Monday, 23 September 2013

The European Union Times

DHS to test facial recognition technology at hockey game

Posted: 22 Sep 2013 03:44 PM PDT

Hockey fans in Washington state will have more to worry about this weekend than avoiding a puck to the face: the Department of Homeland Security will be testing out a new facial recognition system at an arena this Saturday.
The 6,000 seat Toyota Center in Kennewick, Washington will be the site on Saturday for more than just the Tri-City American’s season opener. In addition to hosting a junior ice hockey game, the arena will also facilitate the testing of a DHS program that’s raising concerns among privacy advocates.
Homeland Security will have a presence at Saturday’s game, but won’t be conducting any pat-downs on patrons or even rooting for the home team. Instead, DHS will utilize a sophisticated system of cameras to collect pictures of attendees in real-time from as far away as 100 meters and then match them up with images of faces stored on a database.
The exercise will mark the latest drill for the DHS’ Biometric Optical Surveillance System, or BOSS, and when it’s fully operational it could be used to identify a person of interest among a massive crowd in the span of only seconds.
With assistance from researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, DHS will attempt to quickly compare faces caught on camera with the biometric information of 20 volunteers. The other faces in the crowd — potentially 5,980 hockey fans — will exist as background noise to see how accurate BOSS is when it comes down to locating a person of interest.
This isn’t the first time that the DHS and PNNL teamed up with the Toyota Center, but researchers are hoping that this endeavor will be the most successful yet. The New York Times’ Charlie Savage reported last month that the technology was tested recently at the arena, but the government determined at the time that the product “was not ready for a DHS customer.” If it succeeds this time around, however, it could open the door for deploying similar systems at international crossings and other hubs across the United States patrolled by DHS.
According to Savage, earlier testing proved unsuccessful because it took operators roughly 30 seconds to identify a person caught on camera with its database of photographic mug shots. Biometric specialists who spoke to the Times told Savage that 30 seconds “was far too long to process an image for security purposes,” and he reported that, without a lightning-quick turnaround, “accuracy numbers would result in the police going out to question too many innocent people.”
Of course, the DHS isn’t exactly looking for terrorists at Saturday’s game in Kennewick, a small city of under 100,000 residents that’s roughly 50 miles from Walla Walla, WA. As surveillance camera with similar capabilities are increasingly rolled out in public spaces across America, however, similar technology could soon be implemented by small-town police departments to pick people out of crowds who have been accused of essentially anything.
“This technology is always billed as antiterrorism, but then it drifts into other applications,” Ginger McCall of the Electronic Privacy Information Center told Savage for last month’s report. “We need a real conversation about whether and how we want this technology to be used, and now is the time for that debate.”
In the case of this weekend’s event in Kennewick, attendees won’t necessarily be allowed to debate the use of BOSS, but do have a way out of sorts. Video will reportedly only be recorded in certain corridors, and the PNNL paid for 46 seats in the area where camera-shy patrons can sit in order to avoid being spotted.
“If they didn’t want to be videotaped, they could very easily not be videotaped,” Nick Lombardo, a PNNL project manager, told the Tri-City Herald.
The option to opt-out might not exist in the future, however. VenuWorks’ Cory Pearson, executive director of the company which operates the arena, told the Herald, “I think it’s in our best interest to help facilitate the development of the technology.”
“It’s in everybody’s best interest,” said Pearson, who added to the Herald that the testing stage could pave the way for a product that will help facilities such as the Toyota Center manage crowds.
Meanwhile, the Federal Bureau of Investigation hopes that it will have its state-of-the-art Next Generation Identification program rolled out in 2014, which will ideally provide the FBI with a database containing the biometric information of millions of Americans. Law enforcement will then be able to use that trove of data to compare persons of interest caught on film with images already used on state drivers’ licenses and other governmental files.
A lawsuit against the FBI filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation over the NGI program is currently pending. In a complaint filed earlier this year, the EFF wrote that “The proposed new system would also allow law enforcement ‘to collect and retain other images (such as those obtained from crime scene security cameras’ and from family and friends) and would allow submission of ‘civil photographs along with civil fingerprint submissions that were collected for noncriminal purposes.”
“NGI will result in a massive expansion of government data collection for both criminal and noncriminal purposes,” EFF staff attorney Jennifer Lynch said in a statement at the time. “Biometrics programs present critical threats to civil liberties and privacy. Face-recognition technology is among the most alarming new developments, because Americans cannot easily take precautions against the covert, remote and mass capture of their images.”
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Pakistani Christians angry after 78 die in terrorist church bombings

