The United Kingdom and the US have been branded 'Enemies of the Internet' for the first time by Reporters Without Borders on their annual list of countries which disrupt freedom of information through surveillance and censorship.

Both the US and the UK were included in the list for first time as a result of revelations from the Whistleblower Edward Snowden into the activities of the American and British spy agencies.

In fact Edward Snowden branded the UK, where the government has largely ignored calls to reign in the nation's spooks and the public remain apathetic, as "worse than the US".

Snowden outlines various "widespread surveillance practices" operated by GCHQ as part of its plan called "Mastering the internet".

"The Internet was a collective resource that the NSA and GCHQ turned into a weapon in the service of special interests, in the process flouting freedom of information, freedom of expression and the right to privacy," say the report's authors.

The UK, says the press watchdog, paid scant heed to any legal considerations when harvesting huge amounts of data.

"Supported by the NSA and with the prospect of sharing data, the British agency brushed aside all legal obstacles and embarked on mass surveillance of nearly a quarter of the world's communications," the report says.

The United States on Tuesday suspended operations of the Syrian Embassy in Washington and its consulates in Michigan and Texas, and told diplomats and staff who are not US citizens or permanent residents to leave the country.

"We have determined it is unacceptable for individuals appointed by that regime to conduct diplomatic or consular operations in the United States," US special envoy for Syria Daniel Rubinstein said in a statement.

"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good." -Harold Pinter, Nobel Acceptance Speech

"Obama is just a willing executioner. From the ruling class's point of view, he's the perfect figurehead because his mere appearance confuses and disarms so many. He seems to have spent his whole life trying to get chosen to play Judas. And that's all there is in his resume." -bevin, Comments line, Moon of Alabama

According to a newly-released Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, Barack Obama's job-approval ratings have dipped to a new low of 41 percent with a full 54 percent of respondents saying they "disapproved" of the job he's doing. Obama's handling of the economy, health care and foreign policy were particular areas of concern for most respondents. On health care, Obama is seen as having strengthened the for-profit insurance industry with little benefit for ordinary working people. The survey also showed "the lowest-ever approval" for the president's handling of foreign policy. And, on the economy, the results were even more shocking; a full 57% of the people polled "believe the U.S. is still in a recession" while "65 percent think the country is on the wrong track". Widespread disappointment in Obama's performance has weakened his support among blacks, Hispanics and women, traditionally, the most loyal groups in the Party's base.

A militant Islamist website has created an online poster campaign falling for terrorist attacks in France and the assassination of President Francois Hollande in retaliation for recent French interventions in Africa.

The al-Minbar Jihadi Media Network, a well-known Islamist website, created six posters as part of a campaign called, "We will not be silent, O France," Reuters cites the SITE monitoring service as saying. The forum's "Media soldiers for the support of Islam" designed the posters, which it is making available for downloading or printing.

The network cited recent French military interventions in Mali and the Central African Republic as providing the impetus for the campaign.

"To our lone wolves in France, assassinate the president of disbelief and criminality, terrify his cursed government, and bomb them and scare them as a support to the vulnerable in the Central African Republic," one of the posters said.

In January 2011, France initiated a major military intervention in Mali, a former colony, citing concerns about the growing influence of militants in the country's north and a rebellion by Tuareg separatists that threatened the French-backed Malian government. France has said that the primary reason for the operation was to prevent the creation of "a terrorist state at the doorstep of France and Europe."

The media is clamoring to get Russia for attacking Ukraine, as if the US has had no influence on events. Yet, the riot in Kiev has a striking resemblance to US-sponsored color revolutions and Arab spring riots.

The template shows US mercenaries hiding behind peaceful protestors, then, igniting violence. The idea is sinister: to co-opt peaceful protestor's legitimate cause, granting some air of legitimacy, followed by a coup to super-impose western imperial demands.

In Kiev, it started, as usual, with peace protests, then, thugs soon joined in as heavily armed trained militia. Western private media, holding its usual bag of secrets, dodges calls to tell us their country of origin.

Turns out, Germany has tried to annex western Ukraine since World War I. Neo-Nazi troops from the Svobada Party, Punch Party, and the Right Sector, totaling some 5,000, attacked the capital in Kiev. Why they were shipped to Ukraine is important.

Neoconservatives from Washington reunified East and West Germany, largely to go after the Soviet Union once again. USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the rejoining on the promise from George H.W. Bush that he would not send NATO troops eastward. Bush lied.

