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Light Sabers

Russia turns the tables on US chemical weapons claims in Syria

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© Murad Sezer/AP

Chemical weapons were "clearly" used in Syria - but most likely by Syrian rebels, not the Syrian army, according to Moscow's ambassador to the United Nations.

A team of Russian experts made the assessment after visited Khan al-Assal, near Aleppo, where Syria claimed rebels had used chemical weapons in a March attack, CNN wrote.

The attack reportedly killed 26 people, including 16 regime troops.

CNN quoted Russia's envoy, Vitaly Churkin, as saying:

"The results of the analysis clearly indicate that the ordnance used in Khan al-Assal was not industrially manufactured and was filled with sarin [poison gas]."

Rebels had accused Syria of using chemical weapons in another part of the country at the same time, CNN added.

Cupcake Pink

Monsanto awarded World Food Prize, 'Nobel peace prize for agriculture'

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An executive with Monsanto Co and two other pioneers in agricultural biotechnology said their selection as winners of the $250,000 World Food Prize on Wednesday should encourage the wider use of genetically engineered crops.

The Iowa foundation that administers the prize, created by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug, said genetically modified crops offer higher yields and more resistance to pests, plant disease and harsh weather.

It was the first time the award, often regarded as the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for agriculture, has gone to a creator of GM crops.

While engineered varieties of crops like soybeans and corn are popular among U.S. farmers, they are not approved for cultivation in Europe. Some U.S. consumer groups also say genetically modified foods should be labeled, despite government assurances that the foods are safe.

Question

Small Utah ISP firm stands up to 'surveillance state' as corporations cower

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Xmission owner Pete Ashdown
Despite having fewer resources and a fraction of the customers that broadband giants like Verizon and AT&T boast, one small internet service provider has resisted pressure from the NSA and refused to turn over customer data without a warrant.

Xmission, an independent company based out of one office in Salt Lake City, Utah, has spent nearly two decades protecting its customers' privacy as the National Security Agency, Department of Justice, and prosecutors have ramped up pressure on internet service providers (ISPs).

Owner Pete Ashdown told RT that every data collection request stops at his desk, since he is the sole proprietor of Xmission. At a larger company, a panel of stockholders would bow to government pressure, he added.

"It's pretty basic for me. Most of their requests are not constitutional. They're not proper warrants so I turn them back," he said.

USA

Corruption and Cronyism: Obama donors take over top embassy jobs

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People who donated to Obama's campaign get plush appointments on taxpayers' dime.
Former ambassador likens practice to 'selling of public office' as figures show average amount of cash raised is $1.8m per post

Barack Obama has rewarded some of his most active campaign donors with plum jobs in foreign embassies, with the average amount raised by recent or imminent appointees soaring to $1.8m per post, according to a Guardian analysis.

The practice is hardly a new feature of US politics, but career diplomats in Washington are increasingly alarmed at how it has grown. One former ambassador described it as the selling of public office.

On Tuesday, Obama's chief money-raiser Matthew Barzun became the latest major donor to be nominated as an ambassador, when the White House put him forward as the next representative to the Court of St James's [British ambassador], a sought-after posting whose plush residence comes with a garden second only in size to that of Buckingham Palace.

As campaign finance chairman, Barzun helped raise $700m to fund President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. More than $2.3m of this was raised personally by Barzun, pictured, according to party records leaked to the New York Times, even though he had only just finished a posting as ambassador to Sweden after contributing to Obama's first campaign.

Attention

The world is getting more corrupt, and these are the 5 worst offenders

Bribery and Corruption
© Getty/AnthonyMarslandThe world is getting more corrupt, and you won't believe who are the worst offenders.
On Tuesday, Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International released its Global Corruption Barometer 2013, a worldwide survey of 114,000 people that analyzes bribery and corruption in 107 countries.

The report found that corruption and bribery are prevalent across both developed and underdeveloped nations: More than 50 percent of respondents in the world said corruption had worsened in recent years, and 27 percent admitted to paying bribes in order to access public services and institutions.

Few respondents see an easy way out of this growing problem. The majority of people don't believe in their government's capabilities to fight corruption.

Nearly 88 percent think that their leaders are doing a poor job at it, and most blame public institutions as the main corruption sources.

Here are five of the world's most corrupt institutions, according to the survey:

Bad Guys

American police state: Murderous militarized police use SWAT teams to raid citizens homes for trivial crimes

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© Public Affairs Books/Jenna Pope
Excerpted from "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces"

Sal Culosi is dead because he bet on a football game - but it wasn't a bookie or a loan shark who killed him. His local government killed him, ostensibly to protect him from his gambling habit.

