Last month there was a cyberattack on a SONY made movie/comedy featuring North Korea called The Interview, which resulted in SONY retracting the movie. The movie was apparently so bad that SONY would have been right to pull it even without the hack. Accusations from the US blamed, in predictable fashion, North Korea. North Korea claims innocence, saying it had nothing to do with it, and offered to launch a joint investigation with the US:

US accusations that North Korea staged a cyber attack on Sony Pictures are "groundless slander"; Pyongyang wants to set up a joint investigation into the incident with Washington, a spokesman of the North Korean foreign ministry said, according to Reuters.

Sounds reasonable. So how does the Empire of Chaos react?

The White House is considering relisting North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism after the FBI formally accused Pyongyang of masterminding the colossal computer hacking on the Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Yes, you read that correctly. The US is considering blacklisting North Korea and listing it as a state sponsor of terrorism. The biggest sponsor of state terrorism reacts to an offer of a joint investigation by blacklisting the country that made the offer! Puppet-in-chief Obama had this to say:

"We can not have a society in which some dictator somewhere can start imposing censorship here in the United States."

The US spies on every head of state and every country in the world, imposes sanctions at will, unilaterally goes to war, funds, trains and arms ISIS and the Nazi regime in Kiev and everywhere else it wishes regime change. As usual no evidence has been presented to implicate North Korea, just like with Flight MH17 and numerous Russian "invasions" of Ukraine. We the people are just expected to believe the pathological leadership of the exceptional United States of America and support them in their destruction of the world.

Hardly a day goes by without 'sanctions' being mentioned in the news. Some sanctions lifted, other sanctions sanctioned, and yet others considered. It's like some political-media circus marketed as a righteous response to some injustice, human rights violations, cruel regime or whatever lobbyists and PR companies come up with. As with most marketing, it bears little-to-no relation to the truth.

It takes only a quick look to see that all those countries the US has unilaterally slapped sanctions on have been countries portrayed as 'enemies' of the US and where regime change has been either attempted or is strongly desired - Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Libya, Cuba, Ukraine, Russia, Syria, China, etc. All are countries that the US happens to be losing control over, hence sanctions were put in place. Places such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, Bahrain etc. are never considered for sanctions. Neither by the US nor by the EU. The EU for the simple reason that it has no voice of its own and just follows the dictates of Uncle Sam.

You might well object and say that Ukraine has no sanctions despite the questionable extent of US control, and you'd be right. But remember back just a couple of years ago and the Empire of Chaos was very much considering regime change sanctions against Ukraine:

The US Senate has threatened to impose political sanctions on Ukraine over the jailing of former Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, urging Kiev to immediately release the opposition leader.

The Senate adopted a resolution on Saturday that stressed that the Tymoshenko trial was "politically motivated" and urged her immediate release citing her poor health condition.

Late Friday, a federal judge dismissed a civil claim filed against George W. Bush and other high-ranking officials regarding their conduct in planning and waging the Iraq War, and immunized them from further proceedings.

"This is an early Christmas present to former Bush Administration officials from the federal court," Inder Comar of Comar Law said. Comar brought the claim on behalf of an Iraqi refugee and single mother, Sundus Shaker Saleh. "This was a serious attempt to hold US leaders accountable under laws set down at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. I am very disappointed at the outcome."

The tribunal at Nuremberg, established in large part by the United States after World War II, declared international aggression the "supreme international crime" and convicted German leaders of waging illegal wars.

The case alleged that George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz committed aggression in planning and waging the Iraq War.

Specifically, the lawsuit claimed that high-ranking Bush officials used the fear of 9/11 to mislead the American public into supporting a war against Iraq, and that they issued knowingly false statements that Iraq was in league with Al-Qaeda and had weapons of mass destruction, when none of those things were true.

"The decision guts Nuremberg," Comar said. "Nuremberg said that domestic immunity was no defense to a claim of international aggression. This Court has said the opposite."

The court's ruling comes in the wake of the Senate report regarding the use of torture by the CIA during the Bush Administration. The Senate report confirmed that a false confession obtained from the torture of Ibn Shaykh al-Libi was cited by the Administration in support of the war.

The Central Bank of Russia has said it will provide £343m of support to one of the country's more troubled banks, as analysts warn of a wave of defaults in the sector.

Russia is facing a "full-blown economic crisis", a former finance minister has warned, as the country is forced to take emergency financial measures.

The economy has been battered by a wave of sanctions as a result of tensions over Ukraine, geopolitical uncertainty, and falling oil prices.

Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister and once considered an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said: "Today I can say that we have entered or are currently entering a full-blown economic crisis. Next year we will feel it in full force."

Analysts have warned that the Russian economy will not improve in the long-term unless either the oil price or relations over Ukraine improve.


Speaking at a press conference in Moscow, Mr Kudrin went on to say: "As for what the President and government must do now, the most important factor is the normalisation of Russia's relations with its business partners, above all in Europe, the US and other countries".

Three members of Congress just reignited the Cold War while no one was looking

Late Thursday night, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a far-reaching Russia sanctions bill, a hydra-headed incubator of poisonous conflict. The second provocative anti-Russian legislation in a week, it further polarizes our relations with Russia, helping to cement a Russia-China alliance against Western hegemony, and undermines long-term America's financial and physical security by handing the national treasury over to war profiteers.Here's how the House's touted "unanimity" was achieved: Under a parliamentary motion termed "unanimous consent," legislative rules can be suspended and any bill can be called up. If any member of Congress objects, the motion is blocked and the bill dies.

At 10:23:54 p.m. on Thursday, a member rose to ask "unanimous consent" for four committees to be relieved of a Russia sanctions bill. At this point the motion, and the legislation, could have been blocked by a single member who would say "I object." No one objected, because no one was watching for last-minute bills to be slipped through.

Most of the House and the media had emptied out of the chambers after passage of the $1.1 trillion government spending package.

Five months ago the world watched in horror as the bully of the Middle East, Israel, launched the most brutal massacre on the Palestinians of Gaza since the Nakba (perhaps more brutal, Palestinian friends in Gaza have said).

Lasting over twice as long as the 2008-09 war on Gaza (formerly the most-brutal massacre since the Nakba), and killing over 800 more Palestinians than in the attack six years ago, the July-August 51-day offensive killed 2,131 Palestinians and injured over 11,000, and destroyed tens of thousands of homes, buildings, businesses, hospitals, Gaza's only power plant and other key components of Gaza's infrastructure.

Palestinian and foreign activists and journalists within the 40 kilometer-long strip of open-air prison tweeted and live-streamed images more horrific than the best Hollywood productions. Weathered journalists broke down sobbing at the sight of Palestinian civilians, especially children being targeted like prey by one of the world's most wickedly powerful armies and navies. Doctors who have seen the mutilated corpses and scarcely-living bodies of Palestinian elderly, men, women and children many times before were yet still appalled by the brutality of these latest attacks.

Worldwide, protesters, journalists of integrity called the bombardment of Gaza genocidal (as Israeli officials and politicians called for genocide). One of the most shocking of many images was that of 4-year-old Saher Abu Namous's half blown-off head, his father cradling him and wailing. Entire families were murdered in this latest Israeli offensive. Not for the first time, the Israeli army bombed schools hosting internally displaced, hospitals (including a rehabilitation hospital for disabled and invalid), and entire neighborhoods.

As with prior military operations, the Israelis in 2014 targeted water and sewage lines, electricity networks, hospitals, primary health centers, ambulances and medics, bridges and major roads, key governmental buildings, schools and universities.They went further and attacked water, electricity and sanitation personnel, killing at least 14, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted. The resulting electricity, water and sanitation crises are such that until November, power was out 18 hours a day, and just 10 percent of the 1.8 million Palestinians get water once a day (for a matter of hours). As of mid-November, Oxfam reported, power cuts were 12 hours per day in some areas.

While the bombs rained down, some Israelis pulled up seats to watch the bloodshed, as 21st Century Wire noted: "Old sofas, garden chairs, battered car seats and upturned crates provide seating for the spectators. ...Some bring bottles of beer or soft drinks and snacks. ...Nearly all hold up smartphones to record the explosions or to pose grinning, perhaps with thumbs up, for selfies against a backdrop of black smoke."

The Israeli army used the same banned weapons on Palestinians this summer that they've used in the past two massacres, as well as "armour piercing bombs" which have "high explosive capabilities" and were used on Palestinian homes. Weapons-seekers flocked to Israel after seeing the effects of its weaponry and technology. Israel's weapons industry thrives with each massacre of the Gaza testing ground.

Strangling and starving Gaza

In September 2005, the 8,500 Israeli colonists finally, unwillingly leave their homes on stolen land. With no Jewish colonists in Gaza, Israel has since been free to lock-down all of Gaza and bomb whenever the whim occurs, with no fear of any Israeli loss of life. The Israelis have waged wars against Gaza every year or two since pulling their colonists out.

