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iRevolution: CNN's own documentary on Bahrain's Arab Spring repression that its international arm refused to broadcast

Glen Greenwald
The Guardian
Tue, 04 Sep 2012 19:20 UTC
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Amber Lyon on CNN, commenting on the March 2011 repression in Bahrain
A former CNN correspondent defies threats from her former employer to speak out about self-censorship at the network.

In late March 2011, as the Arab Spring was spreading, CNN sent a four-person crew to Bahrain to produce a one-hour documentary on the use of internet technologies and social media by democracy activists in the region. Featuring on-air investigative correspondent Amber Lyon, the CNN team had a very eventful eight-day stay in that small, US-backed kingdom.

By the time the CNN crew arrived, many of the sources who had agreed to speak to them were either in hiding or had disappeared. Regime opponents whom they interviewed suffered recriminations, as did ordinary citizens who worked with them as fixers. Leading human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was charged with crimes shortly after speaking to the CNN team. A doctor who gave the crew a tour of his village and arranged meetings with government opponents, Saeed Ayyad, had his house burned to the ground shortly after. Their local fixer was fired ten days after working with them.
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Eye 1

What Was the FBI Doing with 12 Million Apple IDs Anyway?

Rebecca Greenfield
The Atlantic Wire
Tue, 04 Sep 2012 16:20 UTC
This morning AntiSec released a list of 1 million out of 12 million Apple UDID's that it said it got from the FBI, which has raised many questions, most prominently perhaps: Just what was the FBI doing with that data in the first place? First off, neither the FBI nor Apple has confirmed that the data released so far is real. Update: Just after we published this post, the FBI issued a statement to Gizmodo denying that the data came from them. "At this time, there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data."

Before that statement, an FBI spokesperson told Computer World and Gizmodo that it was "declining to comment," which has led Gizmodo's Jamie Condliffe and Sam Biddle to suggest "it's very much possible that an FBI computer is the original source of this alleged data dump." Even though we have no proof of that, others have at least confirmed that the UDIDs out there correspond to actual phones, with ArsTechnica's Jacqui Cheng posting responses from Security journalist Rob Lemos and "eCrime specialist" Peter Kruse saying that they have devices on the list. With so little information -- AntiSec has refused to give interviews, for now -- we still can't be sure that these came from the FBI. But if the hackers are to be believed (an admittedly big if), it brings us back to that initial question: What did the FBI want with those Apple IDs? Some theories.
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Heart - Black

Al-Qaeda-Trained Terrorists Sent to Syria from Waziristan


Fars News Agency
Tue, 04 Sep 2012 01:24 UTC
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© Fars News Agency
Al-Qaeda, backed by Turkey, the US and its regional Arab allies, has set up a new camp in Northern Waziristan in Pakistan to train Salafi and Jihadi terrorists and dispatches them to Syria via Turkish borders, sources said.

"A new Al-Qaeda has been created in the region through the financial and logistical backup of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and a number of western states, specially the US," the source told FNA.

Ali Mahdian told FNA that the US and the British governments have been playing with the al-Qaeda through their Arab proxy regimes in the region in a bid to materialize their goals, specially in Syria.

He said the Saudi and Qatari regimes serve as interlocutors to facilitate the CIA and MI6 plans in Syria through instigating terrorist operations by Salafi and Arab Jihadi groups, adding that the terrorists do not know that they actually exercise the US plans.

"Turkey has also been misusing extremist Salafis and Al-Qaeda terrorists to intensify the crisis in Syria and it has recently augmented its efforts in this regard by helping the new Al-Qaeda branch set up a camp in Northern Waziristan in Pakistan to train Al-Qaeda and Taliban members as well as Turkish Salafis and Arab Jihadis who are later sent to Syria for terrorist operations," said the source.

Comment: "..Saudi and Qatari regimes serve as interlocutors to facilitate the CIA and MI6 plans in Syria through instigating terrorist operations by Salafi and Arab Jihadi groups, adding that the terrorists do not know that they actually exercise the US plans.."

Actually it is quite likely the CIA and MI6 know these Al-Quada and other alleged terrorist groups members - on a first name basis.
Mossad vs Assad? 'CIA death squads behind Syria bloodbath'
CIA, MI6 agents direct massacres in Syria: American analyst
Syria Is A Convenient Fallguy
Syria's Bloody CIA Revolution - A Distraction?

