum campaign is being bankrolled by Labour’s largest donor John Mills, who recently criticized Miliband for not having a “clear idea” of how to stimulate the countryâ„¢s economic growth and reduce the UK’s budget deficit.

“People can change their minds, circumstances can change. I think there is going to be quite a compelling argument for Labour strategists as we get into the next election,” Mills said.

BGH/SSM/HE

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The 2013 Eastern Breeze International Film Festival in Canada is set to hold a retrospective of works by the renowned Iranian actor and director Hamid Jebeli.

Jebeliâ„¢s program is scheduled to be held on the sidelines of the event that will be held in Toronto in October, 2013.

Son of Mary, White Dream and Autumn are among the Jebeliâ„¢s works that will be screened and reviewed.

Jebeli who has been named as the special guest of the festival will also present a four-day workshop for young filmmakers.

Hamid Jebeli has acting and photography experiences in the film, and theater industry over four decades.

He has dedicated his life to build outstanding Feature films and TV series, as well as to take remarkable photographs of theatrical shows.

Eastern Breeze is an annual public film festival that previews short films, mid length films of all genres including documentaries, animations, fiction and experimental which contains an eastern taste or philosophy.

This yearâ„¢s Eastern Breeze International Film Festival is programmed to be held from October 18 to 30, 2013.

FGP/FGP

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Independent presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei says enemies use Iranâ„¢s nuclear energy program as a pretext to disrupt the countryâ„¢s foreign relations, vowing to use a win-win plan to resolve the nuclear issue.

Å“By using strong diplomacy and a win-win position, we can pass through this phase and preserve our national dignity,” Rezaei told reporters on Saturday.

He emphasized that Iran would not allow enemies to exploit the nuclear energy program.

Rezaei also vowed to counter the negative effects of sanctions against Iran and make those who think about imposing bans on the country Å“reconsider their behavior.”

The United States, the Israeli regime and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program with Washington and the European Union using the false allegation to impose a series of illegal unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Tehran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Rezaei is competing against Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, President of the Center for Strategic Research of the Expediency Council Hassan Rohani, lawmaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, former First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi.

On June 14, Iranians will cast their ballots at over 66,000 polling stations across the country to choose their 11th president. Expatriates will be also able to vote at 285 polling stations that will be set up in their respective countries.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election.

SF/HGH/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian presidential candidate Ali Akbar Velayati has pledged to provide free healthcare services if he wins the upcoming presidential election.

Addressing a group of university students and scholars in Tehran on Sunday, the principlist candidate said people would initially have to pay for around 30 percent of their healthcare expenses if it is ratified by the Majlis.

Velayati, who is a former foreign minister and a medical doctor, added that healthcare services would be later provided completely free of charge.

He further stated that free healthcare coverage should start form Iranâ„¢s rural areas, highlighting the important contribution of those areas to domestic production.

Velayati is currently a senior advisor to the leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. He is also a member of the principlist Coalition of Three along with lawmaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.

Other candidates include Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, President of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council Hassan Rohani, former First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi, Haddad-Adel and Qalibaf.

Iranians will go to the polls in the countryâ„¢s 11th presidential election on June 14. The fourth city and rural council elections are also scheduled to be held on the same day.

Nearly 50.5 million Iranians are eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election, with more than 1.6 million first-time voters.

MKA/HGH/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Presidential candidate Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf addresses people in Golestan Province on June 1, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Last week, sources within the Obama administration announced the president’s plans to appoint James Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He would replace Robert Mueller, who is scheduled to step down later this year.

Comey served as deputy and acting attorney general for the George W. Bush administration, where he participated in the attack on democratic rights by approving, among other measures, the administration’s domestic surveillance and torture programs.

After playing a leading role in covering for the unprecedented unconstitutional actions of the Bush administration, Comey moved on to take a leading position with Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer.

Comey worked as general counsel for Lockheed from 2005 to 2010, a period during which the company reaped immense profits off of contracts with Comey’s former employer, the US government, to build deadly weapons for use in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2010, Comey left Lockheed to accept the position of general counsel with Bridgewater Associates, the $122 billion hedge fund that became the world’s largest investment management firm in 2011.

Comey, who is also a member of the board of directors at London-based HSBC Holdings, became senior research scholar and Hertog Fellow of Security Law at Columbia Law School in early 2013.

Despite this record, the Democratic Party is lauding the selection of Comey as a progressive step in the defense of democratic rights.

Comey, a Republican, is “near and dear to the hearts of many liberals in Washington,” writes ABC News in an article titled “Obama’s GOP FBI Pick a Folk Hero for Democrats”.

Along with president Obama’s speech at National Defense University last week, the Washington Post called the nomination of Comey “an equally important statement about his intentions in the fight against terrorism.”

The Post concluded, “It’s that strong moral compass that the president apparently wants to lead the nation’s chief domestic law enforcement agency. That Obama would seek out someone who has so jealously guarded civil liberties, even at great personal and career risk, speaks more loudly than his speech about the legacy he wants to leave in the fight against terrorism.”

Overblown tales of Comey’s role as a defender of democratic rights are based on the only notable instance in which Comey has not actively pursued the most anti-democratic agenda possible.

In March 2004, Comey, alongside Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller, opposed a maneuver by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. Comey had opposed Gonzales’ surreptitious nighttime visit to Ashcroft’s hospital bed in an attempt to prevent Gonzales from procuring a signature for the extension of an expanded warrantless wiretapping program. The program had been in effect under the National Security Agency from 2002 to 2004.

Comey’s actions were likely motivated by an awareness of the illegal character of the operations that the Bush administration was carrying out. He fully supported the NSA surveillance program once minor changes had been made to the wording of program guidelines.

Comey was satisfied once the Bush administration lawyers had brought the spying program under the guidelines of the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Act, which gave the president the unprecedented executive powers, ostensibly in response to the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Comey and the Department of Justice worked tirelessly to erect a scaffolding of pseudo-legal justifications for the unconstitutional spying campaign throughout 2004 and after Comey departed in 2005. It is likely that Comey and the rest of the Bush legal team were partly motivated by a desire to prepare their own legal defenses in case criminal charges were ever brought against them.

Furthermore, Comey played a leading role in the trial of US citizen Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant in a military tribunal without due process rights. Beginning in 2002, Padilla was held for over three years and was repeatedly tortured without having been charged with any crime. In 2004, Comey claimed that Padilla was “more than a criminal defendant with a broad menu of rights…”

In 2005, Comey also signed-off on the program of torture implemented by the Bush administration. A series of emails between Comey and CIA officials detail Coney’s approval of all 13 proposed “extraordinary rendition” tactics, including waterboarding and sleep deprivation. Coney wrote at the time that the torture program “was ready to go out and I concurred.”

The fact that the liberal Democratic establishment can rain such high praise on a war profiteer, financial parasite, and legal champion of the Bush administration speaks volumes to the political and moral decay of liberalism, as well as to the intensifying reaction of all sections of the American ruling class.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Riot police use a water cannon to disperse demonstrators during a protest against Turkeyâ„¢s prime minister and his ruling Justice and Development Party in Ankara on May 31, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Warner Todd Huston
Breitbart
June 2, 2013

One hundred and fifty two new sex abuse allegations have been made against dozens of BBC employees as well as its most famous TV presenter. The new allegations have been brought in the Jimmy Savile sex scandal that erupted last year. About 40 of the accused BBC employees still work for the broadcasting giant.

Early in 2013, four years after he died at age 84, hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse of teens and young people were lodged against one of the BBC’s most famous and long-standing TV and radio presenters, Jimmy Savile. The scandal rocked the British Isles, as Savile was a popular entertainer, radio disc jockey, charity representative, and TV personality from the 1960s up until his death in 2009.

The scandal roiled for months as steady stream of new people came forward claiming that Savile and his cohorts at the British Broadcasting Corporation had abused them when they were young.

Read full article

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This article was posted: Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 10:04 am

Tags: foreign affairs

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

The Syrian Army has seized two containers with poisonous sarin agent in a rebel hideout, SANA said citing sources. Meanwhile, Russia reportedly blocked the UNSC resolution set to slam Damascus’ offensive on the town of Qusair held by opposition forces.

Syrian Arab News Agency reports that sarin, together with
automatic rifles, pistols and homemade bombs (IEDs) was seized in
the Faraieh neighborhood of the city of Hama.

Sarin (or GB) is an extremely toxic, though colorless and
odorless, substance that disrupts the nervous system,
over-stimulating muscles and vital organs, if it comes into
contact with skin. This potentially extremely harmful nerve agent
was originally invented and manufactured to be used as a chemical
weapon. According to UN Resolution 687, Sarin is classified as a
weapon of mass destruction.

The threat of chemical weapons deployment in Syria has become a
major international concern, with American President Barack Obama
even saying previously that the use of chemical arsenal by the
Syrian government would be a “red line” and might precipitate a
foreign military intervention.

However, in early May an independent UN commission came to the
conclusion that Syrian rebels had used sarin nerve gas, while
allegations of its use by the government have not yet received
any official confirmation.

On Saturday a UN Security Council (UNSC) assembly failed to adopt
a British-drafted resolution on the situation in Qusair, which
the Syrian Army has blockaded and is said to be eliminating a
large group of opposition forces that occupied the town several
weeks ago.

Rebels besieged in Qusair are pleading for military help. They
claim that many civilians have been wounded in the assault of the
government forces and that these people are in desperate need of
medical attention.

The Syrian foreign minister says the country will allow the Red
Cross into Qusair “as soon as military operations are
over,” he is cited by Syrian State Television.

The UK-drafted UN statement obtained by Reuters claims that
Assad’s government must “allow immediate, full and unimpeded
access to impartial humanitarian actors, including UN agencies,
to reach civilians trapped in Qusair.”

According to Reuters’ sources in the Security Council, Russia
blocked the resolution during private discussions on Saturday,
explaining that the UNSC had made no statement when the rebels
came to Qusair in force and seized the town.

It is “not advisable to speak out as the UN Security Council
didn’t when Qusair was taken by the opposition,” a Russia
diplomat reportedly said in the UNSC.

So far Russia has officially vetoed three resolutions on Syria in
the UNSC saying they were “unbalanced” targeting Assad’s
government while sending weak to no message to the opposition
fighters.

Earlier this week the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution
on the worsening human rights situation in Syria and in
particular in connection with battle for Qusair.

The document puts the blame for Qusair violence solely on
Damascus troops and condemns the involvement of “foreign
combatants” fighting on the side of the Syrian government.

The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out that the resolution
deliberately ignore numerous human rights violations and abuses
of Qusair civilians committed by armed foreign jihadists, some of
whom have links to Al-Qaeda.

The “foreign combatants” mentioned in the resolution are fighters
of the previously neutral Hezbollah group which have joined
Syrian military in the offensive on Qusair, overturning the
balance in the stand-off to the opposition’s disadvantage.

The Syrian opposition has even threatened not to attend the peace
conference in Geneva that is being prepared by Russia and the US
for July because of Hezbollah’s involvement.

The ongoing siege of Qusair has raged for two weeks now. On
Saturday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that he is
“following with the gravest concern” the situation in
Qusair. He reminded the government of Bashar Assad of its
responsibility to protect civilians on the Syrian territory,
including those threatened by militants, and urged to allow
thousands of Qusair residents to flee the town.

In another statement issued on Saturday the UN Humanitarian Chief
Valerie Amos and the UN Human Rights Head Navi Pillay maintained
that there are as many as 1,500 injured people in Qusair who need
immediate evacuation for emergency medical treatment.

UN officials said that if the information they are receiving is
correct, “the general situation in Qusair is desperate.”

“We urge the parties to agree to an immediate ceasefire to
allow humanitarian agencies to evacuate the wounded and provide
life-saving treatment and supplies,” Amos and Pillay said in
their statement.

Qusair, with an original population of 30,000, is less than 10 km
from the Lebanese border and some 25 km from the city of Homs.

In the meantime there have been reports of intensifying clashes
between the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Assad’s forces near
Aleppo. Allegedly, the troops have captured Mount Shuwaihinah, a
dominating point in the area.

FSA brigades are reportedly calling for reinforcements to be sent
in from other areas.

This article originally appeared on: RT

More than a thousand Iraqis died and over two thousand were injured in outbreaks of violence across Iraq in May, according to a UN body. It’s the highest monthly death toll in the country since 2008.

One thousand and forty-five Iraqis were killed in May, according
to estimates released by the United Nations Assistance Mission
for Iraq (UNAMI). Eighty-two of those were members of the Iraqi
Security Forces, with the bulk of the casualties registered among
civilians.

The capital Baghdad was most affected by acts of violence, with
homemade explosives, car blasts and suicide bombings responsible
for the vast majority of deaths. The terror attacks were carried
out in both Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods.

The UNAMI death toll figure for May is far higher than the April
700 casualties, which previously were described as the
record-breaking figure since the country’s sectarian violence
spike of 2006-2007. The escalating death toll sparks fears that
sectarian unrest in the country might be turning into a civil
war.

