The Russian ruble hit a two-week high Tuesday of 53 against the USD, showing strong signs of recovery after hitting rock bottom one week ago on 'Black Tuesday'. The Central Bank and government have taken swift action to shore up the ailing ruble.

The Russian ruble improved to 53 in early day trading, a more than 33 percent increase since just 1 week ago when it hit 80 against the US dollar. The Russian ruble suffered a 'perfect storm' last week, and is improving for the third consecutive trading session on the Moscow Exchange Tuesday. By 4:00pm in Moscow, it had weakened to 54.72 against the greenback.

Nuclear power stations are highly vulnerable to drone attack, according to a confidential report that British ministers are being urged to consider.

Compiled by a British nuclear expert, John Large, the report followed a number of unexplained, but apparently co-ordinated, flights of tiny, unmanned vehicles over French nuclear installations. The grave issues uncovered there, said Mr Large, were equally relevant to the UK's 16 operational reactors, which generate about 18 per cent of the country's electricity.

In public evidence to the French parliament, Mr Large said he set the defences of a standard nuclear power plant against different types of attack that could be launched by drones, such as precisely placed explosive devices and the dropping off of equipment that would aid an insider saboteur.

Existing nuclear power plants, he said, were not designed to counter the threat of "near-cyborg technology". He warned: "In each of the four... attack scenarios that I examined, the plant fared very badly indeed - if these scenarios had been for real, then there would have been the potential for a major radioactive release."

Russia's Investigative Committee is investigating a Russian newspaper report alleging that a Ukrainian military jet shot down Malaysian Airlines passenger plane MH17 over the rebel-held eastern part of the country last summer.

"Investigators have talked to the editor-in-chief and journalists of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper and have taken the contact details of the Ukrainian citizen [cited in the report]," spokesman for the committee Vladimir Markin said.


He added that the witness would be interviewed as part of the Russian investigation into the use of banned weapons and methods of warfare in Ukraine. The information he shares will be cross-checked, he added.

The witness, who chose to remain anonymous, told Komsomolskaya Pravda (KP) daily that a pilot of a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet was behind the MH17 flight downing on July 17. He claimed that the pilot used air-to-air missiles to shoot down the Malaysian Boeing, which he concludes was probably mistaken for a military plane.

Interesting news this morning: the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaia Pravda has interviewed a man who claims to have been a witness to the take-off of three aircraft, one of which allegedly shot down MH17. Thanks to the incredible work done by Kazzura the full video with English subtitles is already available today. Check it out:


I will notice that there are several mutually contradictory versions circulating out there. For example, one version spoke of a Polish pilot, this one speaks of a Ukrainian (with a very Russian last name), some versions speak of one aircraft, others of two and this one even three, some speak of a SU-25, others of a MiG-29 or even a SU-27 (such as the alleged satellite photo from the student at MIT). There are several reasons for such discrepancies.

The lame duck, Obama, extending a conciliatory hand to Cuba by opening an embassy in Havana, by reopening, after 54 years of a criminal and crippling embargo, diplomatic relations? - At the same time Obama is making not a single concession in terms of lifting the blockade. This smells like a trap. Cuba beware!

Imagine - a US Embassy in Havana - it would open the floodgates for US NED (National Endowment for Democracy) funded 'NGOs', for Washington's spies and anti-Castro propaganda machine; it would have free hand to destabilize the country. And what would Cuba gain? - Zilch, zero, nothing. Not even a gradual lifting of the embargo had been announced. To the contrary, it would open Cuba's borders to the vultures of Florida Cubans, eventually to theirs and other foreign investments, subjugating the country's huge social gains over the last half a century - universal free education and health services, by far the best social system of the Americas - to the sledgehammer of neoliberal privatization.

Why would Cuba now need a US Embassy? After 54 years of struggling and surviving against Washington's nod? - In fact, nobody needs the empire - the empire's consent to financially and economically survive. Suffice it to look at the 'engineered' decay of the Russian ruble which eventually will leave Russia better off than before the downward slide of its currency and the likewise 'engineered' downward spin of the price of petrol. Everybody knows that the Middle Eastern oil producers, Obama's stooges, will not forever shoot themselves in the foot by flooding the petrol market and foregoing their oil revenues.

