The Jewish Chronicle reports today that music mogul Simon Cowell has boosted the Israeli Army with a sizeable donation at a gala dinner in Los Angeles.

The "X Factor" chief gave a sum thought to be in the region of £150,000 at the annual fundraising event hosted by the American Friends of the IDF.

The event was hosted by ultra Zionist Power Rangers creator Haim Saban, who pledged to donate $1 million if Mr Cowell joined him to sing the show's theme song, "Go, Go Power Rangers".

Mr Cowell did break into song, but quickly said he would make a donation himself if Mr Saban allowed him to stop.

The director of a supposedly independent group of Israeli lawyers privately admitted to a US embassy official it acted as a proxy for the Israeli government, a leaked US embassy cable shows.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner confided in 2007 that her Shurat HaDin group in the past "took direction ... on which cases to pursue" and still "receives evidence" from the Mossad and from Israel's National Security Council.

This is in direct contradiction to public claims, such as on its website which states it is a "fully independent" organization "unaffiliated with any political party or governmental body."

The group has fought several high-profile "lawfare" cases against Palestine solidarity activists around the world in recent years.

Mossad lead

The leaked cable was unearthed by lobbying transparency outfit SpinWatch in an article earlier this month. It was one of the US embassy cables leaked by former US soldier Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning in 2010 and published by WikiLeaks in 2011.

The cable's author quotes Darshan-Leitner as explaining the government's rationale for using a proxy rather than going to local courts directly: "The National Security Council (NSC) legal office saw the use of civil courts as a way to do things that they are not authorized to do."

"Among her contacts, Leitner listed Udi Levy at the NSC and Uzi Beshaya at the Mossad, both key [US] Embassy contacts on anti-terrorist finance cooperation," wrote the unnamed official who apparently authored the cable after meeting with Leitner in 2007.

The NSC is an Israeli military planning body led by generals and other senior military figures - including top Mossad figures.

At the time of the cable was written, the NSC's head was Ilan Mizrahi, a former deputy chief of Mossad.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and Shurat HaDin did not reply to an email sent yesterday seeking comment on the issues raised in this article.

It's a culture struggling to survive. Fewer than 50 people -- all descendants of slaves -- fear they may soon be taxed out of the property their families have owned since the days of slavery.

They are the Gullah-Geechee people of Sapelo Island off Georgia's coast, near Savannah. This small, simple community is finding itself embroiled in a feud with local officials over a sudden, huge increase in property assessments that are raising property taxes as much as 600% for some.

Many say the increase could force them to sell their ancestral properties.

"That's part of the American history. That's part of what built this country," said Charles Hall, 79, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who was born under a midwife's care in the same home he lives in today.

French, Malian and UN troops have begun a "large-scale" military operation aimed at preventing a resurgence of Islamist organisations in Mali, the French military said Thursday, following a recent upswing in violence in the West African country.

A "large-scale" military operation against jihadist forces in Mali has been launched by French, Malian and UN troops, a spokesman for the French armed forces said Thursday.

The operation aims to "avoid [a] resurgence" of "terrorist organisations" in the country, Colonel Gilles Jaron told reporters.

He said "several hundred" French soldiers were involved in the operation alongside Malian soldiers and members of the UN's MINUSMA mission, adding: "It is the first time we have seen forces of significant size working together."

France launched a military intervention in its former colony in January this year after Islamist forces exploited a rebellion by Tuareg separatists to seize control of the north of the country.

The prominent investigative blogger Roger Shuler was arrested and beaten by Shelby County sheriff's deputies in his Alabama garage upon returning home the evening of Oct. 23.

Shuler faces charges stemming from his refusal to obey a judge's order to stop writing about an alleged affair involving Robert Riley Jr., an attorney who is part of Alabama's most prominent political family.

Shuler is at right in a jail mug shot showing his swollen face after his beating and attack with MACE in his garage. Authorities in his county south of Birmingham held him on two contempt of court charges and one for resisting arrest. A judge refused to set bond on the contempt charges, thereby enabling authorities to hold Shuler for an undetermined period that could be many months at the judge's discretion. His bond was $1,000 for the resisting arrest charge.

Update Oct. 31, PM: As of this writing, Shuler remained in jail, and his wife was barricaded in their home, fearing every knock on the door might be authorities trying to arrest her for her husband's writing and refusal to remove it from his website. A news blackout remained through virtually all of the mainstream media. The first major Alabama news coverage appeared on a web blog at 6 p.m. Oct. 29 under the headline, Truth-teller or bomb-thrower? OpEdNews editor Joan Brunwasser earlier published an interview with me: Andrew Kreig: Alabama Journalist Roger Shuler Beaten and Arrested! A sympathetic reader of these reports dropped off enough food to last for several days, and another prevented a utility shut-off. Also, more than $1,000 has been contributed to a fund for potential legal expenses, including $200 from our Justice Integrity Project.

Most financial journalism and academic teaching maintains that gold is at best a quaint antique. I'm here to argue that gold not only remains money but may again be the best and most important money -- to argue that, even more than this, gold is in fact the secret knowledge of the financial universe.

Gold already is so important that Western central banks -- particularly the U.S. Treasury and its Exchange Stabilization Fund, the Federal Reserve, and allied central banks -- rig the gold market every day, even hour by hour, to control and usually suppress gold's price.


Why do Western central banks rig the gold market?

It's because gold is a powerful competitive international currency that, if allowed to function in a free market, will determine thevalue of other currencies, the level of interest rates, and the value of government bonds. Gold's performance is usually the opposite of the performance of government currencies and bonds. Hence central banks fight gold to defend their currencies and bonds.

The problem is that central bank tactics in this fight affect more than gold; they affect markets generally and eventually destroy markets generally. This destruction of markets now has a name, a name used even by former members of the Federal Reserve Board. That name is "financial repression."

In 1984, Ronald Reagan reminded the country why it should give him a second term in office. His campaign ran an ad with the simple message: "It's morning in America again." The president, so criticized by the left for embracing the good old days of America's heritage, brought the country a period of peace, prosperity, stability and dignity that Americans can only dream about today. In short, the ad was right on.

Things have changed. If an ad agency had to sum up the mood of the country, and be honest about it, it might come up with this pitch: "It's Halloween in America today." Washington has made this one of the scariest times in history, especially for younger generations of Americans.

The end could be near for cookies, the tiny pieces of code that marketers deploy on Web browsers to track people's online movements, serve targeted advertising and amass valuable user profiles. In the past month, Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. have said they are developing systems to plug into and control this river of data in ways that bypass the more than a thousand software companies that place cookies on websites.

The moves could radically shift the balance of power in the $120 billion global digital advertising industry - and have ad technology companies scrambling to figure out their next play. "There is a Battle Royal brewing," says Scott Meyer, chief executive of Evidon Inc., a company that helps businesses keep track of the cookies on their websites. "Whoever controls access to all that data can charge rent for it - and has a tremendous advantage going forward."

The Silicon Valley trio, which produce browsers, email services and operating systems used by billions across many devices, are positioned to potentially learn far more about people's activities than cookies ever could. Today, a diverse ecosystem of companies places cookies on websites to track people through browsers; now the giants see an opportunity to get into tracking themselves.

The United States poses the biggest nuclear threat to the world, former US Marine Ken O'Keefe tells Press TV in an interview.

"There is clearly no bigger threat to the safety and security of this world than the United States of America," O'Keefe said on Wednesday.He said the threat came from the US "unaccounted" nuclear weapons, adding, "The first nation that needs to disarm is the United States, but they're not going to do so willingly."