“That is a sad record. Iraqi political leaders must act
immediately to stop this intolerable bloodshed,” said Martin
Kobler, the Special Representative of the United Nations
Secretary-General (SRSG) for Iraq.

The day before the UN figures were released, the Baghdad
authorities banned temporary license plates on cars in an attempt
to avert car bombings, the cause for much of the casualties in
the recent outbreaks of violence. The cars with temporary black
plates have quite often been used for attacks, as they are more
difficult to trace.

The recent escalation in violence is seen as instigated by the
late April crackdown on the Sunni protesters by security
forces, controlled by the Shiite-dominated government.

 

Political analyst Chris Bambery, who warned in April the number
of casualties in Iraq would only rise in the near future, lays
the blame for growing sectarian unrest in the region on the US
decision to separate Iraq into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni areas.

“It is based on the decision by the Americans when they
occupied Iraq to separate Iraq off into these three areas. Iraq
has been a unified country for a long time. And yet doing so
based on the sectarian headcount by dividing the country up,
particularly be excluding the Sunni from having any control of
the oil fields was a recipe of the sectarian conflict. And that’s
what we’ve seen,” Bambery told RT.

Ten years after the US announced its victory
in the war with Iraq, the country is immersed in violence. The
withdrawal of US troops in 2011 saw sectarian tension between
Sunnis and Shiites escalate. What now contributes to the
instability in the region is the Syrian conflict, as “Iraq is
becoming very intertwined with what is going on in Syria with
almost an open border between the two countries there,” according
to the analyst.

Not long after the casualty figures were released, Iraq’s Defense
Ministry announced that it captured an alleged Al-Qaeda cell,
which attempted to produce chemical weapons such as mustard gas.

“There are some confessions about organized cells to smuggle
them [weapons] outside Iraq through a neighboring country in
order to target Europe, America and different capitals,” said
Mohammed Askari, a Defense Ministry spokesman, as cited by
Reuters.  

Journalists were shown bottles containing chemicals, some
laboratory equipment and also toy remote-controlled helicopters,
which according to officials could be used to distribute gas.
Three men dressed in yellow jumpsuits, their faces masked, were
presented to reporters as suspects.

The announcement comes amid an ongoing investigation into alleged
use of chemical weapons in neighboring Syria.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Thousands of demonstrators have gathered in Tokyo to protest restarting of nuclear reactors the government is considering.

Around 7,500 people participated in the anti-nuclear protests in
the Japanese capital, according to organizers cited by AFP. The
demonstrators gathered in a park in central Tokyo, marched
through the city and rallied outside the offices of Tokyo
Electric Power Co (TEPCO), operator of the Fukushima nuclear
power plant which suffered meltdowns of three reactor cores
following an earthquake and tsunami two years ago.

“No Nukes! Un-evolved Apes Want Nukes!” read one of the
banners held by Tokyo protesters. Disaster victims and
celebrities, including Nobel literature laureate Kenzaburo Oe,
participated in the event.

Shortly after the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, the Japanese
government pledged to fully abandon atomic energy by the 2030s.
However, in about a year authorities realized their promise was a
hasty one, as the archipelago nation had hardly any other means
to ensure sufficient electric energy supply but to return to
nuclear power generation.

Earlier this year two nuclear reactors were put back into
operation in Japan and plans were announced to restart six more by the end
of 2013.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly promised the reactors
would only be restarted if their safety is ensured by a special
supervising body – Nuclear Regulation Authority. But his words
could never quell the anti-nuclear moods in the country, where
the tsunami disaster took 19,000 lives and lead to some 150,000
residents of the Fukushima area being displaced.

It’s estimated the post-disaster clean-up would take about 30 to
40 years and cost around US$15 billion.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Across Turkey, witnesses are reporting a disproportionate response by police to the protests, which in most instances begun peacefully. At least 2 people have reportedly been killed, up to 940 detained across the country and hundreds have been injured.

Follow RT’s LIVE UPDATES on the protests

Most of the injuries were sustained near Taksim Square in
Istanbul, the focal point of the recent protest. 

Massive demonstrations from last night are currently continuing
in the streets, with the metropolis of Istanbul witnessing cases
of vandalism. Rallies kicked off on Friday: authorities decided
to cut the trees in Geza Park, and people took to the streets to
protest. 

“The latest expression of public anger is unprecedented in
character. Unlike previous anti-government rallies and
demonstrations, people are protesting wherever they are,
including banging pots in their homes regardless of the
time,” journalist Mahir Zeynalov writes in the Turkish daily
Today’s Zaman.

Erdogan commented on the current events stressing that protestors
should go home. “If you bring 100,000, I’ll bring out a
million,” he threatened. The leader also vowed to rebuild the
Ottoman barracks. However, he warned police against using
excessive force. 

The protest spread to 50 provinces in the last three days. Up to
940 people have been detained across the country as part of
“necessary security measures,” Turkish Interior Minister
Muammer Güler said. 

The capital, Ankara, has been engulfed by the anti-government
protests, too, the activists say. And they don’t really
understand why the police crackdown is so violent.

“People in Geza Park were just sitting there, and police
started firing at their tents, which were in the park, so we
don’t really understand why they used such force and why they are
so angry,” activist Seda Guner indicated to RT.

Similar demonstrations have flared up around the country,
including in Izmir and the capital, Ankara, despite a court
decision temporarily to halt demolition of the park.

Izmir, on Turkey’s western coast, is usually a peaceful city and
is not used to violence, Ayberg Yagiz, a product designer, says.

“We were standing there just protesting, singing some songs,
like ‘Tayyip Resign’, when the police started firing at us with
teargas and pepper gas. They were using their pepper gas rifles
as a weapon. They aimed at us protesters, they aimed at me but
they missed,” he told RT.

Yagiz explained that exactly the same thing happened in Ankara
during protests when he was there two days ago. The protester
wanted to make clear that many of his friends took part in the
protests and that they were not what he would consider to be
typical ‘protesters’ but are businessmen, actors and
musicians.

In Izmir and Istanbul there was a lack of ambulances, despite a
large number of people being wounded, the protestor complained.
Yagiz explained how protesters forced one passing ambulance to
stop and found policemen concealed inside.

The protests in Izmir and Ankara have been woefully under-covered
by the Turkish media. In Ankara he said he saw one journalist
from Reuters, but at the Izmir protests he didn’t see any
journalists at all either from TV or the press.

Another Ankara resident, who preferred to remain anonymous, told
RT that police have started gathering in the street as more
protests are expected on Sunday afternoon. Recalling the Saturday
clashes, she described police actions as “horrible,”
saying that officers were shooting at people, without caring if
they were women, children or the elderly. Cafes and some other
public places were used as makeshift hospitals and medical
students volunteered to treat the injured. She also said that one
person was killed Saturday after being targeted by water
cannon.  

In the meantime, protests spilled into the Turkish-controlled
part of Cyprus.

As Melis Tutan, a Cyprus-based journalist reports, pointed out to
RT, Turkish students started gathering on Saturday to protest the
events in Istanbul and express their concern over the policies of
the Erdogan government and what they describe as police terror.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Nicosia, Kyrenia,
Famagusta and Morphou, Tutan told RT.

“Many civil organizations and students walked together towards
the Turkish Embassy in Nicosia. At the beginning police tried to
stop them, but then they were allowed to chant slogans.”
  

Solidarity protests were also staged or planned across Europe and
the US, with people in cities including Boston, London, Berlin,
Athens, Nicosia and Helsinki rallying against the violence in
Turkey. For instance, in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, hundreds
of Occupy movement supporters gathered for a solidarity
demonstration, and marched to the Turkish Consulate.

Turks also staged in front of the EU Parliament in Brussels to
protest the violence in Turkey, chanting anti-government slogans
and holding banners.

“This is not about a park. It’s about the abuse of state
power. It’s about media being censored. This is about
democracy,” one of the banners held by demonstrators, read.

This article originally appeared on: RT

A layer of snow on the second day of summer has put the citizens of the Russian city of Kemerovo completely out of humor.

Meteorologists say the anomaly occurred because a cyclone brought
cold Arctic air from Kara Sea region into Siberia dropping,
temperature to lows typical for summer north of the Arctic
Circle.

Bloggers were at a loss when commenting the issue.

“Snow in Kemerovo TODAY? That’s hardcore. The weather must’ve
forgot it’s June.”

“With a sense of terror has just learnt it’s been snowing in
Kemerovo. What’s next?”

“Tornado in the US. Floods in Czech Republic. SNOW in
Kemerovo!”

The city in South Siberia is situated on 55°22’17.58″ north
latitude but even for that region -2 Celsius on June 2 morning is
over the top. The region has seasonal inland climate, which means
really cold winters and very hot summers.

This spring has been sort of cold in the Kemerovo Region, which
witnessed snow in early May and an emergency extension of the
heating season. No wonder that people have been waiting for warm
summer days just like for manna from heaven, but instead got
snowflakes.

But the locals are full of determination to recalculate sowing
season schedule and plant kitchen gardens as usual and against
all odds, probably because over 70 percent of Russia’s territory
is the area of risk farming and people are used to encounter
hardships of the kind. 

This article originally appeared on: RT

Thousands of protesters have flocked back to Istanbul’s Taksim Square after voluntarily cleaning up the aftermath of clashes and vandalism. Turkish PM Erdogan meanwhile stressed he will not give in to pressure, calling the protesters “marauders.”

Follow
RT’s LIVE UPDATES on the protests 

Thousands of people are heading to Taksim Square from all
directions, joining the already tens-of-thousands-strong crowd
with flags and banners. Chanting and singing in unison can be
heard, with slogans like “This is our Taksim, this is our
Istanbul!” ringing in the air.

The demonstration marks the third day of the protests in Turkey,
which started as a peaceful sit-in against the re-development
plans in Gezi Park, but turned into nationwide riots after the
police brutally cracked down on protesters.

While the mass protests were marred by violent clashes with the
police, in which two people were reportedly killed and over 1,000
injured, as well as scenes of vandalism with cars turned over and
buildings and vehicles covered in graffiti, there was some marked
display of public support for the protesters and that of
collective responsibility too.

Those demonstrators who remained in the streets overnight, after
the police had backed down and allowed the protests to continue,
had cleaned Gezi Park and the surrounding areas piled with empty
teargas canisters and rubble.

A free food stall has been set up in the park for exhausted
demonstrators, while Twitter users posted reports of shops,
pharmacies, hotels, and ordinary citizens aiding protesters with
supplies, masks, medicine and refuge.

Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday
stressed he “will not seek permission from marauders” to
implement the building plans for Taksim, which sparked the
initial sit-in protest in the park.

Erdogan seemed to remain defiant of the protests, calling them
“ideological” and manipulated by the opposition “unable
to beat [the government] at the ballot box.”

“Everyone in this country has the right to hold a rally within
boundaries of democracy and laws. However, no one has the right
to act against laws, conduct acts out of democracy and give
damage to shop keepers, residents or pedestrians. No one has the
right to increase tension in Turkey by using uprooted trees as an
excuse,” Erdogan said, as quoted by the Turkish Weekly.

“Is this democracy?” Erdogan rhetorically asked, citing
the damage to property caused by the protests. He also apparently
disagreed, without elaborating, with the protesters calling him a
‘dictator’, saying he is in fact the “one who serves the
people.”

An investigation into the use of excessive pepper spray by
security forces at the Taksim Gezi Park has been launched by the
Turkish Interior Ministry, he added.

Teargas was again fired on Sunday in Ankara to stop around 1,000
protesters attempting to march to the prime minister’s office,
AFP reported.

But in Istanbul the atmosphere has remained peaceful, with
jubilant demonstrators dancing in chains and chanting. While many
waved communist party flags and banners, the crowd has remained
“very detached” and with “no leader,” Mahir
Zeynalov, a reporter from the Turkish daily newspaper, ‘Today’s
Zaman’ tweeted. 

This article originally appeared on: RT

Al-Biruni University Hospital near Harasta, Damascus countryside, was closed ‘temporarily’ last Wednesday 29 May 2013 due to the security situation near the location, the patients were discharged, 2 only were transferred to Public Muwassat Hospital for monitoring.

Aliqtisadi news site expects the hospital to resume working today Sunday, but previous experiences do not encourage any optimism in such matters, one of the main targets of the FSA terrorists on the infrastructure list they had were hospitals, National Hospitals in Homs, Qussayr, Daraa, Hama were just examples of hospitals stolen, booby trapped and destroyed by the ‘peaceful protesters’ seeking to establish ‘democracy’ and ‘free speech’ in the country, or that’s what NATO officials and their propaganda mainstream media promote them as.

The hospital staff were kept for late hours before being able to get back home end of the day on numerous occasions, the situation just got too intense and hospital guards were directly targeted by ‘freedom fighters’.

Al-Biruni University Hospital established in 2006 by a presidential decree is the largest specialized hospital to treat cancer in Syria, diagnosing, medical treatment and follow ups are presented FREE of Cost to Syrians and residents in Syria, in addition to serve as an educational and research venue for doctors and nurses.