Since the June 28, 2006 Israeli repeating bombing of Gaza's sole power plant - destroying all six transformers - Palestinians in Gaza have neither been allowed to import the transformers and materials needed to rehabilitate the plant, nor offered an alternative solution. Through the now-destroyed tunnels, Palestinians did import smaller transformers and got the power plant hobbling again, but never to full capacity.

In a 2006 report on Israel's bombing of Gaza's power plant, B'Tselem called for Israel to:

"Cover the expenses needed to return the power plant to full capacity; Finance the upgrading of the infrastructure to transfer electricity from Israel to the Gaza Strip; Permit the entry of the equipment needed to rehabilitate the power plant, without delay."

However, Israel did none of the obliged, nor has it ever paid (in any sense of the word) for the reconstruction of buildings and infrastructure it has repeatedly targeted over the years.

The supply of electricity bought from Israel and Egypt doesn't suffice for Gaza's now 1.8 million Palestinians. The crisis impacts on every facet of life: hospital functions, sanitation, water supply, refrigerators and appliances, and education.

The International Monetary Fund has postponed the allocation of €88 million credit assistance to Cyprus over the suspension of a new foreclosure law.

The move came after the Cyprus parliament decided to delay putting the foreclosure law into practice. The new legislation would speed up the procedure of banks seizing property from people unable to pay back loans.

The introduction of the law in September was a condition for further credit assistance to Cyprus. It has been put back to January 30, 2015.

"Following today's suspension of the existing legislation on foreclosure, critical requirements for the completion of the fifth program review are now no longer met," the IMF said in a statement. "We look forward to continued cooperation, and will agree with the authorities on the next steps in the period ahead."

The film, and the clips excerpted below, includes graphic depictions of torture employed in the CIA interrogation program.

Seven years ago, I interviewed Moazzam Begg, a British citizen who had been held by the United States in prisons in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay - without charge - for almost three years. His words described brutal torture inflicted by his American captors. But his tone was eerily matter-of-fact, delivered without apparent pain or anger. As I interviewed other former prisoners, it was the same - calm descriptions of horrific abuse. When I remarked on this to one of their attorneys, he told me what I should have figured out myself - this was the only way any of these men could repeatedly describe their torture and also protect their fragile sanity.


That revelation led to one of the most difficult decisions I made as a documentary filmmaker - to include dramatizations of the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," from "stress positions," to "sleep deprivation" and "solitary confinement," even water boarding in Torturing Democracy. Those scenes are the scenes that make you want to cover your eyes.

But now, with the damning conclusions of the Executive Summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation, clearly and repeatedly describing torture, none of us can any longer cover our eyes.

As the wasteful, immoral war on drugs continues in police states around the world, authorities are always looking for ways to track the use of "illicit" drugs. It's the intelligence aspect of their war, and some of the methods literally reek. Introducing "sewage epidemiology," coming soon to a community near you.

Sewage epidemiology is a rapidly expanding field that can provide information on illicit drug usage in communities, based on the measured concentrations in samples from wastewater treatment plants.

According to the American Chemical Society's report:

The war on drugs could get a boost with a new method that analyzes sewage to track levels of illicit drug use in local communities in real time. The new study, a first-of-its-kind in the U.S., was published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology and could help law enforcement identify new drug hot spots and monitor whether anti-drug measures are working.

The thought of authorities slogging through the sludge may be comical, but it represents another example of big brother using our money to monitor our behavior. Drug consumption is a non-violent act upon oneself. The drug trade is made violent in a black market under government prohibition.

According to documents published by WikiLeaks the US Central Intelligence Agency has issued advice for its agents on how to infiltrate international passport control systems, including in the European Union and the Schengen area.

The US Central Intelligence Agency has issued advice for its agents on how to infiltrate international passport control systems, including in the European Union and the Schengen area, according to two previously undisclosed documents published by WikiLeaks on Sunday.

"The European Union's Schengen biometric-based border-management systems pose a minimal identity threat to US operational travellers because their primary focus is illegal immigration and criminal activities, not counter-intelligence," reads one of the documents, dated January 2012.

The CIA advice booklet, entitled "Schengen Overview", gives detailed information on customs procedures in the Europe and threats they pose to agents using false documents. While biometric systems are currently not used for people with US documents, this could possibly change in 2015, increasing the "identity threat level", according to the CIA.

The second document, dated September 21, 2011, gives advice on how to pass airports screenings across the world.

The manual, titled "Surviving Secondary", notes that airport watch lists may include names of confirmed or suspected intelligence agents and lists a number of signs that could disclose one's identity, such as apparent nervousness and inability to speak the language of the passport-issuing country.