This year's top stories get to the heart of critical issues like privacy, government transparency and government overreach. From the death of internet icon Aaron Swartz to the historic military trial of Chelsea Manning to unprecedented scrutiny of the drone campaign, RT correspondent Liz Wahl takes a look at the seven top stories we covered that the mainstream media underreported or overlooked 2013.
Puppet Masters
© CultureChange.org
Some conservatives continue to claim that President Obama is unfriendly to business, but the facts show that the richest Americans and the biggest businesses have been the main - perhaps only - beneficiaries of the massive wealth gain over the past five years.
1. $5 Million to Each of the 1%, and $1 Million to Each of the Next 4%
From the end of 2008 to the middle of 2013 total U.S. wealth increased from $47 trillion to $72 trillion. About $16 trillion of that is financial gain (stocks and other financial instruments).
The richest 1% own about 38 percent of stocks, and half of non-stock financial assets. So they've gained at least $6.1 trillion (38 percent of $16 trillion). That's over $5 million for each of 1.2 million households.
The next richest 4%, based on similar calculations, gained about $5.1 trillion. That's over a million dollars for each of their 4.8 million households.
The least wealthy 90% in our country own only 11 percent of all stocks excluding pensions (which are fast disappearing). The frantic recent surge in the stock market has largely bypassed these families.
© AFP/Sam Yeh
A monitor shows the temperature of passengers at Sungshan Airport in Taipei, on April 4, 2013
A monitor shows the temperature of passengers at Sungshan Airport in Taipei, on April 4, 2013
The 86-year-old man from the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu is in stable condition in hospital in Taiwan, where he was on an eight-day tour, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said in a statement.
As many as 500 people may have had contact with him, all of whom are being asked to report to doctors should they develop possible symptoms, the statement added.
The 149 people who may have had close contact include two family members accompanying him on the tour, the tour guide, bus driver, medical personnel and patients sharing the same hospital ward, it said.
Daddy Bush was meeting one of these brothers on the morning of 9/11.
When does conspiracy theory become conspiracy fact?
The following snippet from a 2003 CBC News investigation into the Bin Laden-Bush connections reveals the close business relationships the two clans had going back three decades.
© AP Photo/CTK, Krumphanzl Michal
Ambassador Jamel al-Jamal, 56, was at home with his family at the time of the explosion, according to Palestinian Embassy spokesman Nabil El-Fahel. Al-Jamal was seriously injured and rushed to a hospital where he died, according to police spokeswoman Andrea Zoulova.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said no foul play was suspected, noting that the safe had been left untouched for more than 20 years.
The safe was recently moved from the old embassy building, but it had come from a building that used to house the Palestinian Liberation Organization's offices in the 1980s.
"The ambassador decided to open it. After he opened it, apparently something happened inside (the safe) and went off," Malki told The Associated Press.
It was not immediately clear how Malki knew the safe had been untouched for more than 20 years or why the safe would have contained something explosive.
© Zoonabar/cc via Flickr
Bankers on Wall Street rang in the final hours of 2013 with gains unseen in almost twenty years. However, for roughly half of America, these stock market highs mean nothing as they face a new year with little work and even less of a safety net.
"Never, I don't think, in recent history have you had unemployment this chronically high for so long with the market having done this well," Roben Farzad, an economics writer and contributor to Bloomberg's Businessweek, said on PBS Newshour Tuesday.
"There's a stat that Obama's bull market just beat Ronald Reagan's. I dare say, if you canvass the man on the street, no one would guess that we beat the decade of decadence already. You're certainly not feeling it out there," he continued.
At the end of the day Tuesday, the Standard & Poor index closed with a nearly 30 percent gain, its best since 1997. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also closed at a record high, reaching 16,576.73, up 26.5 percent on the year - marking the largest annual jump since 1996.
And, according to the Wall Street Journal, when dividends are taken into account, stocks posted their best returns since 1995.
However, for the half of Americans who avoid or cannot afford to dally in the stock market, these gains are inconsequential. With the unemployment rate currently near 7 percent, it's clear that many of these corporate gains have not had any positive impact on working people.
© Rick McFarland
Lt. Gov. Mark Darr
Lt. Gov. Mark Darr
The Democratic governor's request for his Republican second-in-command to step down came a day after Darr agreed to pay $11,000 in fines to settle complaints that he misspent campaign cash and failed to keep adequate records.
"I think it's in everyone's best interest, including Mr. Darr, if he resign," Beebe said.
That may not happen anytime soon, though, as the governor also said he had spoken to Darr and Darr told him he intends to remain in office.