Al Biruni Hospital first lady 1024×753 Largest Cancer Treating Hospital in Syria Closed Temporarily

Syria’s first lady Asmaa Al-Assad in a visit to a child cancer patient

Syria offers free healthcare to all its citizens and residents in a large network of hospitals, clinics, mobile clinics and health centers treating from headaches to complicated surgeries and cancer chemical treatment with the cheapest subsidized medicine in the entire region.

Government owned Tameco Pharmaceutical Factory was directly targeted on Friday 31 May, 2013 by NATO backed Wahhabi Sex Jihadists aka Nusra Front aka FSA with ‘non-lethal’ rocket launchers, paid for by western countries citizens suffering austerity measures, in their own countries to ‘free’ and ‘democratize’ it. The factory produces most of the medicine and medical consumables used in the country.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

A flooded statue in the swollen Vltava River in the center of Prague, Czech Republic, on June 2, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Rob Schultz
Wisconsin State Journal
June 2, 2013

Rob Schultz — Wisconsin State Journal

State officials on Friday asked a Sauk County judge to send farmer Vernon Hershberger to jail for breaking conditions of his bail.

The state’s motion to revoke Hershberger’s bail cites a Capital Times report Wednesday in which the Loganville dairy farmer is quoted as saying he continued to sell raw milk and other farm products after the state ordered him to stop. The terms of his bail specify that he not sell or process dairy products without a license.

“It is a concern that any defendant would engage in and openly admit to actions which clearly disregard the court-ordered conditions of release (on bail),” wrote assistant attorneys general Eric Defort and Phillip Ferris.

Read full article

<!–

–>

This article was posted: Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 10:40 am

Tags: domestic news

–>

This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Thousands of protesters have flocked back to Istanbul’s Taksim Square after voluntarily cleaning up the aftermath of clashes and vandalism. Turkish PM Erdogan meanwhile stressed he will not give in to pressure, calling the protesters “marauders.”

Follow
RT’s LIVE UPDATES on the protests 

Thousands of people are heading to Taksim Square from all
directions, joining the already tens-of-thousands-strong crowd
with flags and banners. Chanting and singing in unison can be
heard, with slogans like “This is our Taksim, this is our
Istanbul!” ringing in the air.

The demonstration marks the third day of the protests in Turkey,
which started as a peaceful sit-in against the re-development
plans in Gezi Park, but turned into nationwide riots after the
police brutally cracked down on protesters.

While the mass protests were marred by violent clashes with the
police, in which two people were reportedly killed and over 1,000
injured, as well as scenes of vandalism with cars turned over and
buildings and vehicles covered in graffiti, there was some marked
display of public support for the protesters and that of
collective responsibility too.

Those demonstrators who remained in the streets overnight, after
the police had backed down and allowed the protests to continue,
had cleaned Gezi Park and the surrounding areas piled with empty
teargas canisters and rubble.

A free food stall has been set up in the park for exhausted
demonstrators, while Twitter users posted reports of shops,
pharmacies, hotels, and ordinary citizens aiding protesters with
supplies, masks, medicine and refuge.

Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday
stressed he “will not seek permission from marauders” to
implement the building plans for Taksim, which sparked the
initial sit-in protest in the park.

Erdogan seemed to remain defiant of the protests, calling them
“ideological” and manipulated by the opposition “unable
to beat [the government] at the ballot box.”

“Everyone in this country has the right to hold a rally within
boundaries of democracy and laws. However, no one has the right
to act against laws, conduct acts out of democracy and give
damage to shop keepers, residents or pedestrians. No one has the
right to increase tension in Turkey by using uprooted trees as an
excuse,” Erdogan said, as quoted by the Turkish Weekly.

“Is this democracy?” Erdogan rhetorically asked, citing
the damage to property caused by the protests. He also apparently
disagreed, without elaborating, with the protesters calling him a
‘dictator’, saying he is in fact the “one who serves the
people.”

An investigation into the use of excessive pepper spray by
security forces at the Taksim Gezi Park has been launched by the
Turkish Interior Ministry, he added.

Teargas was again fired on Sunday in Ankara to stop around 1,000
protesters attempting to march to the prime minister’s office,
AFP reported.

But in Istanbul the atmosphere has remained peaceful, with
jubilant demonstrators dancing in chains and chanting. While many
waved communist party flags and banners, the crowd has remained
“very detached” and with “no leader,” Mahir
Zeynalov, a reporter from the Turkish daily newspaper, ‘Today’s
Zaman’ tweeted. 

This article originally appeared on: RT

Larak warship completes mission with success: Iran cmdr.

Staff of Iran Navyâ„¢s 25th Fleet of warships during a welcoming ceremony on June 2, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Heavily armed militants in the troubled southwestern Pakistan have set fire to at least two NATO tankers carrying supplies to US-led forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

Local security officials said gunmen in the Mastung region of the southwestern province of Balochistan have torched the tankers on Sunday.

Militants fired at the trucks and set them ablaze before fleeing the scene.

Å“Both containers were completely burnt,” a local security official said.

Some reports say the two containers were attacked on their way back to Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi after supplying fuel to US-led troops in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani security forces sealed the area off and begun a search operation in the volatile region.

Hundreds of NATO tankers and containers have been destroyed in different parts of Pakistan during the past three years.

Pro-Taliban militants often claim responsibility for such attacks, saying that the assaults are in retaliation for non-UN-sanctioned US drone strikes on Pakistan’s tribal regions.

Despite frequent attacks on NATO supply convoys, the US military has not stopped its unauthorized drone bombings on the Pakistani territory.

Washington claims the air strikes target militants. However, figures show the attacks have led to the deaths of hundreds of civilians in Pakistan since 2008.

JR/PR

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has visited the US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) deployed in the Southeast Asian island country of Singapore.

On Sunday, the Pentagon chief visited the USS Freedom, the first of a new class of small combat warships, docked at the Changi Naval Base.

Despite significant development problems, the LCS has been designed to be the navyâ„¢s ultimate multitasking warship. They have been crafted to be able to operate in shallow waters.

The deployment comes after Washington’s strategic shift into the Asia-Pacific.

The first of its kind to be deployed overseas, the USS Freedom and its 90 sailors arrived in Singapore on April 18.

The visit comes amid discussions over whether the Pentagon should go ahead with plans to purchase as many as 52 of the small vessels, or if the number should be reduced by half, over budget concerns.

Hagel is the first US secretary of defense to tour a littoral combat ship deployed abroad.

The Pentagon chief has visited Singapore to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue security conference. Hagel will leave for Brussels for a meeting of NATO defense ministers.

Reports say the Freedom will leave Singapore in December and the second LCS deployment will arrive in August 2014.

SZH/PR

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Protesters hold banners during a protest rally against nuclear power plants, following the March 2011 Fukushima meltdown-disasters, in Tokyo on June 2, 2013. (AFP Photo / Rie Ishii) Thousands of people, including victims from the Fukushima disaster in 2011, took to a central park in Tokyo on Sunday to protest the Japanese government’s intent to restart the nation’s nuclear reactors.

Agence France-Presse reports:

Protesters later marched through the capital, holding anti-nuclear banners including one which read: “No Nukes! Unevolved Apes Want Nukes!”

They also demonstrated outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co, operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant which was crippled by meltdowns after the March 2011 tsunami.

[Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe], whose Liberal Democratic Party has close ties with the nation’s powerful business circles, has repeatedly said he would allow reactor restarts if their safety could be ensured.

Japan turned off its 50 reactors for safety checks in the wake of the disaster but has restarted two of them, citing possible summertime power shortages.

And RT adds:

Shortly after the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, the Japanese government pledged to fully abandon atomic energy by the 2030s. However, in about a year authorities realized their promise was a hasty one, as the archipelago nation had hardly any other means to ensure sufficient electric energy supply but to return to nuclear power generation.

Earlier this year two nuclear reactors were put back into operation in Japan and plans were announced to restart six more by the end of 2013.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly promised the reactors would only be restarted if their safety is ensured by a special supervising body – Nuclear Regulation Authority. But his words could never quell the anti-nuclear moods in the country, where the tsunami disaster took 19,000 lives and lead to some 150,000 residents of the Fukushima area being displaced.

It’s estimated the post-disaster clean-up would take about 30 to 40 years and cost around US$15 billion.

Protesters hold banners during a protest rally against nuclear power plants, following the March 2011 Fukushima meltdown-disasters, in Tokyo on June 2, 2013. (AFP Photo / Rie Ishii)Japanese authors, Kenzaburo Oe (front row L) and Keiko Ochiai (front row C) lead a march holding dove-shape balloons to protest against nuclear power plants, following the March 2011 Fukushima meltdown-disasters, in Tokyo on June 2, 2013. (AFP Photo / Toshifumi Kitamura)

__________________________________

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

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Egyptâ„¢s satellite provider Nilesat has resumed its transmission of Press TV three days after it jammed Iranâ„¢s 24-hour English-language news channel under pressure from the French Eutelsat.

Press TV was back on Nilesat on Sunday at 12:30 GMT after the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) informed the Egyptian company of the switching off of the Iranian channel.

In recent months, Eutelsatâ„¢s Israeli-French CEO Michel de Rosen has stepped up his restrictive campaign against the Iranian media by appealing to major satellite providers in Europe and Asia to silence them.

As a result, Eutelsat and Intelsat often jam or remove Iranian satellite channels, citing a wider interpretation of European Union (EU) regulations as the reason behind their move.

The bloc, however, has denied the claims by satellite companies.

In a controversial move, Eutelsat had previously ordered Hispasat in Spain to stop broadcasting the Spanish-language Hispan TV as well as Press TV in Spain and Latin America.

The campaign against Iranian media outlets has revealed the true face of the West, which preaches respect for human rights and free speech but practices the opposite.

KA/HGH/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

On International Children’s Day, we spell out a clear message: welcome to our wonderful world, the world created by us, adults, a world in which despite the teachings of the holy books, we continue to use religion as a banner for armies to gather, in which despite scientific discoveries, we continue to destroy our planet.

The International Day for the Protection of Children was established in Moscow, on November 22, 1949 at the meeting of the Women’s International Democratic Federation, after the World Conference for the Well-being of Children proclaimed the day on June 1, 1925 in Geneva. It became universally established in 1954, the aim being to protect children’s rights, end child labor and guarantee access to education.

Let us examine the world we leave the children, our future. For a start, they are born into a world in which the peaceful message of the holy scriptures has been warped my humankind, which uses religions as a means to wage war and pits factions against one another (for example the ongoing and looming black cloud gathering over Shi’a and Sunni Moslems).

They are born into a world in which the only viable economic model, which guaranteed full employment, which distributed natural resources as a birthright to be shared by all, not sold for a fortune by a greedy clique of opportunists; they are born into a world which has transformed universal education, increasingly, into a business.

They are born into a world in which major powers sing siren’s songs about freedom and democracy and protecting human rights, then launch savage attacks upon sovereign nations, using terrorists to terrorize the civilian population, enslave detainees in concentration camps, sodomize them, torture them, retain their right to food and urinate in their soup, after ridiculing them, sexually molesting them, depriving them of sleep and waterboarding them. And forcing Moslems to eat pork. And these are the ones who claim they are the good guys. Naming and shaming, they are basically the FUKUS Axis (France — UK — US).

Our children are born into a world in which access to higher education depends upon paying tens of thousands of dollars, in which the “haves” have more and the “have nots”, less and less, they are born into a world in which up to forty per cent of our youth are endemically unemployed after coming out of an education system which fails them wholly.

In many cases after twelve years at school they do not know their arithmetical tables, they cannot perform a simple mental arithmetic problem, they do not know how to read properly and analyze a text, being functionally illiterate, they cannot write or spell and an increasing number of English speakers make basic errors (its and it’s; there and their).

So with a start like that, how are they supposed to compete in the work market unless the parents have invested thousands of dollars in their education?

They are born into a world in which a job is more and more a luxury, or considered as such, which means workers’ rights have been trimmed, which means that the idea is you work all hours of the day otherwise you lose your job. Gone is leisure time, gone are hobbies and gone are simple things like walks in the forest, picking mushrooms or just hanging out in a city garden listening to the birds or admiring the flowers. As if it weren’t teeming with drug addicts, pedophiles and rapists, rendering it a no-go area right from the start.

They are born into a world in which getting a house has become a drama, keeping it, another, in which healthcare treatment has become another business, in which dental treatment has become daylight robbery, in which neither jobs, having a home or even a pension are guaranteed.

Fair enough if this was some kind of experiment. But this is the system they told us was better than the one which provided full employment, free and excellent universal education from primary to post-doc level, a guaranteed home, free, dental care, free, leisure time and activities, free, public transportation, free, public utilities, free, a free home, basic consumables free or heavily subsidized, safety on the streets and security of the State. And an indexed pension.

Children of today, our keepers tomorrow: Please research the above. It was not a utopia or a chimera, or a daydream. The system existed, it worked and I saw it. Obviously those who removed it and implanted their nonsensical system will justify themselves by lies, but what to expect of those who spent trillions of dollars sabotaging the progressive model, committing subversion and even murder to make sure their system survived?

