The chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the U.S. agency that oversees civilian government broadcasting and media operations, has been detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and denied entry to Russia despite having a valid visa.

Jeff Shell, who is also the chairman of NBCUniversal Filmed Entertainment Group, was stopped by security officials shortly after arriving on a flight from Prague just after midnight on July 13, according to the BBG.

Shell was kept in locked rooms at the airport for several hours before being escorted to a flight to Amsterdam about 5 a.m. Moscow time, according to a BBG statement.

Shell told colleagues he was traveling with that airport security authorities told him the "denial of entry to Russia has permanent status" and was "a lifetime ban" from the country, the agency said.

British government-supported firms are engaged in a piratical contest for African natural resources as part of a new colonialist "scramble for Africa," a major new report claims.

Development NGO War On Want published its latest cutting report, titled 'The New Colonialism: Britain's scramble for Africa's energy and mineral resources', on Monday.

The study argues that a British relaunch of the 19th-century imperialist conquest of Africa is already well underway in an effort to profit from the natural wealth of the vast continent - to the detriment of those who live there.

When I first heard that Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) under President Obama, was rumored to be on Donald Trump's short list for the GOP vice presidential nomination, my ears pricked up. I wrote about Flynn here, and Antiwar.com has covered the controversy surrounding the 2012 DIA report that warned the Obama administration that its policy of regime change in Syria would lead to the rise of a Sunni Islamic "caliphate" in Syria - a warning that fell on deaf ears.

Flynn was forced out of his job as DIA director because, he says, his views "did not fit the narrative." But what narrative is he talking about? In order to understand this intramural fight within the highest levels of the intelligence and military communities, we have to go back to the Bush administration, and the Iraq war.

Documents show three California sheriff's departments have been collecting iris data from arrestees over the last two and a half years under an alleged FBI pilot program. The nationwide trove includes over 430,000 iris scans.

"The fact these systems have gone forward without any public debate or oversight that we've been able to find is very troubling," Nicole Ozer, Technology and Civil Liberties Director at the California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Verge, which obtained the documents through a public records request.

Documents show three California sheriff's departments have been collecting iris data from arrestees over the last two and a half years under an alleged FBI pilot program. The nationwide trove includes over 430,000 iris scans.

"The fact these systems have gone forward without any public debate or oversight that we've been able to find is very troubling," Nicole Ozer, Technology and Civil Liberties Director at the California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Verge, which obtained the documents through a public records request.

The FBI argues the program is necessary to easily track criminals, promptly catch repeat offenders and suspects who try to hide their identities. The documents, or "operations reports," show collaboration through information-sharing agreements between sheriff's departments and other agencies, including US Border Patrol and the Pentagon. They further show that three counties, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside, have contributed more than quarter-million "enrollments" in the database from the California Department of Justice. In both 2014 and 2015, more than 100,000 documents were added to the system.

Details have emerged of how US and UK Special Forces clashed and drifted apart over the conduct of the Iraq occupation, with one British officer complaining about the use of tactics more akin to "Latin American-style" death squads than a modern military.

The details of the Balad special forces base and its operations, which came to shape the war, are not recounted in last week's long-awaited report by Sir John Chilcot.

However, kill or capture operations in and around Baghdad, launched from the Balad base 50 miles (80km) north of the city, were a key if little known chapter in Britain's shadow war, the Independent reports.

Despite killing or taking as prisoner up to 3,500 insurgents, the mission against the Sunni insurgency caused deep rifts to the point where a senior commander, himself ex-SAS, demanded to know why the UK Special Forces were "helping to run Latin American-style death squads?"

Privacy advocates (that's establishment speak for "normal human beings") celebrated earlier this week as the House rejected yet another attempt to expand the Patriot Act's snooping provisions. House Resolution 5606, better known by its Orwellian name, the "Anti-terrorism Information Sharing is Strength Act," would have allowed Big Brother to access American's financial information based on what the government deems to be "suspicious activity."

Given that the DHS has labeled such things as using binoculars, paying with cash, or even "appearing normal" as "possible terrorist activity" in the past (thus making pretty much every human being a possible terrorist), everyone can breathe a sigh of relief that the bill failed.

But don't breathe that sigh too deeply, because exactly as that threat to privacy was being extinguished, another one was rising to take its place. It goes by the name of "Pokémon Go" and it is a so-called "augmented reality" game that allows users to capture, train and battle virtual Pokémon by chasing them around through real world environments with your smart phone.

Full disclosure: Although I live in the land of anime and video games, I have never played any Pokémon games, watched any of the shows, read any of the comics or bought any of the toys associated with the franchise. I don't know anything about it except for the name of that ubiquitous yellow Pikachu character. So if you are an out of touch fuddy duddy like me, you may be surprised to learn that the "Pokémon Go" app, launched just one week ago, is the hottest thing on the planet right now.

To put into perspective just how popular this game is, it topped the App Store's "Top Grossing" category within 24 hours of its release. Now, just one week out, it has been downloaded an estimated 7.5 million times in the US alone and is generating an estimated $1.6 million a day for Nintendo. But here's the truly staggering part: In just the first two trading days after the game's release, Nintendo's market value rose a staggering $7.5 billion. That's right, folks, this is not merely a game, it is a phenomenon.