Posted: 22 Sep 2013 03:39 PM PDT

Christians have staged protest rallies across Pakistan to show their anger at a twin bombing outside a church in the country’s northwestern city of Peshawar.
Protesters took to the streets in several cities including the capital Islamabad as well as Karachi, Lahore and Multan, shouting slogans against the attackers, local media reported.
In the southern port city of Karachi, protesters clashed with police. Several arrests were said to be made.
Reports say that demonstrators in Islamabad blocked the main road to the city’s airport.
Police forces used tear gas to disperse the angry demonstrators who demanded better protection for their lives and properties.
The demonstrators urged the government to take immediate action against the forces involved in the killings.
They said those involved in Peshawar church bombing do not follow any faith and seek to damage inter-faith harmony in the country.
At least 78 people died and more than 100 were wounded in the attack which was carried out in the city’s Kohati Gate District on Sunday. Two suicide bombers have attacked a church in the city of Peshawar as worshippers were coming out of Sunday services at the historic Pakistan Church.
“There are 34 women and seven children among the dead,” Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told reporters in Peshawar, adding that the federal government announced a three-day period of mourning.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the “cruel” terrorist Muslim attack on Christians. Pakistan’s Ulema Council, an association of leading Muslim scholars, also denounced the deadly assault as “shameful.”
Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001, when Pakistan entered an alliance with the United States in the war on terror.
Thousands more have been displaced by the wave of violence and militancy sweeping across the country.
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First Responders: Radios Failed During Navy Yard Shooting

Posted: 22 Sep 2013 03:12 PM PDT

In a report that has gone virtually unnoticed in the mainstream press, D.C. police and firefighters who first arrived to assist at the Washington Navy Yard earlier this week say they were frustrated when their radios failed during inspection of the building, adding yet another strange development to the already questionable set of circumstances that took place that day.
A union representative for the first responders said, “Initially, officers found that their radios were working. But as they ventured deeper into the building where the shooting took place, their equipment stopped functioning,” according to a report from The Hill.
Instead, officers were forced to rely on their cell phones to communicate with one another, a detail the chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police Naval District Washington Labor Committee, Anthony Meely, says was “unnecessary and sad.”
“They had to use their cellphone to just call out and tell them what’s going on,” Meely said.
Meely said he was disgusted by news that the team had to use cell phones, but that faulty radios were “a known issue” on the base, and that they were notorious for not being able to function properly within buildings, in addition to having batteries that could never sustain charge.
“…what could they do if the radios weren’t working?” asked Meely, adding “…that was the only way for them to call and get them some help.”
Additionally, firefighters were having the same problems with their radios. “The incident commander from Naval District Washington was not able to communicate from his position inside the building to fire units outside of the building. He was not able to communicate with his subordinate units outside of the building,” Greg Russell, president of the National Capital Federal Firefighters, said.
Although this may merely have been a technical snafu, it adds an extra layer of mystery to an already convoluted story that has only gotten stranger.
Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that alleged shooter Aaron Alexis believed people were trying to harm him with microwave radiation and had reportedly told Veterans’ Affairs physicians he was hearing voices and being followed.
On Thursday, we learned Alexis was found with firearms carved with messages, including one that read, “My E-L-F Weapon,” a message which the Washington Post wrote generally stands for “extremely low frequency,” which has led many to speculate he may have been a victim of targeted government mind control.
We also reported earlier this week that D.C.’s Containment Emergency Response Team (CERT) was mere minutes away from the shooting when it took place, yet when they arrived they were told by a commanding officer to leave the scene.
The CERT team’s leader has since been replaced and members of the team have not been questioned or debriefed as to why the stand down order was given, despite a source telling the BBC that the CERT team is typically debriefed “right away, at the very least the following day.”
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FBI calls half of Americans with 9/11 doubts potential terrorists