Darr couldn't be reached for comment immediately after Beebe spoke to reporters, but the lieutenant governor's spokeswoman, Amber Pool, confirmed he plans to stay on the job.
"Lt. Gov. Darr has no plans to resign," she said.
The ethics case is similar to one earlier this year against former Democratic state Sen. Paul Bookout. In August, Beebe was prepared to ask Bookout to quit over similar allegations. Instead, Bookout resigned, accepted the commission's findings and to pay $8,000 in fines and to repay campaign contributors.
© Reuters/Ints Kalnins
Latvia's central bank governor Ilmars Rimsevics (L-R), Estonia's Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, Latvia's Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis and Latvia's Minister of Finance Andris Vilks, pose with euro banknotes during an official event in Riga January 1, 2014.
Latvia's central bank governor Ilmars Rimsevics (L-R), Estonia's Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, Latvia's Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis and Latvia's Minister of Finance Andris Vilks, pose with euro banknotes during an official event in Riga January 1, 2014.
The euro switchover ceremony took place Jan. 1 at the HQ of the state-owned Citatele Bank - the lender reconstituted from the collapsed Parex Bank, where Latvia's worst 2008-10 economic crisis began.
"It's a big opportunity for Latvia's economic development," said the country's acting prime minister, Valdis Dombrovskis, withdrawing the first 10-euro banknote from an ATM in Riga, Latvia's capital.
But Dombrovskis, who led Latvia through its economic crisis, warned that joining the euro was an opportunity, but not a guarantee of wealth. "It's not an excuse not to pursue a responsible fiscal and macroeconomic policy," he said.
EU policymakers congratulated Latvia's on its accession to the eurozone.
"For Latvia, it is the result of impressive efforts and the unwavering determination of the authorities and the Latvian people," European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said. "Latvia will enter the euro area stronger than ever, sending an encouraging message to other countries undergoing a difficult economic adjustment."
Slovakia agreed to repatriate Yusef Abbas, Hajiakbar Abdulghupur, and Saidullah Khalik, who could not be transferred to the U.S. mainland because of Congressional restrictions. The decision is consistent with the Guantanamo approach codified in the newly signed 2014 National Defense Authorization Act, which maintains the ban on transferring detainees to the United States while increasing the president's power to transfer detainees to other nations.
The deal with Slovakia is a comparatively happy ending to a terribly sad saga. The 22 Uighurs rounded up by the United States in 2001 were fleeing brutal persecution in China, which represses the mere expression of Uighur religion and culture as a matter of policy. "At its most extreme," Human Rights Watch documented in 2005, "peaceful [Uighur] activists practicing their religion in ways that the Party and government deem unacceptable are arrested, tortured, and at times executed."
© Twitter
Bashar al-Assad's meeting with the WikiLeaks party delegation.
Bashar al-Assad's meeting with the WikiLeaks party delegation.
A WikiLeaks party delegation, reportedly including its founder Julian Assange's father, John Shipton, held talks with a number of high-ranking Syrian officials, with a picture released by the Syrian government of a meeting with the president himself.
Before the visit, the party stated it was going as part of its "peace and reconciliation" efforts, as well as warning over the dangers of western intervention into the bloody three-year Syrian civil war. Shipton said he wanted to show "solidarity" with the Syrian people and told a local TV station that WikiLeaks would be opening an office in Damascus this year.
But WikiLeaks has distanced itself from the trip, saying via Twitter that while peace brokering is a "good idea", it "did not know or approve" of the delegation's visit to Syria.
Julie Bishop, the Australian foreign affairs minister, said Syria was not a place for "political parties to pursue their political ends".
"I find it extraordinarily reckless that an organisation registered as a political party in Australia would seek to insert itself into the conflict in Syria and engage with a leader accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including using chemical weapons against his own people," Bishop told The Australian newspaper.
Comment: For more on the propaganda against Syria and Assad's fabricated brutality, see:
President Assad of Syria: 'We're fighting a new style of war - terrorism through proxies'
U.S. 'planned to launch chemical weapon attack on Syria and blame it on Assad'
U.S. 'planned to launch chemical weapon attack on Syria and blame Assad'
Syria's President al-Assad sets the record straight on chemical weapons, UN inspections and Western terrorism
Syria's Assad warns West over Qaeda, says defeat of his regime 'not an option'
Coup d' Etat in Syria almost complete: Obama says Assad must resign
Comment: We don't for a minute believe the U.S. only just discovered that these men were 'innocent'.
Besides its propaganda function of showing Americans 'what would happen to them' if they didn't get behind the 'War on Terror', Guantanamo also served as a terrorist processing center. This is why many of them turned up in Yemen, Libya, China and elsewhere.