On 15 August 2007, the BBC headlined "Wikipedia Shows CIA Page Edits," and Jonathan Fildes reported that, "An online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organizations that edit Wikipedia pages has revealed that the CIA was involved in editing entries." I.e.: What the CIA doesn't like, they can (and do) eliminate or change.

More recently, on 25 June 2015, an anonymous reddit poster, "moose," listed and linked directly to 18 different news reports, in such media as New York Times, Washington Post, Telegraph, Mirror, Guardian, and Newsweek, reporting about wikipedia edits that were supplied not only by the CIA but by other U.S. Government offices, and by large corporations.

That person opened with a news report which implicated Wikipedia itself, "Wikipedia honcho caught in scandal quits, defends paid edits," in which Wikipedia's own corruption was discussed.

Most of the other news reports there concerned unpaid edits by employees at CIA, congressional and British parliamentary offices, the DCRI (French equivalent of the U.S. CIA), large corporations, self-interested individuals, and others.

One article even concerned a report that, "All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) changed a Russian language version of a page listing civil aviation accidents to say that 'The plane [flight MH17] was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers'."

Basically, wikipedia has been revealed to be a river of 'information' that's polluted by so many self-interested sources as to be no more reliable than, say: "New York Times, Washington Post, Telegraph, Mirror, Guardian, and Newsweek."

And that's not reliable at all. For example, everybody knew in 2002 and 2003 that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling WMD "Weapons of Mass Destruction," because they had read it in such 'news' sources as that. Consequently, even when wikipedia links to those sorts of articles, it can be propagating lies.

After all, The New York Times and Washington Post were stenographically 'reporting' the lies from the White House as if those lies were truths (not challenging them at all); so, the fame of a publisher has nothing to do with the honesty (the integrity and carefulness) of its 'news' reporting.

Stenographic 'news' reporting isn't news-reporting; it is propaganda, no matter how famous and respected the 'news' medium happens (unfortunately) to be. Some of the most unreliable 'news' media have top prestige.

Greece is the pearl of Mediterranean, the place generations of foreigners from Lord Byron to Graves to Fowles have fallen in love with. From philosophy to feta, from history to yoghurt, from poetry to honey they provided the example to follow. Their priests preserve the pristine faith; their fighters defeated Mussolini; their Helen is the epitome of female beauty. They also make lousy wine called retsina and listen to loud dreadful music called bouzouki so we would temper our Hellenophilia.

Now they have given us another example to follow: how to beat banksters at their own game. The spectacular victory of the Syriza government in Greece at the national referendum was quite unexpected: the polls wavered between an indecisive result and straightforward support of the EU plans around 51:49. However, the Greeks strongly confirmed the mandate of the government. The main problem was and remains the Syriza's resolve and determination.

The ruling party took an unnecessary risk while calling for referendum, for they had already won the elections under their own slogans just a few months ago. This implied their wobbliness, as if they would prefer to lose and pass the hot potato to somebody else. Moreover, they did not try to win the referendum: no campaign for NO, no media coverage of demos for NO. Did they wish to lose or to win with a slightest possible margin? Possibly. The Greek people rejected the stratagem and called upon them to proceed.

Now it is the business of the government to organise a smooth and fast Grexit from the Eurozone and switch to the new Drachma. A really decisive government would leave the EU and NATO, turning the tables completely. Refusing the bailout is good but not enough.

As the 10th anniversary of the most deadly terrorist attack ever to be carried out in Britain - the 7/7 attacks on the London underground and transport systems - is recalled, UK policy has since made the prospects of another 7/7 more, not less, likely.

The 30 British victims of the most recent Islamist terrorist attack in Tunisia are a damning indictment of Britain's efforts to combat terrorism in the ten years since the 7/7 attack took place in London - an tragedy which claimed 52 lives and left 700 people injured. Indeed, the massacre in Tunisia is proof that rather than another major terrorist attack in Britain being less likely today, ten years on from 7/7, it is more likely. The British Government's ill-planned and ill-conceived interventions in the Middle East over the past decade, combined with the campaign of demonization that has been rolled out against Muslims at home, has fanned the flames of radicalization rather than the opposite.