Plans for a secession referendum in Ukraine's Crimea region on Sunday are the focus of ramped-up attacks on Russia from the Obama administration and its European allies. Additional military forces are being shifted to the region and new threats of sanctions are being issued.

The US, Germany and Britain have denounced the referendum in the majority Russian-speaking autonomous republic as a violation of Ukraine national sovereignty and territorial integrity and a breach of international law. The US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, said Monday that the US would not recognize the "so-called referendum." He charged that "gangs of pro-Russian thugs" were patrolling the area and there was "an active campaign to stir division in Ukraine."

Pyatt's comments echoed those of Obama, who has declared that any referendum would "violate the Ukrainian constitution and violate international law," and top officials in Britain and Germany. Following a meeting Sunday night between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron, a statement from Downing Street declared that the proposed referendum "would be illegal and that any attempt by Russia to legitimize the result would result in further consequences." Cameron earlier declared Russian actions to be "in flagrant breach of international law."

Such comments bring the level of lying and hypocrisy by the Western powers to new heights. Governments that feel in some way dependent on mobilizing a broader base of public support beyond the military-intelligence apparatus and narrow financial interests concern themselves with matters such as internal consistency and coherence. This is not the case with the supposed proponents of international law in London, Berlin and Washington.

Russia officially absorbed Crimea Tuesday afternoon, moments after President Vladimir Putin declared that Russia has no designs on any other parts of Ukraine.

In a speech to a joint session of parliament, which he used to call for the "reunification" of Crimea with Russia, he said that region has a special role in Russian history that makes it unique.

Ecstatic leaders of the Russian and Crimean parliaments signed a treaty of accession as soon as Putin was done, and the Kremlin said afterwards it considers the treaty to be in force even before parliament has ratified it.

Sevastopol, the city where Russia's Black Sea naval fleet is based, also entered the Russian Federation, as a separate entity.

Former chancellor says Russia's actions have been misunderstood and should be regarded in their historical context

Germany's former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has embarrassed the government of his successor Angela Merkel by staunchly defending the Kremlin's actions in the Ukraine and claiming that Russia wanted to stay "big and strong" and an equal to the United States.

Mr Schroeder was Germany's Social Democrat leader from 1998 until 2005. He is a personal friend of Vladimir Putin and once described the Russian President as a " flawless democrat". He joined the board of the Russian energy giant Gazprom after losing Germany's 2005 election.

With an outspoken defence of Russia's intervention in the Ukraine, the former German leader has embarrassed Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition government which includes conservatives and his own Social Democrats.

While Mrs Merkel and her government have denounced the Russian intervention as a breach of international law, Mr Schroeder has leapt to the defence of the Russian president.

President Obama's half-brother in Kenya could cause the White House more headaches over new evidence linking him to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and establishing that controversial IRS supervisor Lois Lerner signed his tax-exempt approval letter.

Malik Obama's oversight of the Muslim Brotherhood's international investments is one reason for the Obama administration's support of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to an Egyptian report citing the vice president of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt, Tehani al-Gebali.

In a news report on Egyptian television of a Gebali speech, translated by researcher Walid Shoebat, a former Palestinian Liberation Organization operative, Gebali said she would like "to inform the American people that their president's brother Obama is one of the architects of the major investments of the Muslim Brotherhood."

"We will carry out the law, and the Americans will not stop us," she said. "We need to open the files and begin court sessions.

"The Obama administration cannot stop us; they know that they supported terrorism," she continued. "We will open the files so these nations are exposed, to show how they collaborated with [the terrorists]. It is for this reason that the American administration fights us."

Russia's quick recognition of Crimea as an independent state is risking a second round of more damaging sanctions that could unleash a new Cold War.

On Monday night, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree to declare Crimea fully independent of Ukraine. The act of defiance came a few hours after the United States and the European Union launched sanctions against about 30 individual Russians and pro-Russian Ukrainians for what was described as their role in threatening the security and the borders of Ukraine.

The sanctions, which consisted of travel bans and asset freezes, are the first retaliatory measures against Russia since Ukraine's pro-Moscow president, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted on Feb. 22, triggering the Russian military intervention in Crimea and Sunday's referendum, in which Crimeans overwhelmingly approved joining Russia.

Canada joined the U.S. and the EU in imposing sanctions on 10 Russian and Ukrainian individuals.

The confrontation - increasingly reminiscent of the mutual hostility between the West and the Soviet Union - seems set to deepen.

"If Russia continues to interfere in Ukraine, we stand ready to impose further sanctions," U.S. President Barack Obama said.