Western officials have reacted with alarm at Russia's deployment of tactical missiles on areas bordering NATO members states, describing it as a potentially destabilizing move.

Russian officials have confirmed that missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads have been moved to the Western Military District - a territory that abuts all three Baltic States and Poland - in a measure that marks an escalation in Moscow's campaign to dissuade a U.S.-backed missile shield program in Central Europe.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said at a briefing on Monday that Washington "urged Moscow to take no steps to destabilize the region."

Russian's Defense Ministry has defended the deployment, saying that it violated no international agreements. Russia has not revealed the number and exact location of the missiles, and it remains unclear how long they have been in the region.

"Acting on a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the Center for Effective Government, U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle concluded that the presidential order is not properly within the bounds of the so-called 'presidential communications privilege,'" Politico's Josh Gerstein reports.

In her opinion, Huvelle wrote there is "no evidence that the [directive] was intended to be, or has been treated as, a confidential presidential communication."

The Obama administration has maintained that the document was only intended for those who "need to know," but the judge argued the order was "distributed far beyond the president's close advisers and its substance was widely discussed by the president in the media."

Henry Swieca is a money man. The New York-based billionaire made his fortune by co-founding Highbridge Capital Corp., a hedge fund that boasted clients like the American International Group.

In 2009, the banking giant JP Morgan Chase, another client of Highbridge, fully took over the flagship hedge fund. Swieca went on to play a role at two more hedge funds: Talpion Fund Management, which he launched, and Clearline Capital, which Swieca joined as a startup investor in February 2013.

Swieca, whose net worth is $1.2 billion as of September 2013, is well-known as a financial guru. His every move is covered by the financial press. But he's less known for what his foundation pours money into: right-wing, pro-Israel causes. Along with a host of charitable groups and domestic Jewish centers, the Swieca Family Foundation, which he runs with his Israeli-American wife Estee, has poured tons of cash into pro-Israel groups--including to religious extremist groups that operate in the most sensitive of holy places. Swieca did not return requests for comment on his donations.

According to tax records reviewed by AlterNet, Swieca, an Orthodox Jew, has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the American Israel Education Foundation, the non-profit offshoot of the powerful lobbying group called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He's also handed over cash to groups like the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces; the right-wing, anti-Muslim David Horowitz Freedom Center; and the Hebron Fund, a Brooklyn-based organization that funnels American money into illegal Israeli settlements in Hebron, a big city in the West Bank that has the most intense regime of settler violence and enforced segregation in the occupied Palestinian territories.

But perhaps most alarmingly is Swieca's funding of the Temple Institute, an organization that promotes the building of the Third Temple on the third most holy site for Muslims. In early December, the Washington Post disclosed that Swieca and his wife funded the Jerusalem-based Temple Institute's move to "to a large, renovated space in the Old City's Jewish Quarter, overlooking the Western Wall." The move put the institute just a short walk away from the place where they hope the Third Temple arises.

An open letter to the people of Brazil

The following letter was published today in the Brazilian newspaper A Folha in Portuguese and this original text was provided via the Facebook page of Glenn Greenwald's husband David Miranda:

Six months ago, I stepped out from the shadows of the United States Government's National Security Agency to stand in front of a journalist's camera. I shared with the world evidence proving some governments are building a world-wide surveillance system to secretly track how we live, who we talk to, and what we say. I went in front of that camera with open eyes, knowing that the decision would cost me family and my home, and would risk my life. I was motivated by a belief that the citizens of the world deserve to understand the system in which they live.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Wednesday his government's commitment to continue building and developing Israeli settlement projects, without any interruptions. Netanyahu said: "We are building continuously. We will continue building and developing everywhere, including the settlements."
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Netanyahu's uncompromising stance comes in response to several weeks of intense pressure from the Americans urging Israel to stop announcing new plans for settlement expansion.

In his speech to the Likud convention, Netanyahu also reiterated that he will put any agreement reached with the Palestinians before the Knesset and to a referendum. He stressed that settlements are not the reason for why the peace negotiations have stalled, and instead blamed the Palestinians' refusal to recognise Israel a national home for Jews.

Concerning the Iranian issue, Netanyahu vowed that Israel would not allow Iran to become a nuclear power. He said: "I choose my words precisely. Israel will not allow Iran to own nuclear weapons or to even reach the stage where it could become a nuclear power."

The governor of a Russian region has been assaulted and robbed of $275,000 worth of jewelry while in his house in the south of France, his spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Lev Kuznetsov, the governor of Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia, was shot with an air gun by intruders and his wife was hit with a baton during the attack on Saturday, according to his spokeswoman Stella Alekseeva.

Google revealed a sharp rise in requests from governments asking for political content to be removed from the web in its latest transparency report published on Thursday.

From January to June the search giant received 3,846 government requests to remove content from its services - a 68% increase over the second half of 2012.

"Over the past four years, one worrying trend has remained consistent: governments continue to ask us to remove political content. Judges have asked us to remove information that's critical of them, police departments want us to take down videos or blogs that shine a light on their conduct, and local institutions like town councils don't want people to be able to find information about their decision-making processes," Susan Infantino, legal director, said in a blogpost.

"These officials often cite defamation, privacy and even copyright laws in attempts to remove political speech from our services. In this particular reporting period, we received 93 requests to take down government criticism and removed content in response to less than one third of them. Four of the requests were submitted as copyright claims," she said.

The American Studies Association's boycott of Israeli academic institutions is a landmark development and a game changer in an international effort to isolate the regime in Tel Aviv, a British political commentator says.

Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, who is a member of the British Committee for Universities of Palestine, made the remarks during an interview with Press TVon Tuesday.

On Sunday, the American Studies Association (ASA) approved the academic boycott of Israel to protest its treatment of Palestinians, indicating that a movement to isolate the apartheid regime of Israel that is gaining momentum in Europe has also hit the US.

"The ASA condemns the United States' significant role in aiding and abetting Israel's violations of human rights against Palestinians and its occupation of Palestinian lands through its use of the veto in the UN Security Council," the organization said in a statement explaining the endorsement.

"I think it is a game changer. It is an extraordinary event in the history of the academic boycott," Rosenhead said.

Iceland is a great example of a country which had the courage to prosecute bankers, and that's largely because it's not controlled by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, Max Keiser, financial analyst and host of the Keiser Report on RT, says.

Four former bank bosses in Iceland have been jailed for financial fraud. They were accused of hiding the fact that a Qatari investor bought into the firm [Kaupthing Bank], with money lent illegally by the bank itself. It went bust in 2008, helping to cripple Iceland's economy.

Keiser says, what is considered a crime in Iceland is flourishing thanks to government support in the UK and the US.

The UN General Assembly has unanimously called on a curb of supernormal surveillance of communications. The resolution drafted by Brazil and Germany was in response to revelations over the eavesdropping conducted by the US on a global scale.

All 193 UN member states agreed "to respect and protect the right to privacy, including in the context of digital communication."
The document maintains that internationally recognized human rights should be applied to a person online, specifically singling out the right of privacy.

The resolution suggests making sure national legislation complies with international human rights law to prevent possible breaches.

"While concerns about public security may justify the gathering and protection of certain sensitive information, States must ensure full compliance with their obligations under international human rights law," the resolution states.