David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, presides over a company with famously wacky product labels. Sample sentence, from the 18-in-1 Hemp PEPPERMINT soap bottle: "Each swallow works hard to be perfect pilot-provider-teacher-lover-mate, no half-true hate!" But Bronner himself, grandson of the founder (the one with the elaborate prose style), has emerged as a serious, though fun-loving, activist, particularly around pesticides and genetically modified crops, as Josh Harkinson's recent Mother Jones profile shows.

But apparently, Bronner's writing on GMOs is too hot for the advertising pages of the English-speaking world's two most renowned science journals, Science and Nature -even though a slew of magazines, including Scientific American, The New Yorker, Harper's, The Nation, Harvard, and, yes, Mother Jones, accepted the Bronner ad. It consists of a short essay, known in publishing as an advertorial, that's nothing like the wild-eyed rants on his company's soap bottles. Bronner's ad (PDF) focuses on how GMO crops have led to a net increase in pesticide use in the United States, citing an analysis by Ramon Seidler, a retired senior staff scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Bronner wrote his essay in response to Michael Specter's recent New Yorker takedown of anti-GMO crusader Vandana Shiva. He first published his critique on Huffington Post, and then decided to publish it as an ad in a variety of high-profile magazines, because he felt that The New Yorker is highly influential among liberal elites, and he wanted to get his dissenting view out, he told me.

A classified US Senate probe into the CIA's post-9/11 detention and interrogation program does not evaluate the role of former President George W. Bush or top administration officials in approving abuses including torture, according to a new report.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's $40 million investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency's detention and interrogation program - active from September 11, 2001 to 2006 - has found that the spy agency purposely deceived the US Justice Department to attain legal justification for the use of torture techniques, among other findings that resulted in a 6,000-page report, completed from March 2009 to December 2012. Of that investigative report, the public will only see a 500-page, partially-redacted executive summary that is in the process of declassification.

What the report does not include, according to sources for McClatchy news service, is any accounting of responsibility that top members of the Bush administration have for the shadowy capture-and-detain regime at Guantanamo Bay and secret "black site" prisons, often fueled by suspect bounties, or for crafting the legal framework that allowed the CIA to interrogate detainees with waterboarding and other methods deemed to be torturous by international standards.

Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who revealed the extent of American and British surveillance programmes, should be charged with murder, according to a senior United States congressman.

Republican Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee, told a meeting in the House of Commons in London on Tuesday evening that Snowden was a "traitor" who was now living in the "loving arms" of Russian spies. "The [US] government has pressed charges on Mr Snowden," he said. "We are treating him, as, I would argue, the traitor that he is." Rogers added: "And by the way, and this is important, I would charge him for murder."

Rogers also warned the gathering of British MPs and interested foreign policy professionals that British policy of restricting its strikes against ISIS to Iraq was giving the Islamic militant group a "safe haven" in Syria.

The material provided by Snowden to The Guardian exposed the depth and breadth of US and UK global and domestic spying capabilities and activities. However the Michigan congressman said the leak had caused the deaths of American and British armed forces. "He took information that allows force protection, not only for British soldiers, but for US soldiers, and made it more difficult for us to track those activities. Meaning it is more likely that one of those soldiers is going to get their legs blown off or killed because of his actions," he said. "Anybody that provides information to the enemy is a traitor, period, pure and simple."

He added: "Many don't find it odd he is in the loving arms of an SVR [Russia's External Intelligence Service] agent right now in Moscow. I do." Snowden fled to Russia after handing NSA files over the press. His life there is the subject of a new documentary by Laura Poitras, one of the journalists who worked with him to make some of activities of Western intelligence agencies public.

Japan's new industry minister has admitted that some of his staff spent office money at a sex bar, the third political scandal to hit the Japanese cabinet this week.

Yoichi Miyazawa said he learned from a news report that his political support group billed 18,230 yen ($170) as entertainment expenses during a visit to a sadomasochism-themed club Hiroshima in September 2010.

