© Reuters / Amir Cohen
At least three major blasts rocked Gaza city as Twitter got flooded with reports of residents waking up to the sounds of airstrikes and Israeli F-16 jets flying over.
Puppet Masters
At least three major blasts rocked Gaza city as Twitter got flooded with reports of residents waking up to the sounds of airstrikes and Israeli F-16 jets flying over.
Federal judge investigating allegations U.S. government destroyed evidence in NSA whistleblower case
© AFP Photo / DPA
Former senior executive of the US National Security Agency (NSA), Thomas Drake
Former senior executive of the US National Security Agency (NSA), Thomas Drake
According to a report by McClatchy, federal judge Stephanie Gallagher of Maryland wrote to Justice Department lawyers on May 13 explaining that the judge who oversaw the Drake case asked her to check out allegations made by Drake's lawyers that documents were destroyed by the Pentagon Inspector General's office. Gallagher gave the Justice Department a month to respond.
If the allegations are confirmed, sanctions can be made against prosecutors and federal agents for violating evidence retention rules in criminal cases.
Drake's lawyers, in a letter to the judge in April, accused the Pentagon Inspector General's Office of destroying possible evidence during Drake's criminal prosecution in 2010.
Instead of bowing out gracefully to the realities of a changing world, Washington is using militarism like viagra to postpone the inevitable.
Following the Second World War, American world leadership was indisputable. "Pax Americana" - a world order under US financial and political terms - appeared to reign supreme. But even in those halcyon days, trouble was in store for the more perceptive of American planners.
In a secret memo, PSS/23, written in 1948 and declassified in 1974, the eminent US State Department planner George Kennan had this to say of the emerging global order and in particular US relations with Asia:
"We must be very careful when we speak of exercising 'leadership' in Asia. We are deceiving ourselves and others when we pretend to have answers to the problems, which agitate many of these Asiatic peoples. Furthermore, we have about 50 per cent of the world's wealth but only 6.3 per cent of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia... In the face of this situation... We should cease to talk about vague — and for the Far East — unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratisation. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans, the better".
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko held a meeting with founder of the Open Society Foundations, international philanthropist George Soros on January 13, 2015.
The hacktivists have published three files online, which include a draft of "A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine" by Soros (dated March 12, 2015); an undated paper on military assistance to Kiev; and the billionaire's letter to Poroshenko and Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, dated December 23, 2014.
According to the leaked documents, Soros supports Barack Obama's stance on Ukraine, but believes that the US should do even more.
He is confident that the US should provide Ukraine with lethal military assistance, "with same level of sophistication in defense weapons to match the level of opposing force."
"In poker terms, the US will 'meet, but not raise," the 84-year-old businessman explained, supposedly signing one of the letters as "a self-appointed advocate of the new Ukraine."
The Western backers want Kiev to "restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement," Soros wrote.
Comment: Smoking gun information for sure. What will the EU or Russia do with it?
© AP Photo/ Ronald Zak
The scandal at FIFA is a consequence of the wave of arrests on corruption charges of various FIFA officials in Switzerland in the days immediately before the conference.
Those arrests were the result of criminal investigations launched in the US.
Putting aside for the moment the question of whether or not the corruption allegations are true and what right the US has to investigate an organization that is based in Switzerland, the timing of the arrests on the eve of the FIFA conference makes it very difficult to believe that the arrests were not intended to prevent Mr. Blatter's reelection.
As to the reasons for that, it is difficult also to avoid the view that this is not because of British and US anger at the failure of their bids to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and the success respectively of Russia and Qatar in their place.
Ever since Russia and Qatar won their respective bids, the British media in particular, like the arch-typical bad loser, has run a relentless media campaign along the lines of "we were robbed".
No evidence for that has ever come to light, and as of the time of writing it has not done so, notwithstanding the investigations currently underway. What we have instead is evidence that — somewhat embarrassingly — appears to point to the finger of suspicion toward certain US individuals and companies, who seem to have been involved in corrupt merchandising deals.
The absence of evidence of corruption in the 2018 and 2022 bidding process has not however prevented a constant drumbeat of demands from the British media for the whole bidding process to be reopened, and this has continued loudly ever since the arrests last week.
Comment: Why should it. The powers in the West will just create the reality the see fit in order to further their goals.
In light of this, it is difficult to believe that the corruption investigations were launched for any purpose other than to force a re-opening of the bids.
© Reuters
Majid Khan, now a government cooperating witness, was captured in Pakistan and held in a CIA "black site" from 2003 to 2006. Khan said interrogators poured ice water on his genitals, twice videotaped him naked, and repeatedly touched his "private parts," according to accounts recorded by his lawyers over the past seven years and now reported by Reuters.
Khan, 35, claimed interrogators -- some smelling of alcohol -- threatened to beat him with a hammer, baseball bats, sticks, and leather belts.
The allegations represent the "first publicly released account from a high-value" Al-Qaeda detainee who was tortured following the attacks of September 11, 2001, according to Reuters.
CIA torture of @theCCR client Majid Khan revealed http://t.co/T4Fzws44Mz More: https://t.co/ihVxS9dDvD
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 2, 2015
© Reuters / Yannis Behrakis
The news was not covered in other media despite the important risks and ramifications for depositors and savers throughout the EU and indeed internationally.
The article "EU regulators tell 11 countries to adopt bank bail-in rules" reported how 11 countries are under pressure from the EC and had yet "to fall in line". The countries were Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France and Italy.
© RIA Novosti / Sergey Guneev
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin
The writer of the article, Thomas Graham, is a former senior director for Russia on the staff of the U.S. National Security Council.
He presumably carries weight in the inner counsels of the U.S. government and has had a key role formulating U.S. policy towards Russia.
Judging from the recommendations he makes in his article, he is probably a good representative of what might be called the "realists" in the U.S. foreign policy establishment.
The article does indeed make recommendations that can be called "realist".
© flickr.com / Government ZA
These proposals are being presented by some as part of a Russian-led attack on the U.S. dominated financial system.
This is a misunderstanding.
© Screenshot from Russian Investigative Committee video
The man is currently under Russian state protection.
"As now there is new evidence of the reliability of the words of the witness, as well as various reports concerning the doubts of certain media outlets about the real existence of this witness, we decided to disclose [the name of the witness]," Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said.
Comment: This isn't new information but it is confirmation of early reports. It's no wonder the Dutch are so slow in presenting their findings.
Comment: So IS gives Israel the green light to attack Gaza. How much worse can this get?