Puppet MastersS


Top Secret

More revelations from Edward Snowden: "Some of the most important reporting to be done is yet to come"

Glenn Chapman
Yahoo! News
Tue, 18 Mar 2014 16:02 UTC
Image
© AFP/Beto BarataA member of the Avaaz online community organization wears a "Snowden" mask in Brasilia, on February 13, 2014.
Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden emerged from his Russian exile Tuesday in the form of a remotely-controlled robot to promise more sensational revelations about US spying programs.

The fugitive's face appeared on a screen as he maneuvered the wheeled android around a stage at the TED gathering, addressing an audience in Vancouver without ever leaving his secret hideaway.

"There are absolutely more revelations to come," he said. "Some of the most important reporting to be done is yet to come."

Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who has been charged in the United States with espionage, dismissed the public debate about whether he is a heroic whistleblower or traitor.

Instead, he used the conference organized by educational non-profit organization TED ("Technology Entertainment Design"), to call for people worldwide to fight for privacy and Internet freedom.

Internet creator Tim Berners-Lee briefly joined Snowden's interview with TED curator Chris Anderson, and came down in the hero camp.
Read More...
Vader

US-backed military regime in Egypt sentences 529 Morsi supporters to death

Patrick Kingsley
The Guardian
Mon, 24 Mar 2014 13:13 UTC
Image
© AFP/GETTYEgyptian relatives of supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi cry after the court ordered the execution of 529 Morsi supporters after only two hearings.
Complaints of miscarriage of justice as judge takes just two sessions to find defendants guilty of police officer's murder

A judge in southern Egypt has taken just two court sessions to sentence to death 529 supporters of Mohamed Morsi for the murder of a single police officer.

Sixteen people were acquitted after lawyers said they had not been allowed to present a proper defence before the judgment was made.

The defendants were arrested last August during a wave of unrest in which supporters of the former president react violently to the clearance of a pro-Morsi sit-in in Cairo during which more than 900 people were killed. In addition to the murder, the 529 were accused of attempting to kill two other police officers and attacking a police station.

The death sentences are not final and appeals are likely; similar sentences have often been commuted in Egypt. But families of the accused and rights lawyers described the process as a miscarriage of justice.

Waleed Sultan, whose father was among those sentenced to death, said: "Nothing can describe this scandal. This is not a judicial sentence, this is thuggery."
Read More...
Calculator

Russia's State Duma passes amendment allowing voters to contest election results


RT
Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:18 UTC
Image
© RIA Novosti / Yakov Andreev
The Russian Lower House has approved an amendment allowing the annulment of election results if voters complain of irregularities.

The bill changing the federal law on the basic guarantees of voters' rights has been presented following last year's ruling of the Constitutional Court confirming that ordinary citizens can contest election results, though only in the constituencies in which they cast their votes.

Previously, the processes of investigating violations at elections could only be started after complaints from candidates or participating parties.

The new bill stipulates that any voter can turn to the courts with complaints over the decisions, actions or inactions of the district elections commissions. The new rule applies to elections to state bodies and to referendums. If a court finds the election results invalid a recount of votes is automatically ordered, but only in the constituency where the proven violations took place.
Read More...
Cow

Hypocrite Feinstein changed her mind about surveillance drones due to toy helicopter


RT
Mon, 17 Mar 2014 21:00 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Kevin LemarqueA Code Pink demonstrator wearing a mock drone.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) now says she has some serious privacy concerns about domestic drones, but it might have been nothing more than a children's toy that put her over the edge.

Feinstein - who also serves as the head of the US Senate Intelligence Committee - has since last year been advocating for her congressional colleagues to implement privacy safeguards to protect Americans from any potential surveillance threats brought on by the small, unmanned aerial vehicles expected to soon invade local airspace.

"The administration is looking at a rules playbook as to how these won't be used and how they will be used," Feinstein told MSNBC a year ago this month. "So it's a very complicated subject of new technology and I think we have to take a pause and get it right."

But speaking to journalists at the CBS News program 60 Minutes recently, Sen. Feinstein shared a personal story that put into better perspective why exactly she's so worried about spy drones. During an episode that aired Sunday evening, Feinstein said an experience that she recently had with a "drone" outside of her home had something to do with how she now views UAVs.
Read More...
Red Flag

Far-right National Front set to surge in French local elections?


Raw Story
Sun, 23 Mar 2014 12:13 UTC
Image
© Thierry Zoccolan/AFPA volunteer counts voting envelopes during the first round of local elections at a polling station in Saint-Jean-Saint-Gervais, central France, on March 23, 2014
French voters went to the polls on Sunday in the first round of local elections set to represent a landmark for women in politics and, possibly, for the far-right National Front.