Posted: 22 Sep 2013 03:06 PM PDT

Rethink911.org billboard in Dallas.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is reportedly considering those Americans who harbor “conspiracy theories” about the September 11, 2001 attacks as a potential terrorist.
The FBI has instructed local police departments about the case in a circular, Digital Journal reported.
“The memo thus adds 9/11-official-story skeptics to a growing list of targets described by federal law enforcement to be security threats, such as those who express “libertarian philosophies,” “Second Amendment-oriented views,” interest in “self-sufficiency,” “fears of Big Brother or big government,” and “Declarations of Constitutional rights and civil liberties,”” according to the report.
A new poll conducted by YouGov showed that one in two Americans have doubts about the US government’s account of 9/11.
After viewing video footage of World Trade Center Building 7’s collapse, 46 percent suspect that it was caused by a controlled demolition, according to the survey that was released on the 12th anniversary of the event.
American people are still questioning the government’s version of the tragic incident 12 years after the attacks left 3,000 people dead when hijacked jets crashed into the World Trade Center.
Last week, a new billboard was erected in New York City to urge people to “Rethink 9/11.” The massive billboard was installed in the Times Square.
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Pentagon proposes plan to equip and train ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels

Posted: 22 Sep 2013 02:49 PM PDT

The Pentagon has put together a plan to equip and train “moderate” Syrian rebel forces. The move would mark the first instance of the American military having direct contact with the opposition.
Information regarding the new plan was relayed by two Obama administration officials to CNN. The idea has allegedly been under consideration since the first evidence emerged of a massive chemical weapons attack outside Damascus on August 21. The US maintains the attack was carried out by Assad’s government.
Though the two officials did not cite many specifics on the proposal, the effort would involve training that would take place in a country near Syria. However, weapons would not be directly supplied as the Pentagon has no authority to do so.
“We have any number of options under development that could expand our support to the moderate opposition, but no decision has been taken at this point,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey told reporters on Wednesday.
The Pentagon’s plan would involve US troops training selected rebels on the use of small arms, along with command and control and other military tactics.
“The path to the resolution of the Syrian conflict is through a developed capable moderate opposition, and we know how to do that,” Dempsey said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing earlier this month.
“I think that subsequent to that, we would probably return to have a discussion about what we might do with the moderate opposition in a more overt way,” he added.
According to the Obama administration officials, the idea of training rebel groups may face poor timing as the US is currently engaged with both Syria and Russia in a plan to put the country’s chemical weapons stockpiles under international control.
Increased hostility among moderates and the extremist Al-Qaeda-affiliated wing may further complicate plans to intervene on behalf of the Syrian opposition.
On Tuesday, Syrian rebels turned on one another in the border city of Azaz, located next to Turkey. Clashes were reported in the area between the Free Syrian Army and fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). The fighting reportedly broke out after the ISIS attempted to abduct a German doctor from a local hospital guarded by an FSA unit. The physician was accused of being a spy.
The ISIS, which is believed to have superior equipment by way of Gulf states supplying arms, was reported to have sent 600 reinforcements from the city of Raqqa to bolster its control over Azaz, which lies on a vital supply route for Syrian rebels.
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Al-Qaeda hold hostages in Kenya mall siege, 68 dead, 200 injured