Know why? Study the influence of lobbies and analyze whether their “democracies” are in fact open political fields with level playing grounds, or whether their systems are in fact economic fiefdoms, controlled by the owners of capital?

Welcome to our wonderful new world. It is as Medieval, or more so, than the Middle Ages…

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

President Obama’s perpetual scam machine is in high gear — which signals another expansion of war and war-powers accumulation. The president played the reluctant warrior who doesn’t really want the limitless powers he has arrogated to himself. But, what he’s seeking is formal authorization to escalate the U.S. offensive against world order and civil liberties.

“He admits to having done no wrong.”

Barack Obama is a master trickster, a shape-shifter, and a methodical liar. The man who has arrogated to himself the right to kill at will, anywhere on the globe, accountable only to himself, based on secret information and classified legal rationales, now says he is determined that Washington’s “perpetual war” must one day end — sometime in the misty future after he is long gone from office. He informed his global audience of potential victims that he had signed a secret agreement (with himself?) that would limit drone strikes to targets that pose “a continuing, imminent threat to Americans” and cannot be captured — a policy that his White House has always claimed (falsely) to be operative. He promises to be more merciful than before, “haunted” as he is by all the nameless deaths, although he admits to having done no wrong.

He is a man of boundless introspection, inviting us to ride with him on his wildly spinning moral compass. But, most of all, he is not George Bush — of that we can be certain, if only because he is younger and oratorically gifted and Black. “Beyond Afghanistan,” he said, “we must define our effort not as a boundless ‘global war on terror,’ but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.” Thus, magically, he redefined the U.S. war on terror out of existence (in perpetuity) by breaking the conflict down to its daily, constituent parts, while simultaneously affirming that America will soon travel “beyond Afghanistan” despite the fact that many thousands of Special Operations troops will continue their round the clock raids in the countryside while drones rain death from the skies for the foreseeable future.

Such conflicts, we must understand, are necessitated by the “imminence” of threats posed to U.S. security, as weighed and measured by secret means. His Eminence is the sole judge of imminence. He is also the arbiter of who is to be detained in perpetuity, without trial or (public) charge, for “association” with “terrorists” as defined by himself. He has no apologies for that.

“His Eminence is the sole judge of imminence.”

America must turn the page on the previous era, because “the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11.” A reevaluation is in order, since “we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.” In that case, why not call for repeal of the layers of war on terror legislation that have accumulated over the last 12 years, including Obama’s own NDAA preventive detention bill? Or, he could simply renounce these measures and refuse to employ them as a matter of policy. Instead, the president defended his own maximalist interpretation of the law, and claimed that the legal basis for his kill-at-will authority is firmly rooted in the Congress’s 2001 Authorization of Military Force (AMUF). Although he made vague reference to changes that Congress might make in the AMUF, there was no substantive indication that he sought to impose restrictions on his own or any other president’s authority to wage war precisely as he has for the last four years.

Obama’s blanket interpretation of AMUF — the legal logic — had previously been considered a state secret. It was news to much of the U.S. Senate, too, until assistant secretary of defense Michael Sheehan, in charge of special operations (death squads) at the Pentagon, told lawmakers earlier this month that the AMUF allows Obama to put “boots on the ground” anywhere he chooses, including “Yemen or the Congo,” if his classified logic compelled him to do so.

The senators were stunned — although it is no secret that Obama has already put U.S. Special Forces boots on the ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan, and has sent a combat brigade on permanent posting on the continent. Central Africa is one part of the world in which al Qaida has found little traction. The purported “bad guy” hiding in the bush, Joseph Kony, is the Christian leader of the remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Obama authorized the deployment under the doctrine of Humanitarian Military Intervention, or Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a war-making notion that is, at best, ill-defined under international law and non-existent in U.S. statutes. However, if Obama is sincere (!) in wanting to phase out AMUF, as he averred last week, he’s always got R2P as a backup.

“Why not call for repeal of the layers of war on terror legislation that have accumulated over the last 12 years?”

Death squad honcho Sheehan is a believer in the perpetual lifespan of AMUF, which he considers operative until al Qaida has been consigned to the “ash heap of history” — an eventuality that is “at least 10 to 20 years” away. Since this is the guy who carries out Obama’s kill orders (the identity of his counterpart in the CIA is, of course, a secret), one would think that Sheehan and Obama would be on the same page when it comes to al Qaida and AMUF. But then, we are told that page has turned.

Obama is very good at flipping pages, changing subjects, hiding the pea in his hand while we try to figure out which bowl it’s under. His call for Congress to come up with a substitute for AMUF — without yet offering his own version — is a ploy to more explicitly codify those powers assumed by Bush and expanded upon by the Obama administration. Or, the Congress can do nothing — a very likely outcome — and Obama can pretend to be the reluctant, self-restrained global assassin, preventive detainer and regime changer for the rest of his term.

Not a damn thing has changed.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Presidential candidate Ali Akbar Velayati says Iran needs to develop ties with neighboring states in order to live in security.

Å“Our security depends on our peaceful relations with neighboring countries,” Velayati told a group of university professors and students at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences on Sunday.

Velayati, who is also a medical doctor, further noted that having peaceful relations with neighbors Å“is like prevention in medicine,” where spending a small sum on a vaccine will prevent a deadly disease which cannot be cured even at a hefty cost.

He went on to emphasize that Iran needs to Å“create regional cooperation” with its neighbors.

Å“Friendly relations with neighboring states will be the best, most effective, least expensive, and most fruitful way to live in lasting peace,” Velayati stated.

The presidential candidate had served as foreign minister for 16 years up to 1997. He is currently foreign affairs advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

Other candidates include lawmaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, President of the Expediency Councilâ„¢s Center for Strategic Research Hassan Rohani, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, former First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi, and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili.

Iranians will go to the polls in the countryâ„¢s 11th presidential election on June 14. The fourth city and rural council elections are also scheduled to be held on the same day.

Nearly 50.5 million Iranians are eligible to vote, with more than 1.6 million first-time voters.

KA/HGH/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The British government has earmarked millions of pounds for bribing the Taliban militant group in the run-up to the withdrawal of UK troops from Afghanistan.

Under the £6.6 million International Security Assistance Force (IASF) project, senior British officers are planning to offer the Taliban bribes in order to lay down their weapons for a period of 12 months, The Express reported on Sunday.

The project is expected to offer the militants immunity from prosecution and £100 per month to Å“leave the battlefield”.

There are currently about 8,000 British troops in the war-torn Asian country, with a planned reduction to 5,200 by the end of 2013.

Foreign forces are scheduled to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and hand over responsibility for the countryâ„¢s security to the Afghan government.

Earlier in April, it was reported that American CIA spy agency has been bribing Afghan officials and warlords in the past decade with tens of millions of dollars in secret cash money in continuing efforts to maintain influence over internal affairs of the war-stricken country.

The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under the pretext of combating terrorism. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but insecurity continues to rise across the country despite the presence of thousands of US-led soldiers.

In late April, the Taliban announced the start of their annual “spring offensive” against US-led and Afghan forces, vowing a new wave of attacks across Afghanistan.

SSM/HE

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

National Post
June 2, 2013

A new change to the Criminal Code that makes it illegal to wear a mask at a protest or riot is likely to be challenged in the courts as limiting freedom of expression, experts say.

The clause makes it a crime for a person to attend an unlawful protest “while wearing a mask or other disguise to conceal their identity without lawful excuse.” Supporters say it is one more tool to help the police maintain order, while civil liberties advocates say it tramples constitutional freedoms.

“It’s outrageous, there’s all kinds of legitimate reasons to mask your face in terms of a protest,” said Micheal Vonn, policy director with the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.

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This article was posted: Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 10:25 am

Tags: activism, foreign affairs, legislation

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

World-renowned Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidiâ„¢s shooting project for his religious blockbuster Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in South Africa has been finished.

After five days shooting in the city of Bela-Bela in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, Majidi announced end of the project and came back to Iran this morning.

While the main parts of the film had been shot in Iran, Majidi along with his team traveled to Africa few weeks ago to seek appropriate locations for few sections of the project.

American filmmaker and Hollywood visual effects supervisor Scott E. Anderson also accompanied the Iranian team in Africa, Mehr News Agency reported.

Majidi’s recent cinematic rendition focuses on Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) life from childhood until prophethood. The first draft of the screenplay was co-authored by Majidi and Iranian filmmaker and screenwriter Kambuzia Partovi.

Historical documents and facts have been compiled with the help of scholars, historians and clerics from different countries including Iran, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Iraq and Algeria over a year.

The cast members were selected under the supervision of Majidi and Italian makeup artist Giannetto De Rossi who collaborated in the grand project.

Three-time Academy Award winning Italian cameraman Vittorio Storaro also contributed to the project.

Storaro who has great projects such as Apocalypse Now, Reds and The Last Emperor, visited Iran last year to meet with the Iranian cast and crew.

Produced by Mohammad Mehdi Heidarian, the film has been set to be released in Persian, Arabic and English.

Majid Majidi is an internationally and critically acclaimed Iranian film director, film producer, and screen writer whose films have touched on many themes and genres and has won many international awards.

FGP/FGP

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Vittorio Hernandez
IB Times
June 2, 2013

via allthingsd.com

Besides releasing in October 2013 the Moto X smartphone, Motorola Mobility’s first handset since it was acquired by Google, the company is working on new methods that would make remembering passwords unnecessary.

Motorola Advanced Technology and Projects Group Chief Regina Dugan disclosed over the weekend at the D11 conference that the tech firm is working on electronic tattoo or implantable chips that would make the human body the tool for identification.

“Authentication is irritating. So irritating that only about half the people do it even though there’s a lot of information about you on your smart phone,” said Ms Dugan, who was a former Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency head.

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This article was posted: Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 10:11 am

Tags: big brother, science, technology

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Byron Tau
Politico
June 2, 2013

Note: Issa’s ‘paid liar’ comment doesn’t appear in this short video.

The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee blasted White House press secretary Jay Carney on Sunday, calling him a “paid liar” who is not being truthful about the scandal at the Internal Revenue Service.

“Their paid liar, their spokesperson, the picture behind, he’s still making up things about what happened and calling this a local rogue,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” gesturing to a graphic of Carney on the set.

Issa’s committee provided CNN a transcript of an IRS employee interviewed under oath who said that it seemed as if the idea to single out conservative groups for additional scrutiny came from Washington. The Obama administration has maintained that local IRS agents in a single agency division have been responsible for the scandal.

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This article was posted: Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 9:49 am

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

The UN’s torture watchdog has hit out at the British government for human rights abuses. In its harshest criticism yet of the British government, the panel warned that urgent action is needed for the country to meet international standards.

The UN Committee against Torture focused on human rights abuses
during the so-called war on terror and the mistreatment of
prisoners in British custody in Iraq. It also flagged up some 40
separate incidents on which the UK government must act.

The findings highlighted the British governments actions
following 9/11 and the commission urged the British government to
quickly establish an inquiry into whether detainees held overseas
were ill-treated or tortured by British officials.

The report reads that the committee is “deeply concerned at
the growing number of serious allegations of torture and
ill-treatment, as a result of the state party’s military
interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

The UN team also slammed what they called “an escape
clause” in the Criminal Justice Act (1988), which allows
British officials to escape prosecution for inflicting severe
pain or suffering if they can show that they had “lawful
authority, justification or excuse” for doing so.

Another legal loophole the committee voiced concern about is the
Intelligence Services Act (1994), which effectively insures that
intelligence officers cannot be prosecuted within the UK once a
warrant giving them lawful authority has been signed by a
government minister.

The panel was disappointed at the failure to date to prosecute
anyone for the torture of Iraqi prisoners and in particular the
failure to convict anyone for the murder of Baha Mousa who died
in British custody in 2003. Only one soldier received a one-year
sentence for admitting inhumane treatment.

There was also concern with the government’s planned introduction
of secret court procedures in July for issues that may affect
national security under the Justice and Security Act. Closed
Material Procedures as they are known make it easier to use
hearsay evidence or evidence obtained through torture, the
committee maintains. The system of Special Advocates — lawyers
who are vetted and chosen by the government — “have a very
limited ability to conduct a cross-examination and cannot discuss
full content of confidential materials with their client thus
undermining the right to a fair trial,” the report reads.

The watchdog also urged the UK
government to halt the deportation of failed asylum seekers to
Sri Lanka. The deportation of failed Tamil asylum seekers has led
to their torture or ill-treatment on return and the UK government
hasn’t changed its policy on the issue despite a ruling by the
High Court in February ordering them to suspend deportations.

The government was criticized in its handling of the case of
Shaker Aamer, the last remaining UK resident in Guantanamo. The
committee regretted that despite the “best endeavors” of
the UK to try and get him released “there are no encouraging
signs of this happening soon”.

There were also accusations against the UK government on several
issues connected with Northern Ireland. The Northern Irish
justice system must abolish all non-jury trials the report
concludes, adding that historical investigations into past
misconduct, particularly of military officials, must not be
delayed or suspended.