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Arrow Down

Eurozone is running out of options and time to solve debt crisis

John W. Schoen
NBC News
Tue, 04 Sep 2012 11:30 UTC
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© Francois Lenoir/ReutersLet's hope he'll be this happy later this week. European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi, pictured above, is expected to unveil a new plan Thursday to tackle the eurozone's nagging debt crisis.
Two years after eurozone began its downward financial spiral, the European Central Bank is about to unveil a widely-anticipated plan to pump more money into the system to stem a wider collapse.

But the plan, similar to the massive bond-buying undertaken by U.S. central bankers four years ago, may be too little, too late.

"It's going to take a lot more than a few rate cuts here and there to give us a lift," said Peter Dixon, a senior economist at Commerzbank Securities. "Monetary policy is effectively running out of options."

Europe is also running out of time. Manufacturing across the continent contracted faster than previously thought last month, according to the latest data released Monday. The recession sparked by a crushing debt hangover in a few smaller members of the 17-nation bloc is now sweeping through Germany and France. The financial turmoil that sank Greece as investors and depositors fled now threatens the much larger economies of Spain and Italy.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi bought some time last month, calming markets somewhat with a pledge to do "whatever it takes" to save the euro. Now, he has to deliver. On Thursday, the ECB is set to unveil details of a new bond-buying plan that has re-opened long-standing fault lines in Europe's experiment with a common currency.
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Arrow Down

Three bad signs

Martin Walker
United Press International
Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:08 UTC
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© UPI/Kevin DietschFederal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies on the Board's Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to Congress during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on July 17, 2012 in Washington, D.C.
There have been three striking developments in different parts of the world in recent days, each of them with sobering implications for the global economy. Taken together, the prognosis is grim.The first was the speech of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke at the annual bankers' gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in which he acknowledged that U.S. unemployment as unacceptably high, which meant growth was well below par and that therefore more quantitative easing could be expected.

Since the previous rounds of QE didn't succeed in reviving the economy (although they may have staved off more decline) it isn't clear why a third round should do the trick.

Although stock markets predictably rallied at the prospect of more cheap money and continued low interest rates (which means investors might hope to do better in stocks than in bonds) Bernanke's real motive may have been as much political as economic.

He is buying time and keeping the show on the road until such time as the politicians get their act together and reach a rational compromise on spending cuts and tax rises.
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Handcuffs

Best of the Web: We're one crucial step closer to seeing Tony Blair at The Hague

George Monbiot
The Guardian
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 09:45 UTC
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© Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesTony Blair arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice in London to give evidence on media ethics to the Leveson inquiry in May 2012.
Desmond Tutu has helped us see the true nature of what the former prime minister did to Iraq and increased pressure for a prosecution

For years it seems impregnable, then suddenly the citadel collapses. An ideology, a fact, a regime appears fixed, unshakeable, almost geological. Then an inch of mortar falls, and the stonework begins to slide. Something of this kind happened over the weekend.

When Desmond Tutu wrote that Tony Blair should be treading the path to The Hague, he de-normalised what Blair has done. Tutu broke the protocol of power - the implicit accord between those who flit from one grand meeting to another - and named his crime. I expect that Blair will never recover from it.

The offence is known by two names in international law: the crime of aggression and a crime against peace. It is defined by the Nuremberg principles as the "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression". This means a war fought for a purpose other than self-defence: in other words outwith articles 33 and 51 of the UN Charter.
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Wolf

War Crimes: Israel Pillaging Palestinian Resources

Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
Inter Press Service
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:55 UTC
Israeli quarry West Bank
© Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPSAn Israeli-operated quarry in the industrial area of the Ma'ale Adumim settlement in the West Bank, just outside of Jerusalem.
By mining natural resources from the occupied Palestinian territories for its own economic purposes, Israel is committing the war crime of pillage in the Dead Sea area, according to a report released Monday by Palestinian human rights group Al Haq.