Posted: 21 Sep 2013 02:37 PM PDT

At least 68 people have been killed and 200 others wounded by Al-Qaeda-linked militants in a Nairobi shopping mall, as the hostage crisis there has entered its second day. Foreigners are among the casualties.
The Red Cross in Kenya said on Sunday that the death toll in the Westgate mall siege has risen to 68.
10 to 15 gunmen are still inside the shopping center, a Kenyan minister has reported. 30 hostages are still inside the building, according to the country’s officials and Western diplomatic sources cited by CNN.
AP journalists reported from the scene that gunfire was heard in the mall on Sunday morning. They added that following the shooting, two wounded Kenyan security forces were carried from the mall.
On Sunday Kenyan troops launched an assault on cornered Somali militants in the Westgate shopping mall.
Police said they fear the death toll could be higher after hearing reports of multiple corpses inside the building.
The Kenyan president’s office announced that one of the gunmen arrested by police in the Nairobi shopping mall died from gunshot wounds.
“Operations are continuing…We will free all those inside and stop this, of course we cannot give details of the operations except to say that everything that can be done is being done,” a security officer said, as quoted by AFP.
Israeli advisers are reportedly helping Kenya to work out a strategy to end a siege at the mall.
“There are Israeli advisers helping with the negotiating strategy, but no Israelis involved in any imminent storming operation,” an Israeli security source told Reuters.
Masked assailants, armed with AK-47s and grenades launched their attack on the Westgate shopping mall in the Kenyan capital around noon on Saturday.
Gunmen were said to have lobbed grenades at the onset of the strike. They then proceeded to shoot indiscriminately and took several people hostage at the mall in Nairobi. Armed police arrived on the scene nearly half an hour later, as scores of shoppers were fleeing the building. Some of the wounded were wheeled out on stretchers and shopping carts.
“I personally touched the eyes of four people and they were dead. One of them was a child. Its carnage up there,” said a former British soldier at the scene.
Al-Shabaab, a hardline Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist group with a stronghold in neighboring Somalia, claimed responsibility for the Nairobi shooting. It had earlier threatened to strike the mall, as it is a popular destination for the city’s expatriate community.
One victim said that he had been shot by a man who appeared to be Somali, while others noted the gunmen were speaking in a foreign language.
“A Somali guy shot at me. The guy who shot me was carrying a rifle, an AK-47,” said Saptal Singh, who was in a cafe in the top floor of the mall.
Witnesses said the attackers ordered all Muslims to leave the premises, as only non-Muslims would be targeted.
Somalia’s Al-Shabaab militant group said on Saturday that it is in contact with what it called “Mujahideen” gunmen who had attacked the shopping mall. They added that they would not be negotiating with the Mujahideen in the shopping center.
“The Kenyan govt is pleading with our Mujahideen inside the mall for negotiations. There will be no negotiations whatsoever at the Westgate (the mall where the attack took place),” the Al-Shabaab militant group said on its official Twitter account.
The group had apparently been live tweeting the attack on the mall under the username @HSM_Press, until the account was suspended by the social network following multiple reports from other Twitter users.
The Al-Qaeda linked militant group said that the attack was in revenge for crimes allegedly committed by Kenyan soldiers in Somalia. Troops from Kenya and other African nations are serving as peacekeepers in war torn Somalia to the north.
President Uhuru Kenyatta said the attack sought to intimidate and divide the nation, but stated that the “terrorists” will be defeated. The president added that he lost “very close family members” in the mall shooting.
“The despicable perpetrators of this cowardly act hoped to intimidate, divide and cause despondency amongst Kenyans,” Kenyatta said in a televised address to the nation. “We have overcome terrorist attacks before. We will defeat them again.”
Kenyatta said Saturday that his nephew and his fiancé died in the mall attack.
The mall is popular with expatriates in Nairobi and while most of the killed and injured are Kenyans, there are also foreign nationals among the casualties.
Two French citizens were confirmed dead in the attack, France’s presidential office stated. Also, two Canadians have been killed, including one diplomat, according to Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.
“We have reports of American citizens injured in the attack, and the US Embassy is actively reaching out to provide assistance,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement.
Britain’s Foreign Ministry confirmed Sunday that three Britons were also among the dead.
One of the British witnesses of the attack said that she and 60 others barricaded themselves in a large storeroom.
“We kept running to different places but the shots were getting louder so we barricaded ourselves along with about 60 others in a large storeroom. There were children hiding with us as well as someone who had been shot,” Hannah Chisholm told BBC. “The gunfire was loud and we were scared but at that point we thought the gunmen were thieves so we assumed they wouldn’t try to reach the storeroom.”
This is the biggest terrorist attack in Nairobi since 1998, when bombing at the U.S. Embassy left 213 dead. At that time Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Source

House passes bill with $40 billion cut from food stamps

Posted: 21 Sep 2013 01:35 PM PDT

Just 10 days until a possible US government shutdown, the House of Representatives passed a bill that keeps the government open but defunds the 2010 affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
The House vote was 230-189. The Republican-drafted continuing resolution, or CR, keeps the government open until December 15. The CR would also cut spending on food stamps for the poor by $40 billion over 10 years.
Republicans have a strategy to tie defunding of Obamacare to the government-funding bill.
The Democratic-controlled Senate should now consider the bill or amend it and return it back to the House by the next week.
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Some Republicans says Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) might amend the Senate’s version and ship it back to Senate when it receives the bill.
Senate Democrats say the CR is an empty showmanship that plays to the GOP base and is not a serious example of legislating.
“Republicans are simply postponing for a few days the inevitable choice they must face: pass a clean bill to fund the government, or force a shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement.
“I have said it before but it seems to bear repeating: the Senate will not pass any bill that defunds or delays Obamacare.”
Republicans say their polls show that Obamacare is unpopular in the country. But Democrats argue that the law would help American families with the cost, coverage and quality of their healthcare. They also point to nonpartisan estimates that the House bill would end benefits to 4 million needy people in 2014.
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Super typhoon Usagi eyes Hong Kong with winds of 163mph