Several months earlier at a local bar, Fairfax County, Virginia, detective David Baucum overheard the thirty-eight-year-old optometrist and some friends wagering on a college football game. "To Sal, betting a few bills on the Redskins was a stress reliever, done among friends," a friend of Culosi's told me shortly after his death. "None of us single, successful professionals ever thought that betting fifty bucks or so on the Virginia - Virginia Tech football game was a crime worthy of investigation." Baucum apparently did. After overhearing the men wagering, Baucum befriended Culosi as a cover to begin investigating him. During the next several months, he talked Culosi into raising the stakes of what Culosi thought were just more fun wagers between friends to make watching sports more interesting. Eventually Culosi and Baucum bet more than $2,000 in a single day. Under Virginia law, that was enough for police to charge Culosi with running a gambling operation. And that's when they brought in the SWAT team.

Eye 1

Obama administration urges federal employees to spy on each other to avoid leaks

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© Reuters / Eduardo Munoz
President Barack Obama has asked that federal agencies launch an unprecedented campaign requiring government workers to monitor the behavior of their colleagues and report potential leakers under the threat of prosecution.

McClatchy reporters Jonathan Landay and Marisa Taylor wrote Tuesday that the "Insider Threat" program mandated by Pres. Obama utilizes methods that, while meant to identify security threats from within, actually provoke co-workers to spy on one another.

The program is unprecedented in scope and hopes to prevent future instances where government secrets are spilled. According to a new report, however, the Insider Threat initiative and the techniques utilized by the agencies involved are not proven to work.

Insider Threat was authorized in October 2011 after Army Private first class Bradley Manning sent classified intelligence to the website WikiLeaks, an action that government prosecutors argued in court this week aided al-Qaeda by indirectly providing them with secret documents.

Through the program, employees are asked to monitor the behavior of their peers, and could face hefty penalties if they fail to alert higher-ups of a potential breach.

Question

Best of the Web: Matrix: Who is Edward Snowden?

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This article is a compilation of a number of pieces I've written about Ed Snowden and the NSA. It doesn't replace them, but it hits the high points...

Let's begin here: If you absolutely must have a hero, watch Superman movies.

If your need for a hero is so great, so cloying, so heavy, so juicy that it swamps your curiosity, don't read this.

If you can't separate Snowden's minor revelations from the question of who he is, if you can't entertain the notion that covert ops and intelligence-agency games are reeking with cover stories, false trails, and limited hangouts, you need more fun in your life.

NSA? CIA? These guys live for high-level bullshit. They get down on their knees and worship it. They fall into a suicidal funk if they aren't lying on at least three or four levels at once.

Okay. Let's look at Snowden's brief history as reported by The Guardian. Are there any holes?

Is the Pope Catholic?

Eye 1

Playing the victim: BP complains of 'injustices' in oil spill claims process

BP sought the intervention of federal judges in New Orleans yesterday in the way a court-appointed administrator is assessing and approving claims for payments from a partial settlement over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, calling on them correct what it termed "irreparable injustices".

Billions of dollars of settlement payments are at stake for the oil giant, which initially estimated that it would have to pay just under $8bn (£5.4bn) to resolve claims by affected residents and business in the Gulf coast. Concerned that the final figure could far exceed its estimate, BP's lawyer attacked the process being followed by Patrick Juneau, the court-appointed administrator. "Irreparable injustices are taking place and money is being dispensed to parties from whom it may not be recoverable," Ted Olson, a former US solicitor general, said in his opening argument before a panel of three federal judges.

But a lawyer representing local businesses and residents, Samuel Issacharoff, said that BP was well aware of the terms of the settlement. "There is no order of the lower court that is capable of being reviewed by this court," he said, questioning the appeals panel's authority to amend the settlement deal.

Stormtrooper

Lawmakers call for removal of guards at mining site

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© Rob Ganson
Visitors uneasy about new security measures

Madison, Wisconsin -Two lawmakers are asking a mining company to remove armed security guards at a proposed mining site in northern Wisconsin.

In a letter to the president of the Gogebic Taconite, State Sen. Bob Jauch and state Rep. Janet Bewley call the images of the armed guards "horrifying" and say the decision to hire the security firm is appalling.

"While no one can argue that your company does not have the right to protect your private property, these armed guards serve no purpose other than to intimidate local citizens and increase local tensions,"

Photos taken by visitors to the site in the Penokee Hills show guards dressed in camouflage uniforms with masks covering most of their faces. They are also armed with rifles, and some appear to have multiple weapons.

A Gogebic Taconite spokesperson said they are employing the armed guards for the safety of their employees after drilling opponents allegedly attacked the drill site a few weeks ago.

The lawmakers question why the guards are carrying assault weapons because they don't have the legal right to use them to protect property. The letter also states that the property is open to the public and not owned by the mining company.

"Not only does this decision reflect bad judgment, it is unfortunate that you don't understand how damaging an image it creates of Northern Wisconsin. Those who live here and work here hardly want to spend their time explaining that our forests are not filled with mercenaries from third world countries."

Gogebic Taconite officials said they will keep the armed guards on duty for the foreseeable future.