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Homeland Security denies existence of interrogation records for two New York Times reporters

Two New York Times reporters sued the Department of Homeland Security for records on their interrogations at JFK Airport this year.

The DHS claims the records do not exist, though one reporter claims his interview was entered on a computer.

Mac William Bishop and Christopher Chivers sued the Department of Homeland Security in Federal Court.

Both filed FOIA requests for information about their questioning at the airport; both were brushed off.

Both reporters were "subject to segregated questioning by DHS employees at JFK on May 24, 2013, as they prepared to board an international flight for a work assignment as journalists. Subsequently, on June 6, 2013, Mr. Bishop was subjected to further segregated questioning by DHS employees at JFK as he returned to the United States," according to the lawsuit.

Pirates

Canada to include the North Pole in its claim for Arctic territory, resources

The Arctic
© AFP Photo / Affanassy Makovnev
Canadian officials confirmed Monday that the nation is preparing to include the North Pole as part of its Arctic Ocean seabed claim in the multi-country push to prove jurisdiction over further territory in the resource-rich area.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Arctic Council chair Leona Aglukkaq officially announced Monday Canada's claim to the extended continental shelf in the Arctic. It was reported by The Globe and Mail last week that Prime Minister Stephen Harper requested a government board charged with assessing Canada's claims beyond its territorial waterways, per United Nations rules, to seek a more expansive stake of Arctic area to include the North Pole.

"We have asked our officials and scientists to do additional work and necessary work to ensure that a submission for the full extent of the continental shelf in the Arctic includes Canada's claim to the North Pole," Baird said during a press conference at the House of Commons.

Hearts

Russia to cancel Cuba's $29 billion of Soviet debt

Cuban and Russian national flags
© Reuters/Enrique De La OsaThe Cuban and Russian national flags
Russia is going to write off 90 percent of Cuba's $32 billion Soviet-era debt as part of a deal to end a 20-year dispute, according to diplomatic sources cited by Reuters.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev agreed to write off the island's debt during a visit to Havana in February 2013, stressing details would be finalized by the end of the year.

In October, the two sides announced a refinancing agreement that requires Cuba to pay Moscow $3.2 billion over ten years, and Russia would forgive the remaining $29 billion, which is $20 billion in debt plus service and interest. Between $5-6 billion of Cuba's remaining foreign debt is non-Soviet.

The deal still needs to be agreed on by Russian lawmakers, and there has been no comment from Cuban or Russian officials.

Cash-strapped Cuba has been feverishly trying to restructure its debt to jump start it's economy and attract investment. Three years ago it restructured $6 billion of its debt with China, and in 2012 Japan forgave about $1.4 billion, Reuters reports.

Mexico recently forgave $478 million of Cuban debt, and Havana agreed to pay back $146 million over 10 years.

In 2012 Cuba's debt was estimated by government officials at $13.6 billion. This debt is categorized as "active" foreign debt, and the other debts before its default in the 1980s is considered "passive", according to Reuters.

Cuba defaulted on its debt to the Paris Club- a group of the world's leading economies-Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US - in 1986. Cuba doesn't belong to any international lending organizations, like the International Monetary Fund.

Flashlight

So many secrets in the East China Sea

The China Sea
© Unknown
It's been a source of endless fascination to follow the game of geopolitical Go being played since China declared an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea.

The spin in the United States is relentless; this was no less than "saber-rattling", a "bellicose" posture and a unilateral "provocation". The meeting last week between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US Vice-President Joe Biden in Beijing may have done nothing to dispel it.

This is what the White House says Xi and Biden talked about; Beijing did not release a transcript. In the hysteria front, this op-ed in the Financial Times - reflecting a warped consensus in the City of London - even managed to crank it up to pre-World War II levels.

Now compare it with the official Chinese media view, from a more conciliatory take in China Daily to a no-holds barred assertion of sovereignty in the Global Times.

Which brings us to the scenario that the original provocation may have been actually Japanese, and not Chinese.

Mr Xi, tear down this wall

The whole drama is far from being just about a few islets and rocks that China calls Diaoyu and Japan Senkaku, or the crucial access to the precious waters that surround them, harboring untold riches in oil and natural gas; it concerns no less than the future of China as a sea power rivaling the US.

Let's start with the facts on the sea. Meiji-era documents prove without a doubt that the Japanese government not only admitted that these islands were Chinese (since at least the 16th century) but was also plotting to grab them; that's exactly what happened in 1895, during the first Sino-Japanese war, a historical juncture when China was extremely vulnerable.

After the Japanese occupation of China and World War II, Washington was in control of the territory. A document signed by the Japanese promised the return of the islands to China after the war. It was never fulfilled. In 1972, the US handed over their "administration" to Japan - but without pronouncing itself about who owned them. A gentlemen's agreement between Chinese premier Zhou Enlai and Japanese prime minister Kakuei Tanaka was also in effect. It was also ignored.

Tokyo ended up buying the islands from a private landowner, the Kurihara family, nationalizing them in September 2012 only a day after a summit between then Chinese President Hu Jintao and PM Yoshihiko Noda, and this after Hu had told Noda not to change the status quo.