The committee asked that police officers only use tasers when
they face “a real and immediate threat to life or risk or
serious injury”.

There was also unease that the age of criminal responsibility in
England, Wales and Northern Ireland has not been raised from
10-years, despite calls by more than 50 organizations for this to
be done.

Further concerns were raised about the steady increase of the
prison population over the past decade and the problem of
overcrowding. To help rectify the issue the committee urged
the government make wider use of non-custodial sentences.

In a further blow, committee members accused the UK delegation of
being evasive when questioned about Britain’s human rights record
during a two-day hearing in Geneva last month.

The British government was given a year to explain how it could
improve its human rights record in 4 key areas: overseas torture,
getting Shaker Aamer out of Guantanamo, stopping the forced
deportation of Sri Lanka asylum seekers and setting up inquiries
into past abuses in Northern Ireland.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Demonstrations are taking place all over the world in support of Bradley Manning, the US army private Whistleblower who leaked intelligence to WikiLeaks.

Manning’s trail will start Monday at the Fort Meade military base
in Baltimore, some three years after having been accused of the
largest leak of classified materials in the history of the United
States. Among other things, he has been charged with ‘aiding the
enemy’ — which could potentially land him in jail with a life
sentence without parole.

Already the stenographers who were meant to create daily
transcripts of the trial have been denied press passes and will
not now be at the trial. 

The number of protesters at Fort Meade was over 3000 by Saturday
with many of them shouting ‘We are all Bradley Manning!’ And
globally, people are holding events in over 24 cities on four
continents over the course of the weekend. Aside from American
cities, people as far as Toronto, Berlin, Paris and even South
Korea’s Seoul have joined in a chorus of support for Manning.

A number of high profile people have come out in support of
Manning including Daniel Ellsberg, a former Department of Defense
employee who leaked Pentagon papers during the Vietnam War.
Ellsberg has said that Manning’s trail is one of the “defining
issues of the 21st century” and believes that the
“transparency and accountability of government are at
stake”.

Manning, 25, was arrested in Iraq in May 2010, which followed an
inquiry into the hundreds of thousands of State Department cables
he had by then leaked. He had already entered a plea of ‘guilty’
for the charge of transmitting digital information, but that is a
small fraction of the 21 counts the prosecutors are seeking to
convict him on.

To put Manning away for life, the court would have to find
evidence that he was associating with Al Qaeda and its partners
in the region by transferring information to them directly.

RT spoke to human rights activist and writer Craig Murray, who
drew attention to the way the politicians and media in the US
were handling Manning’s case, which, in Murray’s opinion proves
that the private’s actions had not had nearly the consequences he
is being accused of.

“Nobody has been able to point to a single instance of anybody
being harmed as a result of his disclosures. Nothing he has done
in any away approaches the level of criminality of American
soldiers who were deliberately shooting and killing soldiers in
Iraq,” says Murray in disbelief, asking why they are not the
ones on trial. And that is aside the point from what Manning has
had to go through while in custody, before the trial even
commenced.

The world will wait for up to three months before the final
verdict is announced and we find out whether Bradley Manning will
be put away for life. 

This article originally appeared on: RT

As people in Istanbul’s Taksim Square rejoice at having pushed back riot police who only hours before tried brutally to contain them, everyone is wondering where the real split is between Turkey’s government and its citizens.

Mark Almond, a visiting professor in International Relations at
Bilkent University in Ankara, reveals to RT an unceremonious
government that underestimated the diversity of its people, as
well as its own politicians, and how the country’s economics and
issues of foreign policy have set up the atmosphere for one the
biggest short-lasting revolutionary events in Turkish history.

RT: Who do you blame for the violence – the protesters
or the police?

Mark Almond: Well, I think there has been massive police
action, and of course it has backfired. And this is a very
dramatic moment for Prime Minister Erdogan, who’s had for the
first time to step back. He was extremely aggressive in his
initial statements that he wouldn’t tolerate protest. And now the
man who was the first world leader to call for [Egyptian]
President Mubarak to resign is talking rather eerily like Mubarak
did shortly before his own fall. He is now saying he’s going to
investigate the police, he’s concerned for the people. He wants
to carry on the project, so he’s managing to, in a sense, muddy
the water.

But I don’t think it will calm the situation, because if he
insists on carrying on with the project, which is very unpopular
– and symbolic of what many people see as kind of a high-handed
approach where property developers and government together simply
push aside local opinion — he still is going to keep the protest
going. But at the same time he’s shown weakness, and this is the
first time he’s shown weakness.

RT: Has the political opposition got any hand in
this?

MA: They’re now beginning to take part in it. One of the
problems, I think, from the point of view of the government’s
failure to really anticipate this problem, was that they thought
that was the main opposition party and the other small parties
were rendered irrelevant. That they’d lost the elections, the
present government had a clear majority. And they were taken by
surprise by a rather complex movement of different groups of
people we see — classic, if you like, student protesters,
anarchists, the Twitter generation. But we’ve also seen, which is
worrying for the prime minister, people from his own side of
politics. We’ve seen Muslims praying in the square opposing this
policy, we’ve seen a Kurdish MP actually injured, trying to stand
in the way of one of the bulldozers. So we now have a situation
that a very broad coalition has sprung up not just in Istanbul,
but in other cities. And some of it is actually from the side of
politics that in the past, and recently has been supporting the
government…

And he’s also got the problem inside his own party. The
president’s public statements are much more emollient. And
there’s believed to be a tension between the president, Gül, who
doesn’t want to stop being a president, and Erdogan, who hopes to
change the constitution so he will become president.

RT: What should the government do to protect other
members of the public as the protest continues?

MA: Part of the problem is that the excessive,
massive use of teargas has disrupted ordinary life for many
people in this very densely-populated part of the city. It has
also disrupted tourism: this is a city that has huge numbers of
foreign tourists — many of them have been affected, many of them
sought medical help. It’s a public relations disaster with huge
economic implications.

And the Turkish economy, which had been doing very well for the
first 10 years of Erdogan, is beginning to stall. The property
boom is turning into a bubble that’s bursting. The war in Syria
is worrying people with violence on the border. But also, if you
then begin to have measures that are fighting off tourists,
including, of course, his measures about alcohol, his moral
reform measures, you begin to have a whole dangerous mélange of
issues all bubbling up together.

And I’m not sure that the government really has thought through
what is its main priority, who are the people that it really
needs to keep on board, does it really need to offend all these
different groups, does, actually, the center of Istanbul, not
need at least one bit of green space. It’s a huge city with a
very little space, and, of course, people say ‘How can we have
democracy, if there’s nowhere where you can demonstrate, if
everywhere is filled in only narrow streets?’ I’m afraid, like it
or not, you need Trafalgar Square, you need Taksim Square.

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

Eight security personnel have died in a car bomb blast at a police station in Damascus, Syria’s capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“At least eight regime forces were killed, and a number of
civilians injured, after a large explosion caused by a car bomb
hit the Jobar neighborhood near a police station,” said SOHR
director, Rami Abdel Rahman.

The precise number of casualties remains ambiguous, but a ‘number
of civilians’ were also injured, according to AFP. A Sky News
Arabic correspondent placed the immediate death toll closer to
10, whereas an anonymous Syrian government official told
Associated Press that three were killed, and ‘several’ others
wounded.

The explosion took place at around 5:30am local time (02:30 GMT),
on Sunday morning, and was speculated in social media to have
been instigated by the Al-Qaeda allied al-Nusra Front insurgents.
However, there has not yet been any confirmation of the
perpetrators’ identities. 

Brief gunfire accompanying the blast was reported in the city’s
Abbasids Square and around Parliament Square, with some local
agencies also reporting later clashes in both Aleppo and Homs.

Clashes between rebels and regime forces have been ongoing in the
central northeastern area of Damascus’ Jobar, according to SOHR.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian students are expected to be
sitting high school diploma tests on Sunday.

Multiple explosions struck the outskirts of Damascus last month
when airstrikes — attributed to Israel, but not confirmed —
blasted military posts at the beginning of May, with the
explosions reportedly killing scores of soldiers.

The conflict in Syria has entered its third year, with Damascus
frequently being the site of bomb attacks. At least 80,000 people
have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar
Assad began in March 2011, according to UN estimates. 

This article originally appeared on: RT

This article originally appeared on: RT

The Syrian Army has seized two containers with poisonous sarin agent in a rebel hideout, SANA said citing sources. Meanwhile, Russia reportedly blocked the UNSC resolution set to slam Damascus’ offensive on the town of Qusair held by opposition forces.

Syrian Arab News Agency reports that sarin, together with
automatic rifles, pistols and homemade bombs (IEDs) was seized in
the Faraieh neighborhood of the city of Hama.

Sarin (or GB) is an extremely toxic, though colorless and
odorless, substance that disrupts the nervous system,
over-stimulating muscles and vital organs, if it comes into
contact with skin. This potentially extremely harmful nerve agent
was originally invented and manufactured to be used as a chemical
weapon. According to UN Resolution 687, Sarin is classified as a
weapon of mass destruction.

The threat of chemical weapons deployment in Syria has become a
major international concern, with American President Barack Obama
even saying previously that the use of chemical arsenal by the
Syrian government would be a “red line” and might precipitate a
foreign military intervention.

However, in early May an independent UN commission came to the
conclusion that Syrian rebels had used sarin nerve gas, while
allegations of its use by the government have not yet received
any official confirmation.

On Saturday a UN Security Council (UNSC) assembly failed to adopt
a British-drafted resolution on the situation in Qusair, which
the Syrian Army has blockaded and is said to be eliminating a
large group of opposition forces that occupied the town several
weeks ago.

Rebels besieged in Qusair are pleading for military help. They
claim that many civilians have been wounded in the assault of the
government forces and that these people are in desperate need of
medical attention.

The Syrian foreign minister says the country will allow the Red
Cross into Qusair “as soon as military operations are
over,” he is cited by Syrian State Television.

The UK-drafted UN statement obtained by Reuters claims that
Assad’s government must “allow immediate, full and unimpeded
access to impartial humanitarian actors, including UN agencies,
to reach civilians trapped in Qusair.”

According to Reuters’ sources in the Security Council, Russia
blocked the resolution during private discussions on Saturday,
explaining that the UNSC had made no statement when the rebels
came to Qusair in force and seized the town.

It is “not advisable to speak out as the UN Security Council
didn’t when Qusair was taken by the opposition,” a Russia
diplomat reportedly said in the UNSC.

So far Russia has officially vetoed three resolutions on Syria in
the UNSC saying they were “unbalanced” targeting Assad’s
government while sending weak to no message to the opposition
fighters.

Earlier this week the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution
on the worsening human rights situation in Syria and in
particular in connection with battle for Qusair.

The document puts the blame for Qusair violence solely on
Damascus troops and condemns the involvement of “foreign
combatants” fighting on the side of the Syrian government.

The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out that the resolution
deliberately ignore numerous human rights violations and abuses
of Qusair civilians committed by armed foreign jihadists, some of
whom have links to Al-Qaeda.

The “foreign combatants” mentioned in the resolution are fighters
of the previously neutral Hezbollah group which have joined
Syrian military in the offensive on Qusair, overturning the
balance in the stand-off to the opposition’s disadvantage.

The Syrian opposition has even threatened not to attend the peace
conference in Geneva that is being prepared by Russia and the US
for July because of Hezbollah’s involvement.

The ongoing siege of Qusair has raged for two weeks now. On
Saturday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that he is
“following with the gravest concern” the situation in
Qusair. He reminded the government of Bashar Assad of its
responsibility to protect civilians on the Syrian territory,
including those threatened by militants, and urged to allow
thousands of Qusair residents to flee the town.

In another statement issued on Saturday the UN Humanitarian Chief
Valerie Amos and the UN Human Rights Head Navi Pillay maintained
that there are as many as 1,500 injured people in Qusair who need
immediate evacuation for emergency medical treatment.

UN officials said that if the information they are receiving is
correct, “the general situation in Qusair is desperate.”

“We urge the parties to agree to an immediate ceasefire to
allow humanitarian agencies to evacuate the wounded and provide
life-saving treatment and supplies,” Amos and Pillay said in
their statement.

Qusair, with an original population of 30,000, is less than 10 km
from the Lebanese border and some 25 km from the city of Homs.

In the meantime there have been reports of intensifying clashes
between the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Assad’s forces near
Aleppo. Allegedly, the troops have captured Mount Shuwaihinah, a
dominating point in the area.

FSA brigades are reportedly calling for reinforcements to be sent
in from other areas.

This article originally appeared on: RT

More than a thousand Iraqis died and over two thousand were injured in outbreaks of violence across Iraq in May, according to a UN body. It’s the highest monthly death toll in the country since 2008.

One thousand and forty-five Iraqis were killed in May, according
to estimates released by the United Nations Assistance Mission
for Iraq (UNAMI). Eighty-two of those were members of the Iraqi
Security Forces, with the bulk of the casualties registered among
civilians.