The venue's shows depict women being tied up with ropes and whipped.

The 64-year-old veteran MP immediately distanced himself from the scandal, saying he was not present at the club.

"I came to know of that through a media report, and it was true," Mr Miyazawa told reporters in Tokyo on Thursday.

"It is also true that I myself was not there," he added.

A year and a half I wrote an essay on how the US chooses to view Russia, titled The Image of the Enemy. I was living in Russia at the time, and, after observing the American anti-Russian rhetoric and the Russian reaction to it, I made some observations that seemed important at the time. It turns out that I managed to spot an important trend, but given the quick pace of developments since then, these observations are now woefully out of date, and so here is an update.

At that time the stakes weren't very high yet. There was much noise around a fellow named Magnitsky, a corporate lawyer-crook who got caught and died in pretrial custody. He had been holding items for some bigger Western crooks, who were, of course, never apprehended. The Americans chose to treat this as a human rights violation and responded with the so-called "Magnitsky Act" which sanctioned certain Russian individuals who were labeled as human rights violators. Russian legislators responded with the "Dima Yakovlev Bill," named after a Russian orphan adopted by Americans who killed him by leaving him in a locked car for nine hours. This bill banned American orphan-killing fiends from adopting any more Russian orphans. It all amounted to a silly bit of melodrama.

But what a difference a year and a half has made! Ukraine, which was at that time collapsing at about the same steady pace as it had been ever since its independence two decades ago, is now truly a defunct state, with its economy in free-fall, one region gone and two more in open rebellion, much of the country terrorized by oligarch-funded death squads, and some American-anointed puppets nominally in charge but quaking in their boots about what's coming next. Syria and Iraq, which were then at a low simmer, have since erupted into full-blown war, with large parts of both now under the control of the Islamic Caliphate, which was formed with help from the US, was armed with US-made weapons via the Iraqis. Post-Qaddafi Libya seems to be working on establishing an Islamic Caliphate of its own. Against this backdrop of profound foreign US foreign policy failure, the US recently saw it fit to accuse Russia of having troops "on NATO's doorstep," as if this had nothing to do with the fact that NATO has expanded east, all the way to Russia's borders. Unsurprisingly, US - Russia relations have now reached a point where the Russians saw it fit to issue a stern warning: further Western attempts at blackmailing them may result in a nuclear confrontation.

John Pilger marks the death of former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam with the one story missing from the 'tributes' to a man whose extraordinary political demise is one of America's dirtiest secrets.

Across the political and media elite in Australia, a silence has descended on the memory of the great, reforming prime minister Gough Whitlam, who has died. His achievements are recognised, if grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. But a critical reason for his extraordinary political demise will, they hope, be buried with him.

Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had "reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution". Whitlam ended his nation's colonial servility. He abolished Royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported "zones of peace" and opposed nuclear weapons testing.

Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor Party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country's resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to "buy back the farm". In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history, Britain's colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the island-continent's vast natural wealth.

In Ottawa today, in an event "unprecedented in Canada's history", someone shot dead - at point blank range - one of the two soldiers who stand guard at Canada's National War Memorial. From there the suspect(s) hijacked car(s) and made their way to Parliament Buildings, where they opened fire in close proximity to Canadian government ministers and legislators. Canada's capital city is currently on lockdown as thousands of personnel from multiple security forces patrol the area and set up checkpoints to monitor vehicles going in and out of the city.

One of the shooters has been killed, allegedly by a security guard inside the Parliament. At least two patients have turned up with gunshot wounds at a local hospital. Eyewitnesses told local news outlet CTV that "a man with long hair carrying a rifle" fired four shots at a soldier next to Canada's 'Tomb of the Unknown Soldier'. That soldier has since died.

Eyewitness: 'It sounded like a shotgun'

One man watched the scene unfold from a third-floor office that faces the war memorial. "It was unreal," said the witness, who asked not to be identified. "I heard the shot and looked out the window. . . The shooter came from the west side and aimed right at the young guy that was standing guard and shot him twice. I think he missed with the first shot; it sounded like a shotgun."

