Government believes resistance to corporate-banking complex a form of terrorism.

Newly released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files prove that federal agencies within the United States government colluded with the private sector to spy on the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement even before the first demonstration was held in New York City's Zuccotti Park.

"These documents show that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity," stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF).

"These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."

In the fall of 2011, PCJF filed Freedom of Information Act demands with various federal and local law enforcement agencies to determine if there was a concerted effort to crackdown on the OWS movement. After stonewalling for more than a year, the FBI finally surrendered a public version of their internal communications on the weekend before Christmas, 2012.

"The documents are heavily redacted, and it is clear from the production that the FBI is withholding far more material," says PCJF staff attorney Heather Benno. "We are filing an appeal challenging this response and demanding full disclosure to the public of the records of this operation."

The documents identify a department within the FBI, known as the Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC), as being directly involved in coordinating the intelligence gathering activities against the OWS movement.

The United States has agreed to provide France with additional airlift capacity to help move troops during the Mali operation, Reuters reported citing an unnamed US official.

'Jewish national,' named as Ibrahim al-Dharahi, 24, to go on trial in next few days.

Authorities in Yemen have charged a local man with spying for Israel and he will soon be put on trial in Aden, officials said on Friday.

Named as Ibrahim al-Dharahi, 24, a computer engineer, he was said to have confessed to spying on behalf of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.

A local newspaper said he had admitted to visiting Israel and various Arab countries.

"The man carried two ID cards - one Yemeni, one Israeli," Reuters quoted a security official in Aden saying.

Al-Dharahi was arrested in the country weeks ago, local media had reported on Wednesday.

He was arrested by Yemeni security in the Taizz province, then transferred to an Aden prison two weeks ago, where he has been undergoing investigation under a veil of secrecy.

The French government has stated that:

"it would send 2,500 troops to support Malian government soldiers in the conflict against Islamist rebels. France has already deployed around 750 troops to Mali, and French carriers arrived in Bamako on Tuesday morning.....

We will continue the deployment of forces on the ground and in the air.....

We have one goal. To ensure that when we leave, when we end our intervention, Mali is safe, has legitimate authorities, an electoral process and there are no more terrorists threatening its territory." [1]

So this is the official narrative of France and those who support it. And of course this is what is widely reported by the mainstrem media.

France is supported by other NATO members. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta confirmed that the US was providing intelligence to French forces in Mali. [2] Canada, Belgium, Denmark and Germany have also publicly backed the French incursion, pledging logistical support in the crackdown on the rebels. [3]

If we are to believe this narrative we are misled again about the real reasons. A look at Mali's natural resources reveals what this is really about.

The news that former criminology and psychology student, and convicted animal-torturer, Karla Bourque was released from prison last week is unsettling news. Kayla Bourque was convicted of cruelty towards animals and sentenced to eight months in prison, six of which she had already served. The judge in the case gave her the extra two months so that a long list of complex parole conditions could be prepared. These parole conditions included a ban on owning knives, needles or duct tape.

It raises challenging questions: this is a woman who has admitted wanting to kill homeless people, and who has shown to take pleasure in torturing her family pets, so why is she being released from prison after serving just eight-months, and what can be done about it? How do we protect ourselves and our communities against people who feel no remorse for their actions, and experience none of the moral constraints that prevent them from committing terrible crimes?

This story strikes a nerve with me because my 2011 book The Vanishing Track is about a male version of Ms. Bourque. In this mystery novel, set in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, a young man named Shawn Livingstone graduates from juvenile delinquency to torturing and killing animals, stealing cars, burning down a neighbourhood grocery store to stalking and killing the homeless.

Sean is a psychopath - a human abomination incapable of feeling the most basic emotion: empathy - and that makes him capable of committing the most heinous crimes without feeling any remorse. He, like all psychopaths, is intelligent and superficially charming, but he lacks the ability to feel. He can mimic normal human emotions, but as Dr. Richard Hare of the University of British Columbia, and the world's foremost expert on psychopathy, says "he knows the words but not the music."

Dr. Robert Hare is the foremost scholar and practicioner in the field of psychopathy and sociopathy, in the world today. In this video, Dr. Hare goes through the clinical dimensions for the assessment of psychopathy in individuals (Psychopathy Checklist Revised), and uses these dimensions to assess the behavior patterns of post-modern multinational corporations. His assessment hardly flatters today's corporate world. Yes, the average corporation is psychopathic; and does that really surprise you?

This kind of exercise applies to any kind of organization, be it public or private, or public/private.

You can read more about Dr. Hare's excellent work in his own webpage: http://www.hare.org/.

Before buying tickets to the Sochi Winter Olympics fans will have to give their personal details to the Russian authorities for security reasons, the organizing committee head says.

In order to obtain a so-called spectator pass the Olympic guests will need to log their info with a new national database, the state ID, containing the owner's passport information and even bank details, the R-Sport news agency reports.

"A person who wants to buy a ticket will be requested to voluntarily register on the database. It's confirmation that he is a well-behaved fan. He joins a sort of Sochi 2014 fan club," the source quotes the head of the organizing committee Dmitry Chernyshenko.

The Foreign Ministry has expressed outrage after a US court imposes a fine on Russia for its refusal to comply with a 2010 court order to return a collection of religious documents to a prominent US-based Jewish organization.

The move comes shortly after the Magnitsky Act, which saw US legislators attempting to exert pressure on Russia's judicial system. A court in Washington is now attempting to penalize Russia for its possession of a collection of books, manuscripts and other Judaic documents.

According to the ruling, Russia would be required to pay $50,000 a day to Chabad Lubavitch, an Orthodox Jewish movement headquartered in New York City, until it releases the Schneerson Library, of which the Jewish group claims rightful ownership.

"It is outrageous that a Washington court has taken this unprecedented step fraught with most serious consequences as the imposition of a fine on a sovereign state," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey appeared on the Fox News Channel's "Hannity" Wednesday night with a message that left the host looking rather disappointed.

Rebutting the Republican talk show host, Mukasey said that President Barack Obama's executive orders so far have been legal, as much as he finds them distasteful. He even expressed agreement with the Supreme Court's finding that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional, leaving Hannity looking perplexed.

Speaking about the president's most significant executive actions thus far, Hannity exclaimed: "It seems me to be, by definition, abuse of power. A power grab if you will... Is it then unconstitutional in some instances?"

"I don't think it's unconstitutional in the sense that I don't think it's something you could get a court to find unconstitutional," Mukasey replied. "We could have a debate about whether it's consistent with the constitution or not, but there is a limited number of things that will get you into court to have that decided, and I don't think any of the things you've enumerated are among them."

Police in Washington DC frequently fail to investigate reports of rape, and treat victims so dismissively at times, that they experience fresh trauma while the chances of the perpetrator being caught are undermined, according to a comprehensive report due out next week.

Campaign group Human Rights Watch is expected to uncover "disturbing evidence of police failure" in a 200-plus page report after a two-year investigation into law enforcement practices in the US capital.

But although shocking, the situation in Washington is far from isolated. There are widespread examples across the US of the police routinely neglecting crimes of sexual violence and refusing to believe victims.

"This is a national crisis requiring federal action. We need a paradigm shift in police culture, because rapes and sexual assaults are being swept under the rug, and too many victims are being bullied," said Carol Tracy of the Women's Law Project, a legal advocacy group that specialises in sexual violence cases.