Ever since embarking on the disastrous and illegal war against Iraq in 2003, members of the British establishment have consistently denied any connection between UK foreign policy and the rising tide of Islamist extremism and terrorism at home and abroad. There can only be two explanations for such a denial - madness or mendacity. Many would suggest that it's a case of both.

Whatever the reason, the truth cannot be denied: UK foreign policy and efforts to combat terrorism have not merely failed, they have failed catastrophically, in the process endangering British citizens at home and overseas, large chunks of which are now no-go areas for tourists or people visiting.

In a result that should surprise no one, the Greeks voted to reject European demands for additional austerity measures as the price for providing funds to allow Greek banks to operate. There are three reasons this should have been no surprise. First, the ruling Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza party, is ruling because it has an understanding of the Greek mood. Second, the constant scorn and contempt that the European leadership heaped on the prime minister and finance minister convinced the Greeks not only that the scorn was meant for them as well but also that anyone so despised by the European leadership wasn't all bad. Finally, and most important, the European leadership put the Greek voters in a position in which they had nothing to lose. The Greeks were left to choose between two forms of devastation — one that was immediate but possible to recover from, and one that was a longer-term strangulation with no exit.

The Europeans' Mistaken Reasoning

As the International Monetary Fund noted (while maintaining a very hard line on Greece), the Greeks cannot repay their loans or escape from their economic nightmare without a substantial restructuring of the Greek debt, including significant debt forgiveness and a willingness to create a multidecade solution. The IMF also made clear that increased austerity, apart from posing an impossible burden for the Greeks, will actually retard either a Greek recovery or debt repayment.

The Greeks knew this as well. What was obvious is that austerity without radical restructuring would inevitably lead to default, if not now, then somewhere not too far down the line. Focusing on pensions made the Europeans appear tough but was actually quite foolish. All of the austerity measures demanded would not have provided nearly enough money to repay debts without restructuring. In due course, Greece would default, or the debt would be restructured.

Since Europe's leaders are not stupid, it is important to understand the game they were playing. They knew perfectly well the austerity measures were between irrelevant and damaging to debt repayment. They insisted on this battle at this time because they thought they would win it, and it was important for them to get Greece to capitulate for broader reasons.

It has been over four years since the 9.0 magnitude Tōhoku earthquake and ensuing catastrophic tsunami leveled the Pacific coast of Japan, setting off a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daichi power plant. Radiation has been pouring into the ocean, into the earth below, and into the air for over 1500 days now and there is still zero sense of urgency on the part of the government and world leaders to seriously address this blooming catastrophe. All efforts to stop the meltdown and clean up the radiation have been left in the hands of TEPCO, Japan's energy company that has been proven time and again to be inept and unprepared to confront a disaster of this sort.

The mainstream media, for its part, appears to be complicit in a cover-up of the effects that Fukushima radiation is already having on our environment and on human and animal health, and instead insists on omitting most news on the matter, or seriously dumbing down reports of the fallout.

For an excellent primer on nuclear radiation, the nuclear energy industry and the impacts of Fukushima, watch this informative talk by Dr. Helen Caldicott, M.D.:

Here is a brief sample of some of the measures the Chinese government and the PBOC have unleashed in just the past ten days to prop up the crashing market include:

• a ban on major shareholders, corporate executives, directors from selling stock for 6 months
• freezing more than half (1400 at last count per Bloomberg) of the listed companies from trading,
• blocking fund redemptions, forcing companies to invest in the market,
• halting IPOs,
• reducing equity transaction fees,
• providing daily bailouts to the margin lending authority,
• reducing margin requirements,
• boosting buybacks
• endless propaganda by Beijing Bob.

The measures are summarized below.

Commenting on Chancellor Angela Merkel's tour of the Balkans, business newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) lamented that despite the serious problems faced by the European Union over Greece, Merkel is sticking to promises of EU membership for Serbia and Albania, "in order to prevent them from coming under the influence of Russia."

"As if the EU did not have enough problems, Angela Merkel made promises for Albania and Serbia's accession to the EU," the newspaper noted on Thursday, on the eve of the wrap-up of the Chancellor's tour of Albania, Serbia and Bosnia.