The capital Baghdad was most affected by acts of violence, with
homemade explosives, car blasts and suicide bombings responsible
for the vast majority of deaths. The terror attacks were carried
out in both Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods.

The UNAMI death toll figure for May is far higher than the April
700 casualties, which previously were described as the
record-breaking figure since the country’s sectarian violence
spike of 2006-2007. The escalating death toll sparks fears that
sectarian unrest in the country might be turning into a civil
war.

“That is a sad record. Iraqi political leaders must act
immediately to stop this intolerable bloodshed,” said Martin
Kobler, the Special Representative of the United Nations
Secretary-General (SRSG) for Iraq.

The day before the UN figures were released, the Baghdad
authorities banned temporary license plates on cars in an attempt
to avert car bombings, the cause for much of the casualties in
the recent outbreaks of violence. The cars with temporary black
plates have quite often been used for attacks, as they are more
difficult to trace.

The recent escalation in violence is seen as instigated by the
late April crackdown on the Sunni protesters by security
forces, controlled by the Shiite-dominated government.

 

Political analyst Chris Bambery, who warned in April the number
of casualties in Iraq would only rise in the near future, lays
the blame for growing sectarian unrest in the region on the US
decision to separate Iraq into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni areas.

“It is based on the decision by the Americans when they
occupied Iraq to separate Iraq off into these three areas. Iraq
has been a unified country for a long time. And yet doing so
based on the sectarian headcount by dividing the country up,
particularly be excluding the Sunni from having any control of
the oil fields was a recipe of the sectarian conflict. And that’s
what we’ve seen,” Bambery told RT.

Ten years after the US announced its victory
in the war with Iraq, the country is immersed in violence. The
withdrawal of US troops in 2011 saw sectarian tension between
Sunnis and Shiites escalate. What now contributes to the
instability in the region is the Syrian conflict, as “Iraq is
becoming very intertwined with what is going on in Syria with
almost an open border between the two countries there,” according
to the analyst.

Not long after the casualty figures were released, Iraq’s Defense
Ministry announced that it captured an alleged Al-Qaeda cell,
which attempted to produce chemical weapons such as mustard gas.

“There are some confessions about organized cells to smuggle
them [weapons] outside Iraq through a neighboring country in
order to target Europe, America and different capitals,” said
Mohammed Askari, a Defense Ministry spokesman, as cited by
Reuters.  

Journalists were shown bottles containing chemicals, some
laboratory equipment and also toy remote-controlled helicopters,
which according to officials could be used to distribute gas.
Three men dressed in yellow jumpsuits, their faces masked, were
presented to reporters as suspects.

The announcement comes amid an ongoing investigation into alleged
use of chemical weapons in neighboring Syria.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Thousands of demonstrators have gathered in Tokyo to protest restarting of nuclear reactors the government is considering.

Around 7,500 people participated in the anti-nuclear protests in
the Japanese capital, according to organizers cited by AFP. The
demonstrators gathered in a park in central Tokyo, marched
through the city and rallied outside the offices of Tokyo
Electric Power Co (TEPCO), operator of the Fukushima nuclear
power plant which suffered meltdowns of three reactor cores
following an earthquake and tsunami two years ago.

“No Nukes! Un-evolved Apes Want Nukes!” read one of the
banners held by Tokyo protesters. Disaster victims and
celebrities, including Nobel literature laureate Kenzaburo Oe,
participated in the event.

Shortly after the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, the Japanese
government pledged to fully abandon atomic energy by the 2030s.
However, in about a year authorities realized their promise was a
hasty one, as the archipelago nation had hardly any other means
to ensure sufficient electric energy supply but to return to
nuclear power generation.

Earlier this year two nuclear reactors were put back into
operation in Japan and plans were announced to restart six more by the end
of 2013.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly promised the reactors
would only be restarted if their safety is ensured by a special
supervising body – Nuclear Regulation Authority. But his words
could never quell the anti-nuclear moods in the country, where
the tsunami disaster took 19,000 lives and lead to some 150,000
residents of the Fukushima area being displaced.

It’s estimated the post-disaster clean-up would take about 30 to
40 years and cost around US$15 billion.

This article originally appeared on: RT

Across Turkey, witnesses are reporting a disproportionate response by police to the protests, which in most instances begun peacefully. At least 2 people have reportedly been killed, up to 940 detained across the country and hundreds have been injured.

Follow RT’s LIVE UPDATES on the protests

Most of the injuries were sustained near Taksim Square in
Istanbul, the focal point of the recent protest. 

Massive demonstrations from last night are currently continuing
in the streets, with the metropolis of Istanbul witnessing cases
of vandalism. Rallies kicked off on Friday: authorities decided
to cut the trees in Geza Park, and people took to the streets to
protest. 

“The latest expression of public anger is unprecedented in
character. Unlike previous anti-government rallies and
demonstrations, people are protesting wherever they are,
including banging pots in their homes regardless of the
time,” journalist Mahir Zeynalov writes in the Turkish daily
Today’s Zaman.

Erdogan commented on the current events stressing that protestors
should go home. “If you bring 100,000, I’ll bring out a
million,” he threatened. The leader also vowed to rebuild the
Ottoman barracks. However, he warned police against using
excessive force. 

The protest spread to 50 provinces in the last three days. Up to
940 people have been detained across the country as part of
“necessary security measures,” Turkish Interior Minister
Muammer Güler said. 

The capital, Ankara, has been engulfed by the anti-government
protests, too, the activists say. And they don’t really
understand why the police crackdown is so violent.

“People in Geza Park were just sitting there, and police
started firing at their tents, which were in the park, so we
don’t really understand why they used such force and why they are
so angry,” activist Seda Guner indicated to RT.

Similar demonstrations have flared up around the country,
including in Izmir and the capital, Ankara, despite a court
decision temporarily to halt demolition of the park.

Izmir, on Turkey’s western coast, is usually a peaceful city and
is not used to violence, Ayberg Yagiz, a product designer, says.

“We were standing there just protesting, singing some songs,
like ‘Tayyip Resign’, when the police started firing at us with
teargas and pepper gas. They were using their pepper gas rifles
as a weapon. They aimed at us protesters, they aimed at me but
they missed,” he told RT.

Yagiz explained that exactly the same thing happened in Ankara
during protests when he was there two days ago. The protester
wanted to make clear that many of his friends took part in the
protests and that they were not what he would consider to be
typical ‘protesters’ but are businessmen, actors and
musicians.

In Izmir and Istanbul there was a lack of ambulances, despite a
large number of people being wounded, the protestor complained.
Yagiz explained how protesters forced one passing ambulance to
stop and found policemen concealed inside.

The protests in Izmir and Ankara have been woefully under-covered
by the Turkish media. In Ankara he said he saw one journalist
from Reuters, but at the Izmir protests he didn’t see any
journalists at all either from TV or the press.

Another Ankara resident, who preferred to remain anonymous, told
RT that police have started gathering in the street as more
protests are expected on Sunday afternoon. Recalling the Saturday
clashes, she described police actions as “horrible,”
saying that officers were shooting at people, without caring if
they were women, children or the elderly. Cafes and some other
public places were used as makeshift hospitals and medical
students volunteered to treat the injured. She also said that one
person was killed Saturday after being targeted by water
cannon.  

In the meantime, protests spilled into the Turkish-controlled
part of Cyprus.

As Melis Tutan, a Cyprus-based journalist reports, pointed out to
RT, Turkish students started gathering on Saturday to protest the
events in Istanbul and express their concern over the policies of
the Erdogan government and what they describe as police terror.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Nicosia, Kyrenia,
Famagusta and Morphou, Tutan told RT.

“Many civil organizations and students walked together towards
the Turkish Embassy in Nicosia. At the beginning police tried to
stop them, but then they were allowed to chant slogans.”
  

Solidarity protests were also staged or planned across Europe and
the US, with people in cities including Boston, London, Berlin,
Athens, Nicosia and Helsinki rallying against the violence in
Turkey. For instance, in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, hundreds
of Occupy movement supporters gathered for a solidarity
demonstration, and marched to the Turkish Consulate.

Turks also staged in front of the EU Parliament in Brussels to
protest the violence in Turkey, chanting anti-government slogans
and holding banners.

“This is not about a park. It’s about the abuse of state
power. It’s about media being censored. This is about
democracy,” one of the banners held by demonstrators, read.

This article originally appeared on: RT

A layer of snow on the second day of summer has put the citizens of the Russian city of Kemerovo completely out of humor.

Meteorologists say the anomaly occurred because a cyclone brought
cold Arctic air from Kara Sea region into Siberia dropping,
temperature to lows typical for summer north of the Arctic
Circle.

Bloggers were at a loss when commenting the issue.

“Snow in Kemerovo TODAY? That’s hardcore. The weather must’ve
forgot it’s June.”

“With a sense of terror has just learnt it’s been snowing in
Kemerovo. What’s next?”

“Tornado in the US. Floods in Czech Republic. SNOW in
Kemerovo!”

The city in South Siberia is situated on 55°22’17.58″ north
latitude but even for that region -2 Celsius on June 2 morning is
over the top. The region has seasonal inland climate, which means
really cold winters and very hot summers.

This spring has been sort of cold in the Kemerovo Region, which
witnessed snow in early May and an emergency extension of the
heating season. No wonder that people have been waiting for warm
summer days just like for manna from heaven, but instead got
snowflakes.

But the locals are full of determination to recalculate sowing
season schedule and plant kitchen gardens as usual and against
all odds, probably because over 70 percent of Russia’s territory
is the area of risk farming and people are used to encounter
hardships of the kind. 

This article originally appeared on: RT

The Iranian film Bardou directed by Hadi Mohaqqeq is slated to compete at the 2013 Zlin International Film Festival for Children and Youths in the Czech Republic.

The movie is scheduled to be screened at the Panorama section of this yearâ„¢s festival.

The movie chronicles the story of a 16-year-old teenager, Bardou, who lost his father and has to deal with difficulties while living with his ill mother and his younger brother.

Hadi Mohaqqeq had earlier been honored at the 2013 Jaipur International Film Festival (JIFF) in India for his movie A Look Towards The Sky.

Zlin International Film Festival is one of the largest and oldest festivals of its kind in the world.

The 53rd Zlin International Film Festival is programmed to take place in the city of Zlin from May 27 to June 1, 2013.

FGP/FGP

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Araqchi has dismissed reports about a Taliban political delegation visiting Iran from their office in Qatar.

Å“I do not confirm the Taliban delegationâ„¢s trip,” Araqchi said on Sunday.

An Iranian news agency had reported on Saturday that members of the Talibanâ„¢s political mission in Qatar, headed by Syed Tayyab Agha, have held talks with Iranian security officials in Tehran.

Taliban militants have recently opened a mission in the Persian Gulf state to provide a venue for peace negotiations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and find a peaceful end to the 12-year war in Afghanistan.

The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

The invasion removed the Taliban from power, but the country remains insecure despite the presence of tens of thousands of US-led forces there.

SF/HGH/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman has tasked the country’s foreign minister with filing a complaint with the United Nations over repeated Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace.

The order was issued on Sunday hours after Israeli warplanes conducted overflights over several parts of Lebanon, including the capital, Beirut.

“President Michel Sleiman tasked Foreign Minister Adnan Mansur with filing an urgent complaint to the United Nations about Israel’s persistent airspace violations, including over all of Lebanon this morning, including the capital Beirut,” said a statement by president’s office.

Israel violates Lebanonâ„¢s airspace on an almost daily basis, claiming the flights serve surveillance purposes.

Lebanonâ„¢s government, the Hezbollah resistance movement, and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, have repeatedly condemned the overflights, saying they are in clear violation of the Lebanese sovereignty and UN Resolution 1701, which ended the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006.

In May, the UN called on Israel to halt increased military air patrols over Lebanon after UNIFIL protested against a surge in Israeli flights over the country.

According to evidence-backed statistics submitted to the UN by the Lebanese government in 2009, Israel had violated the resolution over 7000 times “by crossing Lebanese airspace,” waters, and border on an almost daily basis since the implementation of the resolution.

HM/PR

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The U.S. State Department canceled its $1 billion surveillance drone competition, saying none of the proposals met its requirements, according to the U.S. government’s Federal Business Opportunities website.

The competition had called for companies to operate small-scale unmanned aircraft that would supply real-time video of convoy routes and buildings. It was an opportunity for companies such as Aerovironment Inc. (AVAV) and Vanguard Defense Industries LLC to boost sales outside the Department of Defense, the biggest U.S. buyer of unmanned aircraft.

The State Department “plans to examine closely the requirements stipulated in the solicitation with the intent of developing and releasing a new” request for drone proposals, according to the notice.

This article first appeared at Bloomberg.com.

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–>

This article was posted: Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 9:26 am

Tags: big brother, domestic spying, drones

–>

This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Italyâ„¢s Prime Minister Enrico Letta has apologized to unemployed Italian young people who must leave the debt-stricken country to find jobs, after the nationâ„¢s unemployment rate reached its highest level in at least 36 years.