"Israel is openly in violation of its obligations as an Occupying Power in the (occupied Palestinian territories), because it is encouraging and facilitating the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources and actively assisting their pillaging by private actors," said the Al Haq report, titled 'Pillage of the Dead Sea: Israel's Unlawful Exploitation of Natural Resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory'.

Criminal responsibility for the crime of pillage does not only extend to the state of Israel, but can also be applied to individuals, namely Israeli settlers who benefit from the extraction of resources from the Dead Sea, Al Haq said.
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Bad Guys

Delhi Car Bombing: Evidence Suggests Journalist Was Framed, Evidence Fabricated to Implicate Iran in Attack on Israeli Embassy Car

Gareth Porter
Inter Press Service
Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:22 UTC
Delhi car bomb
© AP
In "The Delhi Car Bombing: How the Police Built a False Case", a three-part series beginning today, award-winning investigative journalist Gareth Porter dissects the Delhi police accusation against an Indian journalist and four Iranians of involvement in the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli embassy car.

New Delhi police officials have released hundreds of pages of documents from their investigation into the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli Embassy car. The documents aimed to show that a well-known Indian Muslim journalist aided an Iranian conspiracy to plan and carry out the bombing.

But a review by IPS of the evidence filed in the case suggests that the Indian journalist accused in the case has been framed by the police, at least in part to implicate the Iranians in the terror plot.
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Attention

1812 Napolean's Defeat in Russia. A History Warning to the American Empire

The Watchdog
The Lone Star Watchdog
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:06 UTC
napolian retreat
© unknownNapolian retreat from Moscow
It does not matter, any Empire is no exception. Today's' empires does not consist of Generals or emperors. They are the bankers who do have armies and puppet leaders who commands them to be used as a battering ram to invade nations that do not play ball with the bankers. The Bankers funded Napoleon's march to conquer Europe until he marched on Russia.

The over reach of Napoleon invading Russia. When his Army marched on Moscow was the beginning of his decline. His Army suffered a major defeat because when an empire sets out to conquer other nations. They assume they are unstoppable and cannot be beat. They show no respect to their opponent. Napoleon invading Russia was his biggest mistake being far away from having logistics to feed and supplying his army. The Russian troops took advantage of that weakness to defeat Napoleon with the scorched earth strategy depriving his army of agriculture or anything that would aid his army. That is what caused Napoleon's Army to go into retreat withdrawing from Russia. Russia just had a ceremony at the Kremlin celebrating the defeat of Napoleon.

Looking at the United State in its present day. They are in more wars and looking start more. We are in Iraq, Afghanistan , we are in Libya, Yemen. We have 900 military bases in 130 countries. We are looking to go into Africa. We are looking to go into Iran. We are building bases encircling Russia and China. Our troops spread thin all around the world. Can the US Government afford anymore?
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Attention

Government Threatens with Jail Time for Growing Produce in Front-Yard Garden

Elizabeth Renter
Natural Society
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 13:30 UTC
Carrots
© Natural Society
You own your home and the lot that it sits on. So, if you want to plant tomatoes instead of bushes, you should be entitled to that, right? While this may seem like a common sense line of reasoning, many cities and towns across our nation think otherwise. They don't want their citizens using a front-yard garden to grow food - they want perfectly green and manicured lawns.

Using a Front-Yard Garden to Grow Veges? You May Not be Allowed

It seems like every month a few more stories hit the social media grapevines, where home owners are being punished for growing food. Some of these front-yard gardeners have created landscapes that rival those created by high-paid landscaping companies. The difference - all of this greenery is edible.

Whether it's the HOA rules or a city ordinance, some front-yard gardeners are being forced to pull up their plants and scrap their edible landscape. Why? If for nothing more than to have a seamless line of green yards stretching through the neighborhood.

When we can't trust what we find at the grocery store, and farmer's markets are limited and not always within driving distance, growing our own food doesn't just make sense, it makes perfect sense.

And once you've begun growing your own, you will likely begin to wonder why Americans ever moved away from self-sustaining gardens.

Why can't many of us grow food in the front-yard garden? Many townships say that the 'issue' revolves around yard space, where a vegetable garden may only be allowed to take up to 20-30% of a yard area. It may sound crazy that a city government would spend (waste) resources to target gardeners, but it actually happens more often than you would think.
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