What Cuba needs is free access to international markets - outside and independent of the United States. Cuba needs to integrate into an independent financial and monetary system, detached from the corrupt casino dollar. Solidarity by the rest of the world which has already helped Cuba survive the illegal, inhuman US embargo is now more than ever of the order. The support of a unity of nations must now help stem the temptation to bend to Washington's offer of 'diplomacy'.

In a blistering editorial published in the Monday edition of the New York Times, the editorial page editors are calling upon the Justice Department to open an investigation into the torture practices committed during the administration of President George W. Bush with an eye towards prosecuting those who "committed torture and other serious crimes," along with former Vice President Dick Cheney and other major administration officials.

Under a headline reading, "Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses," the board criticizes the administration of current President Barack Obama for failing "to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects," during the period following the attack on 9/11.

The editorial notes that the American Civil Liberties Union will present a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. on Monday calling for appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate what appears to be "a vast criminal conspiracy, under color of law, to commit torture and other serious crimes."

A senior Russian lawmaker has warned Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko against détente with the US, warning him he could end like Libya's Gaddafi.

"Milosevic, Gaddafi and Hussein all tried to be friends with the United States. Their fates are well known. Now the US is offering 'new relations' with Lukashenko. This is a dangerous experiment," the head of the State Duma Foreign Relations Committee Aleksey Pushkov wrote in a Twitter post on Monday.

The comment came soon after US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland talked about a small improvement of US-Belarus relations, adding that the country was always open to more dialogue with Belarus.

Every year around this time, it just isn't the holiday season if you don't end up stuck in a long line of traffic going through a mandatory DUI checkpoint. The cops are looking for people drinking and driving, and this unconstitutional search has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

And every year around this time, when I say it is a violation of my rights, someone chimes in:

"If you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about."

It's entirely possible that if I hear this argument one more time this year, I'm going to have something to worry about, because there's going to be the body in my trunk.

I was involved in a conversation on a thread online about these checkpoints and I was deeply saddened by the dozens of people who think having their rights violated is a wonderful thing. They simply can't wrap their heads around how very wrong this is, what a slippery slope that we are stepping onto, and how this is an entry into the police state in all its glory.

North Korea is threatening to retaliate against the US over a Hollywood film portraying the assassination of Kim Jong-un, saying it has "clear evidence" that Washington was heavily involved in devising the plot.

The stern but vague warnings come after Sony Pictures decided last week to cancel the release of The Interview following cyber-attacks and threats against the company. North Korea also said the US government was wrong to "recklessly" claim Pyongyang was behind the hacking.

In a further response North Korea on Monday said it was refusing to take part in a UN meeting where the country's bleak human rights situation was to be discussed. The UN Security Council is being urged to refer Pyongyang to the International Criminal Court, the boldest effort yet to confront an issue it has openly disdained in the past.

Accusations the US government was involved in the film's plot were issued by the North Korea's powerful Policy National Defence Commission in a 1,600-word statement run on North Korea's state news agency, KCNA. Amid the colourful phrasing typical of official North Korean statements - the US was referred to as "the cesspool of terrorism" while the storyline of The Interview was called "vicious and dastardly" - were warnings of unspecified retaliation over the comedy action film, which centres on a plan to kill the supreme leader.

North Korea had "already launched the toughest counteraction" to the film, the statement said, without specifying what this might involve. "Nothing is [a] more serious miscalculation than guessing that just a single movie production company is the target of this counteraction. Our target[s are] all the citadels of the US imperialists who earned the bitterest grudge of all Koreans," it added.

"We Need To Get Reasonable Assurances That [the Victim] Will Remain In Isolation And Incommunicado For The Remainder Of His Life"

The Senate Torture Report notes:

The interrogation team closed the [CIA] cable by stating:

"regardless of which [disposition] option we follow, however, and especially in light of the planned psychological pressure techniques to be implemented, we need to get reasonable assurances that [Abu Zubaydah] will remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life."