Posted: 21 Sep 2013 01:22 PM PDT

Filipino children scamper across wrecked floating shanties at a village in Paranaque city, south of Manila: The Filipino weather bureau warned that storm surges and heavy waves could cause more heavy damage tonight

The most powerful typhoon of the year was eyeing landfall on Hong Kong today as it swept past the Philippines and Taiwan, sparing those countries from the worst of its wrath.
Typhoon Usagi had gusts exceeding 163 mph this morning as it battered island communities in the Luzon Strait, according to the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
China’s National Meteorological Centre announced a red alert, its highest level, as the storm maintained its track toward Hong Kong and the manufacturing heartland of the Pearl River Delta.
The most powerful typhoon of the year was eyeing landfall on Hong Kong today as it swept past the Philippines and Taiwan, sparing those countries from the worst of its wrath.
Typhoon Usagi had gusts exceeding 163 mph this morning as it battered island communities in the Luzon Strait, according to the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
China’s National Meteorological Centre announced a red alert, its highest level, as the storm maintained its track toward Hong Kong and the manufacturing heartland of the Pearl River Delta.
As the storm passed 342 miles south of Taiwanese capital Taipei, the country’s Central Weather Bureau said it was veering west, mostly likely sparing the country’s south from the most destructive winds near its eye.
But gusts of nearly 150mph were recorded on the Taiwanese island of Lanyu, and the bureau warned that dangerous winds were buffeting the holiday resort of Kending on the Hengchun peninsula.
In the Philippines, the storm triggered landslides and power outages in parts of the north of the country, including the Batanes island group, where it made landfall early this morning.
No casualties have been reported.
The Filipino weather bureau warned that storm surges and heavy waves could cause damage in the Batanes and other islands in the Luzon Strait before Usagi blows past the country by tonight.
In Taiwan, nearly 2,500 people were evacuated from flood-prone areas and remote mountainous regions as the government deployed military personnel into potential disaster zones.
The storm system has dumped more than 8in of rain along the eastern and southern coasts in a 13-hour period, with officials warning that a total rainfall of 39in could drop before the storm leaves tomorrow.
Local officials closed mountain highways blocked by landslides and suspended train services connecting the east and west coasts as power outages affected thousands of homes.
Usagi has a massive diameter of 680 miles, with its outer rain bands extending across Luzon and all of Taiwan across to the Chinese coast.
Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau warned winds of 63mph could hit Taipei.
The Office of Civil Defense in Manila said landslides damaged houses and roads, and pockets of power outages were reported in at least five northern provinces, where several roads and bridges were impassable.
Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair said flights today were unaffected except for one canceled flight.
But both airlines warned of delays and cancelations at Hong Kong International Airport from tomorrow evening to Monday morning, and urged passengers to postpone non-essential travel on those two days.
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Pro-independence campaigners hold huge rally in Scotland

Posted: 21 Sep 2013 12:54 PM PDT

A “Yes to Scotland” rally has been held in the capital city of Edinburg, bringing thousands of blue and white Scottish flags onto the streets demanding independence from the United Kingdom, media reports said.
Pro-independence campaigners from across Scotland began their March on Saturday through Edinburg’s High Street onto the city’s Calton Hill with the Scottish first minister telling thousands of marchers that “there is a natural majority for Scottish independence”, British media reported.
The pro-independence campaign rally was organized by a number of groups including “Yes to Scotland” campaign, which said the rally drew some 30-thousands people onto the streets.
“There is now in this country a natural majority for a Yes vote. The people want a parliament that makes decisions for the people of Scotland”, said first minister Alex Salmond.
“A Yes vote next September will not be a victory for the SNP, or the Yes campaign, or even the huge coalition of interests and enthusiasm gathered here today.
“It will be the people’s victory. ‘Yes’ will be act of self-confidence and self-assertion which will mean that decisions about what happens in Scotland are always taken by the people who live and work here – not by a remote Westminster system.
“A Yes vote is for self-government, not remote government – good government with independence, not bad government from Westminster”, Salmond noted.