For those unfamiliar with "augmented reality" gaming, it's a type of game where one tracks virtual characters or objects that appear on their smart phones through real world environments. The Pokémon Go game is prompting scores of people out into the streets to go chasing for wild Pokémon to capture.

It is also prompting heists, violence, hoaxes and hysteria.

Chancellor George Osborne sought to influence a US investigation into HSBC, after the bank admitted laundering money for drug cartels and terrorists, by warning prosecution could throw the global financial system into turmoil.

A US House of Representatives committee report found the British Chancellor and Financial Services Authority (FSA) intervened in a US Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into illegal activities by the banking giant.

According to the report, prepared by Republicans, the DOJ considered criminal charges in addition to a £1.2 billion (US$1.6 billion) fine it levied in December 2012, but came under pressure from Osborne to drop prosecution.

The report, 'Too big to jail: Inside the Obama Justice Department's decision not to hold Wall Street accountable', said Osborne sent a letter in September 2012 to Ben Bernanke, then-chairman of the Federal Reserve.

"Chancellor Osborne insinuated in his letter of September 10 that the US was unfairly targeting UK banks by seeking settlements that were significantly higher than 'comparable' settlements with US banks," the report claimed.

In the letter, Osborne wrote that questions over HSBC's continued ability to clear US dollars "would risk destabilising the bank globally, with very serious implications for financial and economic stability, particularly in Europe and Asia."

Since FBI Director James Comey's press conference on July 5 and his House Oversight Committee testimony two days later, Hillary Clinton has come under withering attack for gross misrepresentations to the American people about her handling of classified material while she served as Secretary of State. Now, new questions are arising over what role her attorney, David Kendall of law firm Williams & Connolly, played in misleading Congressional investigators. There are also questions as to whether Comey himself has come clean about the full extent of Clinton's negligence.

The FBI has declined to provide Wall Street On Parade with the official FBI report on the matter, even though the investigation is now closed. Comey has indicated that Clinton was not put under oath nor did she have her testimony recorded when she was interviewed by FBI agents who were conducting a criminal investigation into the matter.


Over the past week, multiple newspaper opinion writers have weighed in on FBI Director James Comey's failure to recommend criminal charges in Hillary Clinton's blatant violations of the Federal Records Act and egregious mishandling of above Top Secret government records. While serving as Secretary of State, and without State Department approval, Clinton outsourced the transmittal and storage of the classified records from the safety of U.S. government control to a private server in the basement of her New York home, and later to a private firm, Platte River Networks, which was overseen by people lacking the proper security clearance. Clinton's private server was also backed up by a madcap group of lip-syncing 20-somethings at Datto, Inc., who also lacked the requisite security clearances.

Wednesday, two shocking videos of police officers fatally shooting civilians (Alton Sterling and Philando Castile) surfaced. The day before, many were appalled to hear the Director of the FBI announce that Hillary Clinton would not be charged for mishandling classified information. The two events may seem unrelated, but at bottom, they concern the same fundamental problem: impunity.

Impunity is the essence of power. What, after all, is power? Is it simply the capacity to exert unjust force? The ability to impress one's will upon the flesh or belongings of another? No, it's more than that.

Most anyone can wield unjust force. Anyone could walk out onto the street right now and exert their will on somebody weaker: say, pushing over an old lady or stealing candy from a baby. And the toughest, or most heavily-armed guy in town can strong-arm just about any other single person.

But isolated incidents of aggression do not constitute power. The "reign" of the rogue rampager is generally short-lived. It only lasts until the community recognizes him as the menace to society that he is and neutralizes him.

Power isn't simply about the exertion of unjust force. It is about what happens next, after the exertion. Does the perpetrator generally get away with, or not? Systematically getting away with it - or impunity - is where power truly lies. And that is what makes agents of the State different from any other bully. State agents can violate rights with reliable impunity because a critical mass of the public considers the aggression of state agents to be exceptionally legitimate. Impunity is power, and as Lord Acton said, power corrupts.

Since 1958, the European Union has been absorbing independent states across the continent. Starting with the original inner 6 countries (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, and West Germany) and ending with Croatia in 2013, the forced centralization of Europe was a massive and ominous force with which to be reckoned. Until now.

On Friday, [June 23] the people of Great Britain made their voice heard. They no longer want to be a part of the European Union and for good reason. For decades they have sat back and watched the global elite enrich themselves through special trade agreements ostensibly designed to bolster the economy, but in reality grant special treatment to those close to the top.

George Soros exposed the dependence of the elite on the EU when he took to fear mongering about rampant financial collapse upon Brexit. "The Brexit crash will make all of you poorer — be warned," Soros penned in an op-ed for the Guardian on June 20. "My 60 years of experience tells me the pound will plummet, along with your living standards. The only winners will be the speculators [...] "A vote to leave could see the week end with a Black Friday, and serious consequences for ordinary people."

However, as Ron Paul so aptly pointed out on Friday, the people's suffering will be minimal. It is the banking elite who are running scared. "Other countries are watching....This is the beginning of the end of the European Union...and nobody is going to suffer from that. Only the wealthy, banking, special interests will suffer any from this," said Paul.

And he is correct.