On Wednesday in Tirana, Albania, Merkel promised that there would be no artificial delays in the Albanian and Serbian drive for membership in the supranational bloc. "I can tell you, nothing will be artificially delayed. There won't be any difficulties constructed," Merkel noted, adding that the countries' EU entry is related to the union's credibility.

Hannibal brought Rome to the brink of defeat during the Second Punic War. Carthage's army marched all over Italy as it if were its own backyard. However, in the end, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus the Elder was able to move the theater of operations to Africa, destroy Carthage's armies, defeat the invincible Hannibal, and establish peace on Rome's terms.

The actual victor over Hannibal was not the brilliant tactician Scipio, but the profound strategist and outstanding politician Fabius Maximus Cunctator. The Romans did not elect him Consul or even Dictator during the course of the war. Fabius Maximus remained an influential politician even when he did not exercise official power. His personal authority was strengthened by the election to the Pontifical College and as the Senate Princeps. His proteges and family members became consuls, while the opponents' sacrifices "were not favored", to the extent that election results were canceled on several occasions.

What was the strategy of Fabius Maximus? It consisted of the correct choice of the method of fighting Hannibal. Carthage's army was fundamentally different from Rome's. The Roman army consisted of citizens (recruits, conscripts), while the Carthagenian of mercenaries. In the hands of a talented commander like Hannibal, that army was a powerful instrument. Romans suffered one catastrophic defeat after another in the first years of the war. Hannibal had the ability to increase his forces not only thanks to warlike Gallic tribes living in the Po river valley, but also due to the switching of sides by Rome's allies in central and southern Italy. Therefore each of Rome's defeats not only lead to the loss of an army, which was painful enough (Carthage lost someone else's citizens--mercenaries, while Rome its own), but also to the loss of more allies.

Therefore Fabius Maximus made the only correct choice--Hannibal has to be deprived of an opportunity to score more victories. Rome's army must thwart Hannibal's maneuvers by its presence, destroy local detachments, support the loyal and, whenever possible, punish traitorous allies, but avoid a general engagement. On one occasion, the consuls of year 216 B.C. decided to abandon this strategy and organized an offensive against Hannibal's positions at Cannes. The ensuing catastrophe was on such a scale that the next defeat of this sort occurred only at the height of its power when Emperor Valens died at the head of his infantry at Adrianopolis in 378 A.D. Rome attrited Hannibal for an entire decade by adhering to Fabius' Maximus' strategy. Only then did the victories of Scipio Africanus become possible. However, even then the Cunctator was against resuming active operations, believing that he could finish of Hannibal and Carthage without excessive loss of life, especially since the mercenary army was weakening and disintegrating in the absence of major victories, and as the situation at the front worsened the conflict between Hannibal and Carthage grew. A battle always entails a risk, after all.

A decade after a group of Islamist suicide bombers attacked London's transport network, leaving 52 people dead, RT's Poppy Bullard examines the legacy of Islamophobia endured by British Muslims.

A former judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said former US Vice President Dick Cheney should - and eventually will - stand trial for war crimes for his role in the Iraq War.

- "Some of us have long thought that Cheney and a number of CIA agents who did what they did in those so-called black holes should appear before the International Criminal Court" (ICC) - Thomas Buergenthal said in an interview with Newsweek.

Buergenthal, 81, served as a judge at the ICJ - the main judicial arm of the United Nations - for 10 years before retiring in 2010.The ICJ, unlike the ICC, has no jurisdiction to try individuals accused of war crimes or crimes against humanity. As the ICJ is not a criminal court, it does not have a prosecutor able to initiate such proceedings.

© Wikipedia
Former International Court of Justice judge Thomas Buergenthal

Buergenthal was born in the former Czechoslovakia and survived the Auschwitz concentration camp as a boy. He is now a US citizen and a professor of law at George Washington University in Washington, DC. "We (in the United States) could have tried them ourselves," Buergenthal said of Cheney and others. "I voted for Obama, but I think he made a great mistake when he decided not to instigate legal proceedings against some of these people. I think - yes - that it will happen."

As for Cheney's superior for eight years, Buergenthal dismissed former president George W. Bush as "an ignorant person who wanted to show his mother he could do things his father couldn't." Buergenthal said Richard Nixon, whose administration Cheney served in during the 1970s, was "more intelligent. I don't think Nixon would have got involved in Iraq."