The Yes campaign rally was held to mark the beginning of a year of pro-independence campaigning until the independence referendum on September 18, 2014.
Alex Salmon addressed some thorny issues including the Royal Mail privatization and the unpopular bedroom tax, that he said an independent Scotland will not implement them.
Talking about nuclear disarmament, the head of the Scottish National Party noted “We will put bairns before bombs”.
“We have now in 362 days’ time the opportunity of a lifetime. The forces against us thrive on doubt but they can be dispelled”, he added.
The Yes Scotland chief executive, Blair Jenkins, also addressed the rally on Calton Hill.
“I am asked a lot of questions as I take our message around the country. One question I am often asked is: What will we lose?
“Well, we would lose nuclear weapons, the bedroom tax, Tory governments we have never voted for, and what’s not to love about that? We are the lucky generation that gets to vote for independence and vote for self-determination for our country”, said Blair Jenkins.
Speaking about opinion polls which suggest Scots would not vote for independence, Dennis Canavan, the chairman of the Yes Scotland Advisory Board, said that there is no worry about such polls.
“This campaign is more like a marathon rather than a short sprint. And having run a few marathons in my time, I know that the runner who is ahead at the halfway stage is not necessarily the winner of the race. We have the people with the stamina, guts and determination to win this campaign – and win it we shall.”
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Spying scandal sends US influence on Latin America into nosedive

Posted: 21 Sep 2013 12:45 PM PDT

Democratic leaders from Mexico to Argentina are so resentful of American influence that they are now willing to take action. Spies did the trick.
America for the Americans – this is a cornerstone of United States’ foreign policy. That doctrine, introduced 190 years ago by President James Monroe, means this: foreigners keep out of the US’ backyard. For decades it [US foreign policy] also sat well with the elites in Latin America. They even promoted generals to dictators if the men in uniform loved Washington enough. Well, those days are long gone.
Unlike Europeans, who complicitly give a wink and a nudge to the US in the mass surveillance scandal, Latin America is angry. In a drastic move, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, a moderate, decided to call off a State visit to Washington. Leftists in the region are now more aggressive and right-wingers have been pressured to speak out. American experts may insist their focus is on Syria, but the backyard is rising in revolt. The National Security Agency (NSA) scandals have made it impossible for regional leaders to keep quiet without looking weak.
Brazil’s snub has the biggest implications. The decision was taken after Ms Rousseff discovered her personal communications were being spied on. Every South American leader called to support her, including Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos, the only close ally Barack Obama has left in the region. She promised to attack mass surveillance at the United Nations. Boeing is now likely to lose a US$4 billion deal on fighter jets.
Without the Brazilian buffer, leftists are emboldened. Bolivia’s Evo Morales said he will sue Obama in the international courts for human rights violations after Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro was blocked for a few hours from flying over Puerto Rico. These two and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa are likely to push more for bringing leaker Edward Snowden to South America. After Hugo Chavez passed away they needed a joint agenda to improve their chemistry.
NSA revelations also made Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner reach out to Brazil to improve their cyber defense. Countries in the region are now paying attention to this project in order to develop their own email systems: specifically designed for those who don’t want Google and Yahoo accounts which allow US intelligence in. That is open retaliation, but much more might happen behind closed doors. American presence is still important; but now that China’s star is rising rapidly as Latin America’s trade partner, the pressure is on the US.
US influence is so low at the moment that even Mexico’s conservative President Enrique Peña Nieto was forced to speak out and demand an investigation. Political pressure gave him no alternative but to condemn the NSA for stealing data on his ministerial picks. Chile’s Sebastián Piñera also had to come out fighting. These leaders aren’t surprised with the surveillance itself, but the reach of it was just too bold.
The times are definitely a-changing. America might be on the way to belonging to all Americans, and that includes Latin Americans as well.
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If Berlusconi were gay he would never be on trial – Putin

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 01:32 PM PDT

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin, traditionally sharp-tongued and prickly, spoke about Syria, gay rights, and democracy at the Valdai Club political forum. During the two hour discussion, the leader said he has “not ruled out” running for a fourth presidential term.
Putin addressed a wide range of topics at the Valdai International Discussion Club on Thursday, where over 200 leading politicians, experts, and journalists gathered for a global dialogue about Russia.
Russia’s traditionalist heart
Putin highlighted traditionalism as the center for Russia’s national identity.
“Without the values at the core of Christianity and other world religions, without moral norms that have been shaped over millennia, people will inevitably lose their human dignity,” he stated.
The president criticized “Euro-Atlantic countries” where “any traditional identity, … including sexual identity, is rejected… There is a policy equating families with many children with same-sex families, belief in God with belief in Satan,” he said.
“Any minority’s right to be different must be respected, but the right of the majority must not be questioned,” Putin added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi attending the tenth anniversary meeting of Valdai International Discussion Club in the Novgorod Region, September 19, 2013.