The first nationwide vote since Francois Hollande's 2012 election as president took place with the ruling Socialists battling record unpopularity and the main opposition UMP party grappling with scandals embroiling former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Against that backdrop, polls have suggested around one in four voters are considering casting their votes for Marine Le Pen's National Front (FN), setting the scene for what could be a breakthrough election for the anti-immigration, anti-EU party led by the daughter of its founder Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Read More...
Blue Planet

U.S. Navy pollutes Diego Garcia coral lagoon area - cleared of natives in order to 'protect environment'


RT
Mon, 17 Mar 2014 19:59 UTC
Image
© WikipediaChagos Islands, Diego Garcia
The US Navy has been discharging sewage and waste water into the British-owned and protected Diego Garcia coral lagoon since the 1980s, according to a new report by the UK-based Independent.

The base in question - located on the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean - has been the focus of intense lobbying by supporters of the native residents, who were resettled elsewhere in the 1970s in order to make way for a US naval establishment. The British government has stated on multiple occasions that those Chagossians could not return to the island due to its effort to maintain the area's unspoiled habitat.

Despite these claims, however, scientists have found the state of the coral in the lagoon to be deteriorating, and have singled out increased levels of nitrogen and phosphate as the possible culprits. According to the Independent, the presence of these elements is likely the result of the US Navy dumping treated sewage water and other waste into the lagoon for the last three decades.

Although the British government was aware of the Navy's behavior in 2013, it has only now been revealed to the public.
Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Georgia summons ex-president and U.S. puppet Saakashvili for questioning in criminal investigations


RT
Sat, 22 Mar 2014 11:54 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / Vasily MaximovFormer Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili
The Prosecutor General's Office of Georgia intends to question former president Mikhail Saakashvili as a witness in a number of criminal cases. After resigning Saakashvili left Georgia last November and currently lives and lectures in the US.

Saakashvili has been summoned to come to the prosecutor's office in Tbilisi next Thursday, on March 27, at 10 AM local time (6 AM GMT).

"As investigations of a number of criminal cases have entered a terminal stage, the prosecutor's office is facing the necessity to question Mikhail Saakashvili as a witness in these cases," a statement from the prosecutor's office said on Saturday. No comments from Saakashvili's representative have been available so far.

The prosecutor is waiting for Saakashvili, who is currently lecturing at Boston's Tufts University, to answer questions regarding as many as 10 instituted criminal proceedings.
Read More...
Pistol

Time to grab guns and kill damn Russians - Tymoshenko in leaked tape


RT
Mon, 24 Mar 2014 16:42 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Cathal McNaughtonYulia Tymoshenko
Ukrainians must take up arms against Russians so that not even scorched earth will be left where Russia stands; an example of former Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko's vitriol in phone call leaked online.
Read More...
Vader

Western neo-colonialism: Bomb strikes Libyan capital's international airport


RT
Sat, 22 Mar 2014 11:51 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Ismail ZitounyPassengers look at a flight information monitor after the reopening of the airport in Tripoli March 21, 2014.
A bomb exploded in the major airport of Libya's capital, Tripoli, sparking further concerns about the widespread violence that has plunged the crisis-torn country into chaos.

Unidentified people managed to get onto the runway at Tripoli International Airport, plant an explosive device at dawn and detonate it using a timer, said Transport Minister Abdelqader Mohammed Ahmed.

"When security and the airport protection force arrived they found a timer," he said, adding that the explosion was "small."

The authorities immediately closed the airport, which is considered to be one of the best-guarded places in the country. Flights, both local and international, were immediately canceled.
Read More...
War Whore

Western neo-colonialism: Double bombing hits Iraq after Friday wave of attacks claimed 50 lives


RT
Sat, 22 Mar 2014 11:47 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / StrIraqis gather around smoke rising from a building following a double car bomb explosion southeast of Baghdad on March 18, 2014.
At least seven people have been killed in a double bombing in Iraq on Saturday, after the bloodshed on the previous day took the lives of at least 50 people in a string of attacks, making it one of the deadliest since the beginning of the year.

At least five policemen and two civilians have been killed and 18 people injured in a double bombing in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit. A roadside bomb exploded in a commercial street, while a few minutes later a car bomb struck policemen who arrived to inspect the first blast.

The attacks come after the deadly Friday events, in which the crisis-torn country was hit by multiple terror attacks.

In the first suicide attack on Friday, an unidentified gunman rammed an explosives-laden tanker into police HQ in the village of Injana, in Diyala province in north-eastern Iraq, 120 km north of Baghdad. According to Al Jazeera, twelve people were killed - including the battalion commander, Brigadier Ragheb al-Omari and his assistant, and dozens were injured.
Read More...