The US prides itself on a free and fair election system. It's the main hallmark of democracy. But as RT's Anastasia Churkina reports, stealing an election in America is easier than 1,2,3.


The U.S. - a beacon of democracy, and an example to be followed by the rest of the world. One big source of pride is its' fundamental concept of free and fair elections.

"American elections are a disgrace. It's like looking into a kitchen of a world-class restaurant and losing your appetite at what you see, because we have an election system, a voting system that is completely non-transparent," said Mark Crispin Miller, Professor at NYU and author of "Fooled Again, How the Right Stole the 2004 Elections."

This is an opinion shared by many political experts and educators.

"If you were to hand your vote to a man in a magician's suit who then went behind a curtain and came out having first shredded the ballots, to tell you who won - would you trust that process?" said the co-founder and director of the Election Defense Alliance Jonathan, Simon.

The process largely to blame is the out-dated electronic voting system.

Gaza - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip launched rockets at southern Israel on Monday in what they said was a response to an air strike that wounded two militants and eight bystanders on Sunday.

The armed wing of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist faction that controls the Gaza Strip, said it was involved in the attack together with members of the Islamic Jihad militant group.

Hamas has not acknowledged launching rockets and mortars at Israel since June.

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed that some rockets had landed in areas close to the border with the Gaza Strip. There were no reports of casualties or damage, she said.

Rafah - One Palestinian was killed and five others wounded on Sunday in an Israeli air strike that targeted a motorbike in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources told AFP. "One citizen was killed and five others, including two children, were wounded by an Israeli aircraft that fired on a motorbike in the Brazil neighbourhood in Rafah," a medical source at Rafah hospital told AFP. Eyewitnesses said the man killed was a member of the Popular Resistance Committees militant group, but there was no immediate confirmation from the organisation. The Israeli military said it was checking on the reported air strike and had no immediate comment. One of the wounded, a man, was in serious condition, the medical source said.

Source: Agence France-Presse

Israel still investigating Saturday's incident in which an unmanned aircraft was shot down over the country's skies, with main suspect being Lebanon-based and Iran-funded Hezbollah.

Israeli warplanes swooped low over Lebanese villages Sunday in a menacing show of force apparently aimed at the Hezbollah guerrilla group after a mysterious raid by an unmanned aircraft that was shot out of Israeli skies over the weekend.

Israel was still investigating Saturday's incident, but Hezbollah quickly emerged as the leading suspect because it has an arsenal of sophisticated Iranian weapons and a history of trying to deploy similar aircraft.

The Israeli military said the drone approached Israel's southern Mediterranean coast and flew deep into Israeli airspace before warplanes shot it down about 20 minutes later. Israeli news reports said the drone was not carrying explosives and appeared to be on a reconnaissance mission.

Military officials would not say where the drone originated or who produced it, but they ruled out the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by Hamas, a group not known to possess drones. That left Hezbollah as the most likely culprit and suggested the drone may have flown with the blessing of Iran. Tensions are high between Israel and Iran over Tehran's suspect nuclear program.

"It is an Iranian drone that was launched by Hezbollah," Israeli lawmaker Miri Regev, a former chief spokeswoman for the Israeli military, wrote on her Twitter feed. "Hezbollah and Iran continue to try to collect information in every possible way in order to harm Israel."

She did not offer any further evidence and was not immediately available for comment.

Hezbollah officials would not comment on speculation that the group had launched the drone.

Akcakalet, Turkey - Turkey's military on Sunday fired artillery on targets inside Syria for a fifth day consecutive day, immediately responding to a Syrian shell that landed on Turkish soil. The exchange kept tensions along the volatile border running high and stoked fears of a regional conflagration.

An Associated Press journalist witnessed the shell landing some 200 meters inside Turkey, near the border town of Akcakale. A short time later, eight artillery shells could be heard fired from Turkey.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Saturday warned that Ankara would respond forcefully to each errant Syrian shell that lands on Turkish soil. The latest Syria-Turkey crisis erupted earlier this week, after a Syrian shell killed five civilians in a Turkish border town.

Inside Syria on Sunday, forces loyal to President Bashar Assad clashed with rebels across the country, from the northern city of Aleppo to the southern border with Jordan. Activists said opposition fighters were strengthening their hold over the village off Khirbet al-Jouz, in the northern province of Idlib, which borders Turkey and where violent clashes broke out a day earlier.

The Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency said Sunday that the rebels had regained full control of Khirbet al-Jouz. It said the Syrian army was forced to "pull back" following an "offensive" by some 700 rebels.

Security staff at airports can already force us to go through metal detectors and use X-rays to see under our clothes.

But a new technology being developed on behalf of the U.S. government goes even further - soon officials will be able to scan every single molecule in our bodies.

And travellers might not even know that they are being watched, as the device can be operated from a distance of 50 metres.
It is reasonable to assume that the Department of Homeland Security is primarily intending to use the Picosecond Programmable Laser scanners in airports, where security is usually at its highest.

But the device is small and light enough to be easily portable, and could be installed in any building or even on the street.

The invention, while technologically exciting, raises the sinister spectre of government, businesses and individuals having the ability to monitor everyone constantly.

For decades, disaffected Americans have been trudging to the polls and voting for the lesser of two evils. That's how they register their preference for a presidential candidate.

Choices based on that dubious strategy seem to work for the short-term (at best). But in the long run, the law of diminishing returns sets in.

Term after presidential term, the lesser of two evils lowers the quality of life for everyone and keeps nudging the decline of the American Republic. The hole to dig out of becomes deeper, and successive presidents - each one the lesser of two evils - are less capable and willing to do the necessary digging.

That's the story of leadership in America.

But prompted by new and more desperate created crises, citizens resort to the "lesser" strategy every four years, believing they must.

Citizens and scientists have raised concerns that the science ministry manipulated its measurement of radiation levels in Fukushima Prefecture to show figures lower than they really were.

The Association for Citizens and Scientists Concerned About Internal Radiation Exposures said on Oct. 5 that its survey this year of airborne dose levels found an average 10-30 percent higher than the ministry's numbers, and in certain areas, the discrepancy was even greater.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Late last week, a bill HR 6566 was introduced on the floor of the US House of Representatives. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read it.

The bill is entitled the "Mass Fatality Planning and Religious Considerations Act," and its stated purpose is "[to] amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide guidance and coordination for mass fatality planning..."

Hmmmm. Homeland Security. FEMA. Sounds like a fun party.

The bill was introduced a week ago, but it took the US Government Printing Office until this morning to actually make the text available to the public.

Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters gathered in Istanbul, Thursday evening, opposing military action against Syria. Marchers streamed through the capital's commercial district, opposing Turkey's alliance with the United States and pledging support for the Syrian people.

The demonstration took place after the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government used its majority in parliament to grant Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan powers to send soldiers into "foreign countries".

The clear intent is to wage a cross-border offensive to depose the regime of Bashir al-Assad without consulting the national assembly. The motion submitted allows the government to determine "the scope, extent and time" of any possible intervention.

The motion was passed after a stray shell from Syria killed five people in the Turkish border town of Akçakale Wednesday. Two days of mortar fire followed; Turkish fighter jets also carried out strikes on targets including a Syrian military camp, killing an unspecified number of soldiers.