Commenting on the law banning gay propaganda, Putin said that Russia and Europe have demographic problems.
“Europeans are dying out. Don’t you understand that? And same-sex marriages don’t produce children. Do you want to survive by drawing migrants? But society cannot adapt so many migrants. Your choice in many countries is the way it is: recognition of same-sex marriage, adoption, etc. But let us make our own choice the way we see it for our country,” Putin said.
The president added that some American states still have criminal liability for homosexuality.
“Why does everyone like to focus on Russia? You shouldn’t fuel tensions here; there is nothing terrible here,” he said.
President Putin also joked that his old friend Silvio Berlusconi, former Italian Prime Minister would not have faced trial if he was gay.
“Berlusconi faces trial for bedding women. If he was gay, no one would ever lay a finger on him,” he said with a smile.
On vodka, caviar and Russian-European relations
Having put in a word for Silvio Berlusconi, Putin jokingly ticked off Romano Prodi, who he earlier asked to comment on Ukraine’s choice between joining the Customs Union and signing an Association Agreement with the European Union.
“Do take note of what Romano has just said. He is not only an intellectual, an academic, a professor, but also a Eurocrat to the bone.”
Putin responded to Prodi’s remark that Europe and Russia “are now like vodka and caviar.”
“But vodka and caviar are both Russian-made goods. You see, those Europeans are fond of a peculiar way of sharing, which is that first we share what you have, and then it’s back to everybody for themselves,” the Russian president said.
As Prodi suggested substituting “vodka and caviar” with “whiskey and soda,” Putin replied by saying, “Actually, whiskey and soda is a lame, bizarre drink. Whiskey is something you should drink neat, otherwise it’s just a waste of a quality product.”

‘Russia deserves best government’
Putin believes that Russia should have the best leadership possible, but expressed doubts that the American government could set such an example.
“Russia definitely deserves the best kind of government possible. But is there such a thing as a perfect government in other countries, including the one you represent together with Senator McCain – that is a big and awkward question,” Putin said in response to Russian-American political expert Nikolay Zlobin’s query as to how he sees the relationship between power and society in Russia.
Putin recalled that it was twice in US history that a president was elected by the Electoral College without securing a plurality of the popular vote.
“This is an evident flaw in the election procedure, which lies at the heart of American Democracy itself. This goes to say that any system has its downsides. And it might be that your system is no less flawed than ours, if not more.”
Putin welcomes opposition
Russian President Vladimir Putin guardedly welcomed new political opposition leaders as he answered a question about political representation at the 10th annual meeting of the the Valdai Club, a Kremlin-backed international discussion forum in northwestern Russia. He referred to parties that currently do not even have a seat at the table and hinted at amnesty for protesters accused of clashing with police on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square.
“I expect bright leaders to emerge with us. The country needs them,” Putin said during the question-answer session lasting over three hours after giving a speech.
“Neo-Slavophiles and neo-Westernizers, statists and the so-called liberals – all of society needs to work together to shape common development goals, to get rid of the habit of only hearing like-minded people and … dismissing any other point of view.”

From left: Russian President Vladimir Putin, former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and the National Interest publisher, Richard Nixon Center President Dimitri Simes attending the tenth anniversary meeting of Valdai International Discussion Club in the Novgorod Region, September 19, 2013.

4th presidential term in the mix?
During the session, Putin also said that he is not excluding running for fourth term as president. During question-and-answer period, Putin asked French Prime Minister Francois Fillon whether the latter has plans to run for president.
Fillon agreed to answer only if Putin covers the same question.
Putin replied, “I don’t exclude [the possibility]”, to which Fillon followed up with “And I, too, don’t exclude [the possibility].”
Linking Europe and Asia
The president also praised Eurasian integration at the meeting on Thursday, highlighting a planned Moscow-led political and economic bloc for the former Soviet republics to build links and capitalize.
“Eurasian integration is a chance for the post-Soviet space to become an independent center of global development, rather than the outskirts of Europe and Asia,” Putin said.
He described the planned Eurasian Economic Union as “a project aimed at keeping the identity of peoples populating the historical Eurasian space in the new century and the new world.”
The union is seen as a progression of the Moscow-led Customs Union involving Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, which was operational since January 1, 2012.
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Bolivia plans legal action against Obama over ‘crimes against humanity’