Canada's military has been put on high alert, with all its bases on lockdown. Canada had incidentally raised its national terrorism alert level earlier today, following a separate attack on Monday, in which two Canadian soldiers were run over in a hit-and-run by a "homegrown radicalized jihadist", Quebecois Martin Couture-Rouleau, aka 'Ahmad the Converted'. One of the soldiers died. The suspect was summarily executed following a manhunt by militarized police.

Over two thousand Brazilian political activists, intellectuals, people of art and culture signed a manifest on October 26 highlighting the hostile actions of Washington aimed at prevention of Dilma Rousseff election victory. The document is posted to social nets. It says the coming to power of Aécio Neves of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira - PSDB), who serves the interests of tycoons, will inflict irreparable damage to the country and take away all the snags on the way of US direct interference into the Brazilian internal affairs. Neves is to play the role of obedient tool in the hands of US administration. Washington goes to any length to achieve its goal and bring the desired candidate to power - some things are done covertly, some tricks are resorted to in a clandestine way.

All CIA information and propaganda resources are used to support Neves. Around 80 million Brazilians have access to Internet, 150 million are cell phone users. The US special services have perfect command of destabilization techniques. The recent protests and social unrest in Brazil threatened the World Cup proving that the forces are ready to react as the «color revolution» scenario to be implemented at any time.

The activities of non-government organizations are not restricted in any way; their members have close ties with US embassy and consulate staff, as well as ISAID workers. The human intelligence is used to discredit the policy of the Dilma Rousseff government. The lies about its ineffectiveness are spread around by all available means. «Experts» forecast collapse in case the President wins another term. They disseminate dubious results of «rating polls» that complicate the vision of reality.

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough is deeply involved in negotiating how much to redact from a classified US Senate probe into the CIA's post-9/11 detention and interrogation program, according to a new report

McDonough is playing a top role in hashing out what will be available to the public upon release of an abbreviated executive summary for the 6,000-page report, Huffington Post reported citing sources close to the negotiations.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's $40 million investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency's Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation Program - which was active from September 11, 2001 to 2006 - has found that the spy agency purposely deceived the US Justice Department to attain legal justification for the use of torture techniques, among other findings that resulted in the report, completed from March 2009 to December 2012. Of that investigative report, the public will only see a 500-page, partially-redacted executive summary that is in the process of declassification.

McDonough's involvement may indicate how monumental the tug-of-war between the Senate committee and the CIA has become during the investigation. The committee has alleged that the CIA has spied on its staff, while the intelligence agency has accused the committee of leaking classified information amid its "inquisition" of the CIA, as one intelligence source described the probe.

The White House did confirm that McDonough was involved in the negotiations, but questions over the nature of his participation were left unanswered.

"We're not going to get into the details of our discussions, but White House officials, including Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, are in regular touch with [Intelligence Committee] leadership on a variety of matters, including to discuss the committee's review of the Bush Administration's rendition, detention and interrogation program, in an effort to help ensure the executive summary is completed and declassified consistent with national security interests," Bernadette Meehan, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, told Huffington Post.

China is facing increasing pressure along two fronts. In its western province of Xinjiang, terrorists have been stepping up destabilization and separatist activities.

In China's southeast Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, protests have disrupted normality in the dense urban streets, with protest leaders seeking to directly confront Beijing while dividing and destabilizing both Hong Kong society and attempting to "infect" the mainland.

What is more troubling is the greater geopolitical agenda driving both of these seemingly "internal" conflicts - and that they both lead back to a single source beyond China's borders. With the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS) now implicated in receiving, training, and employing terrorists from China's Xinjiang province, and considering the fact that ISIS is the result of an intentional, engineered proxy war the US and its allies are waging in the Middle East, along with the fact that the unrest in Hong Kong is also traced back to Washington and London, presents a narrative of an ongoing confrontation between East and West being fought on the battlefield of fourth generation warfare.