Recently, to make matters worse, the Obama administration issued yet one more of its absurd "red lines", affirming it would support Japan in the event of a war revolving around the islands.

Geostrategically, it's even more complex. Virtually all of China's sea trade flows through choke points whose borders are either controlled by close US allies or nations that are not exactly allied with China.

Imagine yourself as a Chinese naval strategist. You look at the seascapes around you and all you see is what strategists call the First Island Chain. That virtual arc goes from Japan and the Ryukyu islands and the Korean peninsula, in the north, moving southwards via Taiwan, Philippines and Indonesia towards Australia. It's your ultimate nightmare. Assuming any serious confrontation along this arc, the US Navy will be able to move its aircraft carriers around and seriously compromise China's access to its oil transported via the straits of Malacca.

Territorial disputes are the norm in the East and South China Seas. In the East China Sea the focus is on the Diaoyu/Senkaku. In the South China Sea it's the Spratly Islands (China opposed to Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam) and the Paracel islands (China opposed to Vietnam). Not to mention other disputes now on the backburner with Malaysia and Brunei.

So from the point of view of our Chinese naval strategist, what is deployed is a sort of Reverse Great Wall, an expression, by the way, immensely popular in circles such as the US Naval War College. It's like an invisible sea wall from Japan to Australia that can in theory block China's access to the Pacific.

And if - and that's a major, long-term if - there ever would be a US blockade, with its sea trade lanes closed, the Chinese economy would be in tremendous trouble.

They know it in Beijing, and they are wiling to do anything to prevent it.

In search of good PR

What Biden, not to mention US corporate media, is not telling world public opinion is how, for Washington, this has a lot to do with Okinawa - the key hub from which the US is capable of projecting power west of Japan. It's as if Okinawa was the US's Hadrian's wall.

In reverse, Okinawa is also essential for Japan to remain indispensable to the US. It's as if Tokyo was employing the Pentagon as mercenaries - as much as the Pentagon uses mercenaries in its global shadow wars. Talk about a low cost/high return business model. Japan thus keeps its defense spending at 1% of GDP (yet it's now rising while for most countries this may be at 3% or more.

Were Beijing to actually enforce for good its aerial jurisdiction around the Diayou islands, that would be the beginning of the breach of this aquatic Hadrian's wall. For the moment, though, ADIZ is a message to Washington, part of the much-vaunted xinxing daguo guanxi - the "New Type of Great Power Relations" being implemented slowly but surely by President Xi Jinping.

Beijing may be right on principle and certainly does want to create facts on the sea. What happened was essentially a PR disaster - an inability convincingly to "sell" the ADIZ to world public opinion. Absolutely nothing will convince any Chinese administration that this is not about Japan encroaching upon a territory and sphere of sovereignty that have been Chinese for centuries.

Instead of the usual ritualistic pilgrimages to revere "heroes" in shrines accused of committing hair-raising massacres, Tokyo could easily defuse the problem by admitting to its appalling imperial adventures in Asia. Tokyo could also redefine its role in Asia by behaving like an Asian power - and not some obedient Western appendix, as it's perceived by millions across the continent, and not only by the Chinese.

Ultimately, the only way to defuse the Diaoyu/Senkaku/ADIZ problem would be for Beijing and Tokyo to sit at the table and work out a security treaty for these East China Sea lanes - ideally arbitrated by the United Nations. The problem is Tokyo simply does not admit there is a problem. Now Beijing's strategy is to force the Japanese to do it. Perhaps Beijing should consider hiring an American PR agency, like everyone does.

(Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). )

Eye 1

U.S. and UK military intelligence 'planted agents' into World of Warcraft, Second Life to spy on gamers

world of warcraft
© Image from todofondosdejuegos.com
The NSA and the UK's GCHQ spying agencies have collected players' charts and deployed real-life agents into online World of Warcraft and Second Life games, a new leak by whistleblower Edward Snowden has revealed.

An NSA document from 2008, titled "Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments," was published Monday by The Guardian in partnership with The New York Times and ProPublica.

In the report, the agency warned of the risk of leaving games communities under-monitored and described them as a "target-rich communications network" where intelligence targets could "hide in plain sight."

The document showed that the US and UK spy agencies were collecting large amounts of data in the Xbox Live console network, which has more than 48 million players.

Real-life agents have been deployed into the World of Warcraft multiplayer online role-playing game and the virtual world of Second Life, in which people interact with each other through avatars. The NSA and GCHQ also tried to recruit potential informants among the gamers, the report said.

Vader

U.S. Republican military man Lawrence Wilkerson: The federal republic is dying because the elites love war


"The old Federal Democratic Republic is dying"

Is the US turning into a National Security State?

Army colonel, former Chief of Staff for Colin Powell and Bush-Cheney administration insider, Lawrence Wilkerson says "yes."

He says he has been disabused of his views of the military as well as his perspectives on the Republican party, and describes the mutation of the Republican party from what it was as recently as under Roland Reagan to what it is today.

"This is crazy. This was what we do today. We do war. The old Federal Republic is dying."