The 46-year-old Letta made the apology in a letter published in La Stampa newspaper on Sunday.

The Italian official also wrote in the letter that Å“The biggest debt that we are accumulating, by repeating the mistakes of the previous generations, is towards the young people, which is an unforgivable mistake.”

This comes after the Rome-based national statistics office, Istat, said on Friday that the jobless rate for people between the age of 15 and 24 rose to 40.5 percent in April, the highest since the institute started collecting data on Italy in 1977.

Joblessness soared to 12 percent in April after the March reading was revised to 11.9 percent from an initial 11.5 percent, Istat said.

Tough austerity measures, spending cuts, and pension changes introduced by Italian Prime Minister Mario Montiâ„¢s government have stirred serious concerns for many people already grappling with the countryâ„¢s ailing economy.

Italians have been staging protests against high unemployment, economic adversity, and hardship over a series of government-imposed austerity packages in the recent years.

The government says the reforms are needed to create jobs, increase competition, and cut costs in the economy.

Italy started to experience recession after its economy contracted by 0.2 percent in the third quarter of 2011 and by 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of the same year.

Over the past decade, Italy has had the slowest growing economy in the eurozone.

The worsening debt crisis has forced EU governments to adopt harsh austerity measures and tough economic reforms, which have triggered incidents of social unrest and massive protests in many European countries.

MAM/PR

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iran chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, says he is running for president to prove his commitment to the 1979 Islamic Revolution discourse.

He told a crowd of his supporters in the northern city of Loshan, Gilan Province, that those who have distanced themselves from Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei have no place in his campaign.

Jalili, who is secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, called for a strong voter turnout in the presidential and city council elections, noting that a high turnout would guarantee national security and help the country defend its rights in the international arena.

Other candidates include lawmaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, President of the Expediency Councilâ„¢s Center for Strategic Research Hassan Rohani, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, former First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi, and former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati.

Iranians will go to the polls in the countryâ„¢s 11th presidential election on June 14. The fourth city and rural council elections are also scheduled to be held on the same day.

Nearly 50.5 million Iranians are eligible to vote, with more than 1.6 million first-time voters.

KA/HGH/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Thousands of supporters of US Army whistleblower Private Bradley Manning have continued to protest a day before his trial in the State of Maryland.

On Saturday, more than 3,000 protesters gathered outside the Fort Meade military camp where Manningâ„¢s court-martial trial is expected to start on Monday.

The members of the Bradley Manning Support Network and other supporters were among the demonstrators

Many of the protesters held banners reading, Å“We are all Bradley Manning” and Å“Bradley Manning: Jailed for exposing war crimes.”

Similar demonstrations are also taking place in more than one dozen other cities across the world.

The 25-year-old former US Army intelligence analyst was arrested in May 2010 in Iraq for allegedly giving more than 700,000 military field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan and US diplomatic cables to whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

The material included videos showing the killing of Iraqi and Afghan civilians by US forces.

Manning faces 22 charges, including Å“aiding the enemy.” He could face life in prison, if found guilty on all counts.

Human rights activist Craig Murray has criticized Manning’s imprisonment by asking why the American soldiers, who were “deliberately” killing innocent people overseas, are not the ones currently on trial.

The case of the former Army intelligence analyst is the most high-profile in a series of prosecutions against whistleblowers under the administration of US President Barack Obama.

SZH/PR/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Turkish police have used tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of protesters in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, as they tried to march to the high-security office of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Italyâ„¢s Health Ministry says three people have been infected with a new deadly respiratory virus related to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

According to a statement released by the ministry on Saturday, a man, living in Tuscany region in central Italy, was infected with the deadly coronavirus after returning from a 40-day visit to Jordan.

The statement added that a young kid who is related to the 45-year-old man and one of his work colleagues were also infected with the virus.

According to the reports, all the patients were hospitalized and being monitored in isolation.

The novel coronavirus, also known as nCoV-EMC, is a cousin of SARS. However, it does not appear to be as contagious as SARS, which killed some 800 people in a 2003 epidemic.

The virus first emerged in the Middle East, and was discovered on September 2012 in a Qatari man who had recently traveled to Saudi Arabia.

Cases have been reported in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, Britain and Germany, and health officials believe the virus is likely to spread between humans in certain circumstances.

Scientists are considering whether bats or other animals like goats or camels are a possible source of infection.

Health authorities are trying to find out how humans contract the virus in a bid to find the best remedy for it.

The World Health Organization has advised countries to test any individual admitted with unexplained pneumonia.

MAM/PR

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Cuba has expressed support for Venezuela saying the dispute between Caracas and Colombia could hurt the ongoing peace talks with Farc rebels.

The statement released on Saturday by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez came as a response to Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Caprilesâ„¢ visit to Bogota on May 28, which angered President Nicolas Maduro.

Rodriguez declared in a statement Cubaâ„¢s “unvarying position of solidarity with Venezuela and of recognition of the legitimate government of President Nicolas Maduro.”

The Cuban foreign minister accused Capriles of working with the United States to destabilize Venezuela.

“These actions and any direct or indirect help hurt the unity of Latin America and the Caribbean, diminish independence and hurt the efforts of Venezuela and other states in favor of peace.”

On May 30, Maduro accused Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos of Å“betrayal” over his meeting with Capriles.

Capriles, who has refused to concede defeat in Aprilâ„¢s presidential election, met with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on Tuesday.

The Venezuelan opposition leader is on a scheduled tour in Latin America to voice his case regarding the presidential election, which he considers as fraudulent.

In a response to the visit, Maduro withdrew his countryâ„¢s envoy to the ongoing peace talks in Havana between the Colombian government and the FARC or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Colombiaâ„¢s lead negotiator in the peace talks, Humberto de la Calle said on Friday that he hoped the two countries could resolve its differences since “the role played by Venezuela has been very important to the talks, very important.”

Venezuela and Chile are assisting in the peace process, which began in November 2012 and guaranteed by Cuba and Norway.

On May 26, the Colombia and FARC published a joint statement in the Havana, saying they had reached a deal on the economic and social development of rural areas.

CAH/PR

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A layer of snow on the second day of summer has put the citizens of the Russian city of Kemerovo completely out of humor.

Meteorologists say the anomaly occurred because a cyclone brought
cold Arctic air from Kara Sea region into Siberia dropping,
temperature to lows typical for summer north of the Arctic
Circle.

Bloggers were at a loss when commenting the issue.

“Snow in Kemerovo TODAY? That’s hardcore. The weather must’ve
forgot it’s June.”

“With a sense of terror has just learnt it’s been snowing in
Kemerovo. What’s next?”

“Tornado in the US. Floods in Czech Republic. SNOW in
Kemerovo!”

The city in South Siberia is situated on 55°22’17.58″ north
latitude but even for that region -2 Celsius on June 2 morning is
over the top. The region has seasonal inland climate, which means
really cold winters and very hot summers.

This spring has been sort of cold in the Kemerovo Region, which
witnessed snow in early May and an emergency extension of the
heating season. No wonder that people have been waiting for warm
summer days just like for manna from heaven, but instead got
snowflakes.

But the locals are full of determination to recalculate sowing
season schedule and plant kitchen gardens as usual and against
all odds, probably because over 70 percent of Russia’s territory
is the area of risk farming and people are used to encounter
hardships of the kind. 

This article originally appeared on: RT

British campaigners are to hold a vigil in London on Sunday June 2 in solidarity with the Palestinians.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The Control Arms Coalition demonstrated in front of the United Nations in July 2012 to remind delegates of the price paid every day by armed violence. (Credit: Coralie Tripier/IPS)WASHINGTON – Advocacy groups here are stepping up a campaign to pressure President Barack Obama to quickly sign on to a new United Nations treaty aimed at regulating, for the first time, the international small-arms trade.

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), adopted by the U.N. in April following on years of preparation, opens for country ratification on Monday. It passed with just three “no” votes, coming from Iran, North Korea and Syria, and will require the ratification of 50 countries to come into effect.

“The issue here is simply the symbolism of saying that [the U.S.] is committed to this on an international level.” — Rachel Stohl of the Stimson Center

“The U.S. has said that it feels its export control system is one of the best in the world, and that it would like to see those standards replicated in the ATT,” Clare Da Silva, legal advisor on the ATT with Amnesty International, told IPS.

She says she is confident that the United States will sign on, though it most likely will not be on Monday.

“There is nothing in this treaty that requires the U.S. to do anything differently,” Rachel Stohl, a senior associate at the Stimson Center, a think tank here, said at a panel discussion Friday. “Rather, the issue here is simply the symbolism of saying that [the U.S.] is committed to this on an international level — that’s really important.”

For the first time, the ATT states that if a country knows its weapons will be used to commit genocide or violate a U.N. arms embargo, they cannot be transferred. Stohl believes the ATT has the potential to address some U.S. national security and foreign policy concerns, including terrorism.

A significant majority of U.S. allies, human rights and religious groups have supported the treaty, the passage of which was seen as a key victory for the United States. And while many groups are now calling on President Obama to sign on to the ATT immediately, others are saying he will need to do so no later than the U.N. General Assembly meeting in September.

“If he doesn’t do that, the momentum behind the force will be undermined,” Daryll Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a bipartisan advocacy group here, said Friday.

“U.S. credibility will be questioned, we are going to be pulling the rug out from under our allies, and the president is going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

According to both Kimball and Stohl, other countries will be looking to the U.S. to sign on before they make their final decisions. Neither Russia nor China, for instance, has announced whether they will ratify the ATT, and analysts suggest that these decisions will hinge on the U.S.’s own moves.

“The U.S. is the largest weapons exporter in the world,” Stohl says. “So people will look and say, well if its okay with the United States, then [signing the ATT] must not be too damaging to legitimate trade.”

Political momentum

The Obama administration has formally supported the ATT, a turnaround from previous U.S. policy under George W. Bush.

Nonetheless, it appears unlikely that the United States will sign the treaty on Jun. 3. Observers say this is due simply to typographical errors in translations from the original English text, however, which are currently being corrected following which countries will have three months to lodge comments.

Even once the Obama administration does sign on, the U.S. Congress will still need to approve the ratification before it can be signed into law. According to Amnesty International’s Da Silva, many international treaties never get ratified, and she does not expect to see the ATT made into law anytime soon.

Indeed, Republican politicians have already moved to pass legislation specifically barring the United States’ ratification of the ATT, while gun-rights advocates here continue to see opposition of the treaty as a primary rallying point. The majority of this opposition has come from the National Rifle Association (NRA), a lobby group.

“The text of the approved treaty is deeply problematic and threatens the rights of privacy of American gun owners,” the NRA says on its website.

In fact, the ATT deals solely with the international arms trade between governments. Nonetheless, this opposition has been so strong that U.S. delegation specifically wrote into the ATT text language that no infringement will occur for recreational, cultural, historical and lawful ownership.

Still, the Stimson Center’s Stohl notes that there remains an important opportunity for the United States to set an example.

“The symbolism is not that there has to be any change to U.S. law,” she told IPS. “Rather, it would be sending a signal to the rest of the world that the United States, which is responsible for 75 percent of the arms trade, is taking on this obligation as the world’s largest [arms] exporter.”

Following a recent legislative defeat of President Obama’s attempts to strengthen domestic gun laws — unrelated to the ATT — Stohl notes that the treaty could be an opportunity for the administration, as well.

“Here’s an opportunity to say, the NRA didn’t like this and we did it anyway,” she says.

Paul O’Brien, an advocate with Oxfam America, a humanitarian group, agrees.

“Do they sign it in a moment when the world is paying attention? We hope so,” he said at Friday’s panel discussion.

“Do they wait until Congress isn’t paying attention and the NRA has probably gone to bed for a couple of weeks? We hope not. We hope they use the moment to continue to build political momentum”.

© 2013 IPS North America

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

British military vehicles are parked in a compound in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan. (file photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

It has already begun: Japan has just cancelled a large contract to purchase U.S. wheat. “We will refrain from buying western white and feed wheat effective today,” Toru Hisadome, a Japanese farm ministry official in charge of wheat trading, told Reuters.

As many readers well know, I predicted precisely this scenario just yesterday in a Natural News article warning about the consequences of genetic pollution. There, I wrote, “All wheat produced in the United States will now be heavily scrutinized – and possibly even rejected – by other nations that traditionally import U.S. wheat. This obviously has enormous economic implications for U.S. farmers and agriculture.”

Now we’re already seeing the result: the ditching of U.S. wheat by world nations that want nothing to do with GMOs.

Monsanto is a ticking time bomb for U.S. agriculture

This proves, without any question, that Monsanto’s genetic experiments which “escaped” into commercial wheat fields are now going to devastate U.S. wheat farmers. Expect the floor to drop out on wheat prices, and watch for a huge backlash against the USDA by U.S. farmers who stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars on this.

