9 July 2013 — FAIR Blog
Walter Pincus
To Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus (7/9/13), something about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden just doesn’t smell right. Lucky for him he gets space in a prestigious newspaper to work out his hunch–apparently without any editors or factcheckers to get in his way.
9 July 2013 — Washington’s Blog
A Real Court Needs to Hear Both Sides
We’ve noted that there is no real oversight by the courts or Congress on the NSA’s spying programs.
9 July 2013 — Venezuela Analysis
Mérida, – Brazilian daily O Globo, reporting jointly with Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald informed today that according to the leaked National Security Agency (NSA) documents, the United States has also been spying on Venezuela’s petroleum industry. The information comes as governments confirm that whistleblower Edward Snowden has accepted asylum in Venezuela.
9 July 2013 — NACLA
The particular character of what Hugo Chávez called the Bolivarian process lies in the understanding that social transformation can be constructed from two directions, “from above” and “from below.” Bolivarianism—or Chavismo—includes among its participants both traditional organizations and new autonomous groups; it encompasses both state-centric and anti-systemic currents. The process thus differs from traditional Leninist or social democratic approaches, both of which see the state as the central agent of change; it differs as well from movement-based approaches that conceive of no role whatsoever for the state in a process of revolutionary change.
9 July 2013 — RT
A new report has revealed that the rice supply in at least 30 countries may have already been contaminated with genetically modified strains from US exports, thereby threatening worldwide contamination.
9 July 2013 — williambowles.info
WikiLeaks trial opens with leaked video of US helicopter attack
CTV News
FORT MEADE, Md. — Lawyers for a U.S. Army soldier who gave thousands of classified documents to the secrets-spilling website WikiLeaks opened their defence at his trial Monday with leaked video of a helicopter attack in Baghdad — footage that …
9 July 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation
The numbers and claims are conflicting, but it seems that the Egyptian army has indeed committed a cold-blooded massacre – killing between 30 and 54 people and wounding hundreds more, including children, in the capital, Cairo, according to various media sources. The bloodshed pushes the North African country to the brink of civil war, already roiled by weeks of violence, with dozens dead in street clashes between opposing political factions, that culminated last week in the country’s army deposing the elected Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi…
9 July 2013 — RT
A light project by German artist Oliver Bienkowski and online activist Kim Dotcom beamed onto the building of the US mission in Germany from Sunday night into Monday. Using a powerful projector, the words lit up the embassy’s walls, making the comparison visible to all in the vicinity.
9 July 2013 — Information Clearing House
So Much For Middle East Democracy
By Eric Margolis
The real story behind the military coup in Cairo led by General al-Sissi is much more complex than the western media is reporting.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35491.htm
9 July 2013 — RT
9 July 2013 — PressTV
US whistleblower Edward Snowden has accepted an offer of political asylum from Venezuela, a top Russian lawmaker confirms.
9 July 2013 — New Left Project
As we reflect on the post-Leveson political furore, it is worth recalling Stuart Hall’s maxim that it is the way in which public problems are defined – rather than their proposed solutions – which exemplifies the exercise of real power in advanced capitalist democracies.
9 July 2013 — Open Democracy
• Unlawful killing verdict • Jimmy Mubenga died after ‘restraint’ by three G4S guards • G4S gave disputed evidence to Parliamentary committee about restraint techniques • Lately executive Stephen Small dismissed allegations about abuse of asylum seekers housed by G4S
9 July 2013 — RT
The Egyptian military’s removal of the Muslim Brotherhood government is seen as a military coup, or an acknowledgment of the people’s demands to remove Morsi, but it also could have been a move to pre-empt a civil war from taking place.
9 July 2013 — RT
The Stuxnet virus that decimated Iranian nuclear facilities was created by the NSA and co-written by Israel, Edward Snowden has confirmed. The whistleblower added the NSA has a web of foreign partners who pay “marginal attention to human rights.”
9 July 2013 — WSWS
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has revealed plans that would compel general practitioners (GPs) to refuse to treat “ineligible” immigrants on the National Health Service (NHS) unless the immigrants have paid a £200 annual charge.
9 July 2013 — WSWS
After seven days of proceedings, the Dresden District Court has suspended the trial of Lothar König indefinitely. The prosecution accuses König, a youth pastor from Jena, of serious breach of the peace, obstruction of justice and resisting a law enforcement officer. He is alleged to have incited protesters to engage in violence against police on February 19, 2011 at the annual anti-fascist demonstration in Dresden.
8 July, 2013 — Unredacted
A before and after shot of the Abbottabad Compound, site of the Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden. Adm. McRaven seems to be trying to erase the US records of the raid the same way Pakistan tried to erase the compound itself.
What could possibly compel the government to go out of its way to hide the official record on the most important raid in history? It’s hard to fathom, but a recent Associated Press article by Richard Larner shows that the Pentagon is doing just that by sending all its records on the Osama bin Laden raid to the CIA, effectively sealing them into the “FOIA black hole” of government secrecy, and it has Archive Director Tom Blanton wondering if we have a “shell game in place of open government.”
9 July 2013 — Asia Times
The working title of the Edward Snowden movie is still The Spy Who Remains in the Cold. Here’s where we stand:
9 July 2013 — williambowles.info
Of drones and whistleblowers
The Guardian (Australia)
While courageous whistleblower Bradley Manning continues to languish in a US military prison for daring to tell the world about the deliberate US policy of assassinating civilians and other unarmed opponents of its policies, the US leadership continues …
http://www.cpa.org.au/guardian/2013/1601/21-culture.html
The New Dark Age 