Eye 2

Best of the Web: The pathology of the elite class

On RAI with Paul Jay, Chris Hedges discusses the psychology of the super rich; their sense of entitlement, the dehumanization of workers, and mistaken belief that their wealth will insulate them from the coming storms


Paul Jay, Senior Editor, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome to Reality Asserts Itself. A few weeks ago, we did a series of interviews with Chris Hedges, and one of the things we talked about was the weakness of the left, the weakness of the people's movement, if you will. Well, we're going to continue that discussion now. And Chris joins us again in the studio.

Chris, as everyone probably knows by now, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a senior fellow at the Nation Institute. Along with Joe Sacco he wrote the New York Times bestseller Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt. And he writes a weekly column for Truthdig.

Thanks for joining us.

Chris Hedges, Journalist, Senior Fellow at the Nation Institute: Thank you.

Jay: So last time we talked a lot about something you had said in 2008 and you've written more recently about: one of the greatest weaknesses of the left was not creating a viable vision of what an alternative politics and economy looks like, a viable vision of a socialism. But you've written more recently about some other weaknesses, you could say, of the people's movement, and here's one. And I'll read it back. This is a piece you wrote called "Let's Get This Class War Started", which I guess is a play on Pink's song, is it? "Let's Get This Party Started". The quote is: "The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults." What are you talking about?

Hedges: Because we don't understand the pathology of the rich. We've been saturated with cultural images and a kind of cultural deification of wealth and those who have wealth. We are being--you know, they present people of immense wealth as somehow leaders--oracles, even. And we don't grasp internally what it is an oligarchic class is finally about or how venal and morally bankrupt they are. We need to recover the language of class warfare and grasp what is happening to us, and we need to shatter this self-delusion that somehow if, as Obama says, we work hard enough and study hard enough, we can be one of them. The fact is, the people who created the economic mess that we're in were the best-educated people in the country--Larry Summers, a former president of Harvard, and others. The issue is not education. The issue is greed. And I, unfortunately, had the experience of being shipped off to a private boarding school at the age of ten as a scholarship student and live--I was one of 16 kids on scholarship, and I lived among the super-rich and I watched them. And I think much of my hatred of authority and my repugnance for the ruling elite comes from having been among them for so long.

Che Guevara

Afghanistan agrees to pact with Iran, while resisting U.S. accord

Image
© AP Photo/Ebrahim NorooziIran's President Hassan Rouhani, right, stands with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, before their meeting at Tehran's Saadabad Palace in Iran, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2013. Karzai arrived in Tehran for a one-day visit on Sunday to discuss regional and international issues with Iranian officials.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed on a cooperation pact with Iran, despite continuing to resist signing a security agreement with the U.S., Reuters reported.

Karzai made the deal with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran Sunday.

"Afghanistan agreed on a long-term friendship and cooperation pact with Iran," Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi said, according to Reuters. "The pact will be for long-term political, security, economic and cultural cooperation, regional peace and security."

Afghanistan signed a cooperation pact with Iran in August covering mainly security issues, but Faizi said the proposed new agreement would have a broader scope.

Rouhani said Sunday his country opposes the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan and the region, saying their presence generates tension, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Cowboy Hat

Edward Snowden to give evidence to EU parliament, says MEP

Image
© Thomas Peter/ReutersA protester holds a portrait of Edward Snowden outside the US embassy in Berlin.
British Conservatives oppose video appearance by NSA whistleblower, which Green MEP says could happen this year

The European parliament is lining up Edward Snowden to give evidence by video link this month, in spite of resistance by British Conservatives, a Green MEP has announced.

Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green MEP, said parliamentarians wanted Snowden to appear before the assembly's committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs (LIBE).

Albrecht said it would represent a great success for the parliament's investigation into mass surveillance of EU citizens.

He said: "Half a year after the first publications from his collection of numerous NSA documents, the truth of which has not so far been refuted, there are still consequences as far as political responsibility is concerned.

The basic political will is there. Now we will need to see if we can get a formal majority for a hearing and hope Snowden can keep his promise to answer questions on the affair."

The LIBE committee would most likely want questions on what role other European information services played in data gathering for the NSA, and whether servers and data networks in the EU were used as part of the process.

Handcuffs

Australians fighting in Syria: 2 men arrested in Sydney after police raids

Attorney general worried about the 'radicalisation of Australians' after men charged with foreign incursion offences
police arrest men
© AFPPolice arrest one of two men suspected of involvement with the conflict in Syria.
The attorney general has said he is worried about the "radicalisation of Australians" after police charged two Sydney men with foreign incursion offences related to Australians fighting alongside rebel groups in Syria. Officers from the joint counter terrorism team, involving Australian federal police and New South Wales police, arrested the two men in simultaneous raids on Tuesday after a four-month investigation.

Police alleged that a 39-year-old man from St Helen's Park was involved in the recruitment and assistance of six people travelling to Syria to fight alongside the rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra and other al-Qaeda affiliates. The AFP expect him to face seven charges. A 23-year-old from Lidcombe, who the AFP believe was preparing to travel to Syria, was also arrested. He is said to be facing four charges.

The two men are facing charges under the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act 1978, with penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment if found guilty.