As the USDA has now admitted, Monsanto’s GMO experiments from 1998 — 2005 were held in open wheat fields. The genetically engineered wheat escaped and found its way into commercial wheat fields in Oregon (and possibly 15 other states), causing self-replicating genetic pollution that now taints the entire U.S. wheat industry.

“Asian consumers are keenly sensitive to gene-altered food, with few countries allowing imports of such cereals for human consumption,” writes Reuters. It continues:

Asia imports more than 40 million tonnes of wheat annually, almost a third of the global trade of 140-150 million tonnes. The bulk of the region’s supplies come from the United States, the world’s biggest exporter, and Australia, the No. 2 supplier. Another incredible Monsanto achievement: the genetic contamination of the U.S. wheat supply

Nice job, Monsanto. You’ve managed to spew your genetic pollution across the fields of innocent U.S. farmers who are now going to lose huge sums of money due to the reject of U.S. wheat by all the other world nations that refuse to feed their populations GMO.

And a big thumbs up to the USDA, too, for screwing U.S. farmers by green-lighting open-field GMO experiments that we all warned were going to result in runaway genetic pollution. The USDA, of course, is the official cheerleading squad for Monsanto’s criminal “science” that we all know is a total fraud. How do these scientists now suggest this self-replicating genetic pollution be put back into the black box from which it emerged?

It can’t be done, of course. So now the entire future of the U.S. wheat supply is at risk thanks to Monsanto and the USDA. Nice one, folks. Score another victory for the scumbag destroyers in Washington D.C. and the greed-driven executives at our favorite corporation, Monsanto.

And remember: Genetically modified wheat is only the beginning. Monsanto has no doubt unleashed genetic pollution across many other crops as well. We’re now living in an age where Monsanto is essentially ejaculating its patented seed across all the farms of America, then claiming to “own” the contaminated crops. What a wonderful image of corporate responsibility and service to humankind. I can’t wait to see what other U.S. crops will be rejected by world nations due to Monsanto’s genetic pollution.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/30/us-wheat-asia-idUSL3N0EB1JC…

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Seventeenth century philosopher/political theorist/jurist Hugo Grotius perhaps helped inspire international law. In 1625, his “On The Law of War and Peace” said “Most Men assign three Just Causes of War, Defense, the Recovery of what’s our own, and Punishment.”

War must be waged rightly to be just, he said. It must either respond to “wrongs not yet committed, or to wrongs already done.” He called self-defense justifiable.

Under international law, it’s a fundamental right. It’s inviolable. The UN Charter affirms it. Chapter VII, Article 51 states:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”

“Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

America spurns international, constitutional and US statute laws. Do as we say, not as we do, is policy.

Syria’s Washington’s war. It was planned years ago. It’s lawless premeditated aggression. Proxy foot soldiers wage it. They’re enlisted death squads. They’re recruited from many regional and more distant countries. They invaded. There’s nothing “civil” about ongoing conflict.

Assad defends Syrian sovereignty best he can. He’s obligated to do so. If not him, who will? He’s vilified for doing his job. Washington wants him denied the right. It wants him defenseless.

The New York Times supports longstanding US imperial priorities. Doing so supports wrong over right. It ignores fundamental rule of law principles. It violates journalistic ethics. They require truth and full disclosure.

On May 31, The Times headlined “Kerry Castigates Russia Over Syria-Bound Missiles.”

He claimed supplying them “threaten(s) to disrupt efforts to negotiate a political settlement and could destabilize the region.” He hard imagining he said so with a straight face.

America abhors diplomacy. It prioritizes violence, conflict, subversion, destabilization, conquest and unchallenged dominance. Times editors, columnists and correspondents don’t explain.

Russia confirmed its S-300 anti-aircraft missile sale. Other weapons systems are supplied. Contracts were agreed on earlier. The Times said doing so “add(s) a dangerous new dimension to the ‘civil’ war in Syria.”

Kerry claims S-300s and other defensive systems threaten Israel. Saying so turns truth on its head. Israel and Washington partner in regional wars. They’re allied against Syria.

Both countries actively aid and abet extremist death squad fighters. They’re supplied weapons and other military-related help. Doing so is lawless. NATO partners and rogue Arab state allies operate the same way.

Kerry wants Syria unable to resist. “Whether it’s an old (Russian) contract or not, it has a profoundly negative impact on the balance of interests and the stability of the region, and it does put Israel at risk,” he claims.

“It is not, in our judgment, responsible because of the size of the weapon, the nature of the weapon and what it does to the region in terms of Israel’s security.”

He omitted saying they’re for defense, not offense. Weapons and munitions supplied Western-enlisted death squads further lawless aggression. The Times didn’t explain. Managed news misinformation excludes doing so.

Washington Post editors operate the same way. They prioritize war on Syria, not peaceful conflict resolution. Numerous editorials say so. Previous articles discussed them.

On May 29, WaPo headlined “Russia sends arms to Syria as it tries to reassert its role in region,” saying:

“The Syrian army’s March weapons request to its Russian supplier was the stuff of everyday battles in a long and grueling conflict.” ­

“Twenty-thousand Kalashnikov assault rifles and 20 million rounds of ammunition. Machine guns. Grenade launchers and grenades. Sniper rifles with night-vision sights.”

“The Syrian army general asked for a price quote ‘in the shortest possible time.’ He closed with kind regards to Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state arms exporter.”

Arms include defensive S-300 missiles. Russia confirmed the sale. Since conflict began in early 2011, Washington, key NATO partners, and rogue Arab state allies supplied anti-Assad elements with weapons and munitions.

They pour in regularly. They plan greater amounts ahead. Doing so escalates conflict. Resolving it is nowhere in sight.

According to WaPo, “no outside force has been as consistent in its involvement in Syria as Russia.”

Its support pales by comparison with Western and allied regime partners. WaPo didn’t explain. It claims Russia remains committed to providing “indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity” of arms shipments.

It said Moscow wants to reassert its regional presence. It has every right to do so. Vital interests are at stake. US forces infest the region. They prioritize violence, conflict and instability. They prevent peace.

Moscow has just cause for concern. Supporting Syrian sovereignty helps its own. Washington surrounds Russia with military bases. They’re provocative.

So-called US defensive missiles and related radar installations are positioned near its borders. They’re for offense, not defense. America operates this way.

Russia knows it’s targeted. So does China. Eliminating sovereign allies leaves them more vulnerable. Together they represent a vital stand against US imperial intentions.

WaPo editors are consistently critical. They call blocking Security Council war resolutions irresponsible.

They claim opposing foreign intervention is reckless. Hawkish editors think this way. So do supportive columnists, correspondents and contributors.

They blame President Vladimir Putin for waging Cold War politics. Failure to roll over for America is called hostile. So is waging peace, not war.

Wall Street Journal editors are consistently hawkish. On May 31, they headlined “Assad on the March.”

He “has a new swagger,” they said. He’s routing insurgent invaders “thanks to arms from Russia and troops and weapons from Iran and Hezbollah.”

“The West is slowly losing in Syria to this axis of Mideast extremism, and Americans need to understand the potential consequences.”

Journal editors and other media scoundrels support Washington rules. They back America’s imperium. They feature lawless wars.

They’re waged against independent countries. They want them left defenseless. They want them unable to resist. They’re supposed to lose, not win. How Syria’s survival struggle turns out remains to be seen.

“You almost have to admire the brazenness of Russian diplomacy,” said Journal editors. They call supplying defensive weapons against offensive ones given Western-enlisted death squads hypocrisy.

They want Syria unable to resist. Countering Western/Israeli aggression can’t be tolerated. Assad’s ability to do so marks “another triumph for President Obama’s diplomatic ‘reset’ with Russia.”

It exists in name only. In 2009, Obama promised a “fresh start.” Cold War politics never changed. CIA operatives infest Russia. They operate under diplomatic cover. At times, they’re caught red-handed.

US funding supports internal opposition elements. America does so globally. Russia and China are prime targets. So are Iran and other independent states.

Moscow prefers friendly relations with America. Good faith offers are made. Washington’s confrontational policies persist. So does covert war.

It’s much like the bad old days. Everything changed but stayed the same. It’s standard US practice. It wants things one-way. Sovereign independence isn’t tolerated.

Journal editors want tougher US policy. They abhor rule of law principles. They suppress truth and full disclosure. They support war.

They’re dismissive about further death, destruction and human misery. Imperial priorities alone matter. Scoundrel editors thinks this way. They betray their readers in the process. Why they put up with it they’ll have to explain.

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/washington-criticizes-syrian-self-defense/

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Seventeenth century philosopher/political theorist/jurist Hugo Grotius perhaps helped inspire international law. In 1625, his “On The Law of War and Peace” said “Most Men assign three Just Causes of War, Defense, the Recovery of what’s our own, and Punishment.”

War must be waged rightly to be just, he said. It must either respond to “wrongs not yet committed, or to wrongs already done.” He called self-defense justifiable.

Under international law, it’s a fundamental right. It’s inviolable. The UN Charter affirms it. Chapter VII, Article 51 states:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”

“Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

America spurns international, constitutional and US statute laws. Do as we say, not as we do, is policy.

Syria’s Washington’s war. It was planned years ago. It’s lawless premeditated aggression. Proxy foot soldiers wage it. They’re enlisted death squads. They’re recruited from many regional and more distant countries. They invaded. There’s nothing “civil” about ongoing conflict.

Assad defends Syrian sovereignty best he can. He’s obligated to do so. If not him, who will? He’s vilified for doing his job. Washington wants him denied the right. It wants him defenseless.

The New York Times supports longstanding US imperial priorities. Doing so supports wrong over right. It ignores fundamental rule of law principles. It violates journalistic ethics. They require truth and full disclosure.

On May 31, The Times headlined “Kerry Castigates Russia Over Syria-Bound Missiles.”

He claimed supplying them “threaten(s) to disrupt efforts to negotiate a political settlement and could destabilize the region.” He hard imagining he said so with a straight face.

America abhors diplomacy. It prioritizes violence, conflict, subversion, destabilization, conquest and unchallenged dominance. Times editors, columnists and correspondents don’t explain.

Russia confirmed its S-300 anti-aircraft missile sale. Other weapons systems are supplied. Contracts were agreed on earlier. The Times said doing so “add(s) a dangerous new dimension to the ‘civil’ war in Syria.”

Kerry claims S-300s and other defensive systems threaten Israel. Saying so turns truth on its head. Israel and Washington partner in regional wars. They’re allied against Syria.

Both countries actively aid and abet extremist death squad fighters. They’re supplied weapons and other military-related help. Doing so is lawless. NATO partners and rogue Arab state allies operate the same way.

Kerry wants Syria unable to resist. “Whether it’s an old (Russian) contract or not, it has a profoundly negative impact on the balance of interests and the stability of the region, and it does put Israel at risk,” he claims.

“It is not, in our judgment, responsible because of the size of the weapon, the nature of the weapon and what it does to the region in terms of Israel’s security.”

He omitted saying they’re for defense, not offense. Weapons and munitions supplied Western-enlisted death squads further lawless aggression. The Times didn’t explain. Managed news misinformation excludes doing so.

Washington Post editors operate the same way. They prioritize war on Syria, not peaceful conflict resolution. Numerous editorials say so. Previous articles discussed them.

On May 29, WaPo headlined “Russia sends arms to Syria as it tries to reassert its role in region,” saying:

“The Syrian army’s March weapons request to its Russian supplier was the stuff of everyday battles in a long and grueling conflict.” ­

“Twenty-thousand Kalashnikov assault rifles and 20 million rounds of ammunition. Machine guns. Grenade launchers and grenades. Sniper rifles with night-vision sights.”

“The Syrian army general asked for a price quote ‘in the shortest possible time.’ He closed with kind regards to Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state arms exporter.”

Arms include defensive S-300 missiles. Russia confirmed the sale. Since conflict began in early 2011, Washington, key NATO partners, and rogue Arab state allies supplied anti-Assad elements with weapons and munitions.

They pour in regularly. They plan greater amounts ahead. Doing so escalates conflict. Resolving it is nowhere in sight.

According to WaPo, “no outside force has been as consistent in its involvement in Syria as Russia.”

Its support pales by comparison with Western and allied regime partners. WaPo didn’t explain. It claims Russia remains committed to providing “indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity” of arms shipments.

It said Moscow wants to reassert its regional presence. It has every right to do so. Vital interests are at stake. US forces infest the region. They prioritize violence, conflict and instability. They prevent peace.

Moscow has just cause for concern. Supporting Syrian sovereignty helps its own. Washington surrounds Russia with military bases. They’re provocative.

So-called US defensive missiles and related radar installations are positioned near its borders. They’re for offense, not defense. America operates this way.

Russia knows it’s targeted. So does China. Eliminating sovereign allies leaves them more vulnerable. Together they represent a vital stand against US imperial intentions.

WaPo editors are consistently critical. They call blocking Security Council war resolutions irresponsible.

They claim opposing foreign intervention is reckless. Hawkish editors think this way. So do supportive columnists, correspondents and contributors.

They blame President Vladimir Putin for waging Cold War politics. Failure to roll over for America is called hostile. So is waging peace, not war.