Puppet Masters
Ousted Muslim Brotherhood mobilises for day of protest as hundreds of party's members are seized
Egypt is braced for further dramatic events on Friday as the vanquished Muslim Brotherhood called for a "day of rejection" following a widespread crackdown on its leadership by the country's new interim president, Adli Mansour.
Supporters of the ousted president Mohamed Morsi, still reeling from the military coup that removed their leader from power, are expected to take to the streets after Friday prayers following a series of raids and arrests that decimated the Muslim Brotherhood's senior ranks and consolidated the miltary's hold on the country.
In a stark sign of Egypt's new political reality, the group's supreme leader, Mohamed al-Badie, who was untouchable under Morsi's rule, was one of those arrested.
© U.S. AFRICA COMMAND VIA FLICKR
Colonel George Bristol, outgoing commander, addresses the audience during the Change of Command Ceremony for the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara (JSOTF-TS), AFRICOM, on April 16, 2012, at Kelley Barracks, Vaihingen, Germany.
Colonel George Bristol, outgoing commander, addresses the audience during the Change of Command Ceremony for the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara (JSOTF-TS), AFRICOM, on April 16, 2012, at Kelley Barracks, Vaihingen, Germany.
Pentagon spokesman Major Robert Firman told CBS News that the Department of Defense "cannot compel retired members to testify before Congress."
"They say he's retired and they can't reach out to him," Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told CBS News. "That's hogwash."
Bristol, a martial arts master, was commander of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara based in Stuttgart, Germany until he retired last March. In an article in Stars and Stripes, Bristol is quoted at his retirement ceremony as telling his troops that "an evil" has descended on Africa, referring to Islamic militant groups. "It is on us to stomp it out."
© Yahya Arhab/EPA
Egyptian army helicopters, with the national flag hanging from them, fly over Cairo on Friday.
Egyptian army helicopters, with the national flag hanging from them, fly over Cairo on Friday.
Egypt's army has declared a state of emergency in the Suez and South Sinai regions after an armed attack on al-Arish airport, despite relative calm elsewhere in the country on the first weekend since the ousting of Mohammed Morsi as president.
In Cairo, where Morsi's main support base had announced a "day of rejection" to coincide with Friday prayers, leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood have continued to urge peaceful demonstrations to demand that the vanquished leader be returned to office.
Only two of the 20 members of the Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Council attended the largest of twin pro-Morsi rallies in the capital. Most other senior leaders of the group have been detained by the military, or have been in hiding since the momentous events of Wednesday night.
The attack in al-Arish, around 40 miles (60km) south of the Gaza border, was sustained and intense, security officials said. One person was killed and several others wounded. The attackers are not yet known, and the Sinai has in recent months become an increasingly important theatre for jihadist groups.
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Drug companies failed to warn patients that toxic epidermal necrolysis was a side effect. But the Supreme Court ruled they're still not liable for damages.
Drug companies failed to warn patients that toxic epidermal necrolysis was a side effect. But the Supreme Court ruled they're still not liable for damages.
In a 5-4 vote, the US Supreme Court struck down a lower court's ruling and award for the victim of a pharmaceutical drug's adverse reaction. According to the victim and the state courts, the drug caused a flesh-eating side effect that left the patient permanently disfigured over most of her body. The adverse reaction was hidden by the drug maker and later forced to be included on all warning labels. But the highest court in the land ruled that the victim had no legal grounds to sue the corporation because its drugs are exempt from lawsuits.
© Unknown
Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and ousted President Morsi clash with Egypt police outside the elite Republican Guards base in Cairo, on July 8, 2013
Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and ousted President Morsi clash with Egypt police outside the elite Republican Guards base in Cairo, on July 8, 2013
In a statement on Monday, the group's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, appealed for "an uprising by the great people of Egypt against those trying to steal their revolution with tanks."
It also urged the "international community and international groups and all the free people of the world to intervene to stop further massacres... and prevent a new Syria in the Arab world."
The party was reacting to killing of over 40 supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi in a sit-in in Cairo on Monday.
America's official torture camp - Gitmo
Officials from the Israeli Medical Association have been invited to the U.S. to present policy makers there with their methods of handling hunger strikers, as the U.S. administration comes under fire for its own practice of force-feeding of Guantanamo Bay detention camp prisoners who refuse to eat.
Interview carried out before NSA whistleblower fled to Hong Kong appears to contradict Merkel's public surprise at snooping
America's National Security Agency works closely with Germany and other Western states on a "no questions asked"-basis, former NSA employee Edward Snowden said in comments that undermine Chancellor Angela Merkel's indignant talk of "Cold War" tactics.
"They are in bed with the Germans, just like with most other Western states," German magazine Der Spiegel quotes him as saying in an interview published on Sunday that was said to be carried out before he fled to Hong Kong in May and divulged details of extensive secret US surveillance.
"Other agencies don't ask us where we got the information from and we don't ask them. That way they can protect their top politicians from the backlash in case it emerges how massively people's privacy is abused worldwide," he said.
© Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images
German opposition parties insist that somebody in Merkel's office must have known what was going on.
German opposition parties insist that somebody in Merkel's office must have known what was going on.
"They are in bed with the Germans, just like with most other Western states," German magazine Der Spiegel quotes him as saying in an interview published on Sunday that was said to be carried out before he fled to Hong Kong in May and divulged details of extensive secret US surveillance.
"Other agencies don't ask us where we got the information from and we don't ask them. That way they can protect their top politicians from the backlash in case it emerges how massively people's privacy is abused worldwide," he said.
ABC's Good Morning America/ Brian Ross interview about NSA agents listening in to private calls. Spies on the line? It was reported that NSA agents, charged with intercepting telephone calls are sharing these calls with each other. In some cases these calls include "phone sex" or "intimate" calls between American citizens. Agents David Murfee Faulk and Adrienne Kinne both admitted that they listened and in some cases saved the calls to share with others.
Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA's warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists.
"The National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications -- faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications," Tice claimed. "It didn't matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications."
"The National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications -- faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications," Tice claimed. "It didn't matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications."
© Reuters / Miraflores Palace
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro
"To be independent, we must feel it," he said. "We must exercise our independence and sovereignty. Our discourses are meaningless if they aren't exercised with force at the national level. I announce to the friendly governments of the world that we have decided to offer this statute of international humanitarian law to protect the young Snowden from the persecution that has been unleashed from the most powerful empire in the world,the United States," he said.
"Let's ask ourselves: who violated international law?" he continued. "A young man who decided, in an act of rebellion, to tell the truth of the espionage of the United States against the world? Or the government of the United States, the power of the imperialist elites, who spied on it?"