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 12:51 PM PDT

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales plans to file legal action against the US president for crimes against humanity, condemning Washington’s intimidation tactics after it denied Venezuelan presidential jet entry into US airspace.
“I would like to announce that we are preparing a lawsuit against [US President] Barack Obama to condemn him for crimes against humanity,” President Morales announced at a Thursday press conference in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, RT reports.
He further described the American president as a “criminal” who willingly violates international law.
“The US cannot be allowed to continue with its policy of intimidation and blockading presidential flights,” Morales stated.
He added that Bolivia intends to prepare legal action against the US president and file the lawsuit at the International Court.
President Morales has called for an emergency meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to confer about the US action, which has been slammed by Venezuela as “an act of intimidation by North American imperialism.”
Additionally, the Bolivian president has implied that the CELAC members should recall their ambassadors from Washington in an effort to convey a strong message to the Obama Administration.
According to the report, Morales further wants to urge member nations of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas to boycott the next meeting of the United Nations in New York.
Members of the Alliance include Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Saint Lucia.
The anti-US measures called by the Bolivian president comes just months after Morales’s presidential aircraft was denied entry into several Western European countries, forcing it to land in Austria.
The May 2013 incident was widely described as a US-led effort out of a false suspicion that American spy agency whistleblower Edward Snowden may be onboard the aircraft.
At the time Bolivia was among a few countries that offered political asylum to Snowden, a US fugitive and former contract employee of American spy agencies, CIA and NSA, who leaked documents showing massive US electronic spying operations around the globe, including its European and Latin American allies.
Several Latin American heads of state joined Bolivia to censure the illegal move by the European countries, including Italy, France and Spain, which led to their official apologies.
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Russia reacts to McCain’s column: ‘Why senator’s thoughts are so primitive?’

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 12:34 PM PDT

The community of Russian experts responded negatively to Republican Senator John McCain’s article Russians deserve better than Putin. And that’s not because of the criticism that McCain used against the Russian President, because on this point everything was predictable: the senator is loyal to himself. But the American politician just couldn’t say anything essential in the response to the arguments of Vladimir Putin published in The New York Times.
Instead, McCain once again attacked the Russian president, having accused him of rigging the elections, controlling the media and son on the so foкер. Off course, he couldn’t help but mention the Magnitsky case.
Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman of the Russian president, said that Putin “will undoubtedly read the article”, but the head of state will hardly get into debate with McCain.
“McCain’s response is obvious, commonplace; I would even say it’s not intelligent”, – that’s how the senator’s article was commented by Leonid Polyakov, the head of the politic science department at the Higher School of Economics.
“McCain presents himself as a pro-Russian politician, because he is supposed to support the interests of the people against the oppressing authorities. This point is so naïve, and it’s so something from the Cold War propaganda arsenal, that it’s even difficult to explain, why the senator of the USA has such primitive thoughts”, – said Leonid Polyakov to Pravda.ru.
“To be perfectly honest, I’m a little bit surfside by our attention to what the USA and Brussels think about us. These people don’t want to think seriously about what really happens in Russia and what issues the country faces,” the chief research associate of the Institute of Economics in the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Philosophy, Aleksander Tsipro told RIA Novosti.
Another expert, chief research associate of the USA and Canada Institute,former rector of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Alexander Panov, assumed that the American senator’s address is caused by the growing international influence and independence of Russia. “We all got acquainted with McCain’s philosophy a long time ago and we all know his attitude to Russia. He didn’t say anything new, because his words are related directly to this attitude,” noticed Panov.
According to the words of Alexander Pushkov, the head of the Duma Committee on International Affairs, “McCain’s article contains no response to Putin’s article published in the NYT. It’s not even a comment. From my point of view, it’s sort of justification of the Orange Revolution, but not too convincing and not too inspiring. We had heard this before from other Western politicians, journalists and community leaders for many times, that’s why, in my opinion, McCain’s column won’t get large international response, in contrast to Vladimir Putin’s article,” said the head of the Committee.
Pushkov thinks that McCain didn’t even try to explain, why the USA has firmly held the image of the country that always resorts to force in international affairs and always intervenes in other countries’ policies.
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Canada under fire over controversial rules on cell phone users

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 12:01 PM PDT

The Canadian government has come under fire over a controversial series of regulations that allow spying on cell phone users, Press TV reports.
Cell phone companies in Canada, bidding on new contracts, face rules that force them to allow Canadian authorities to spy on mobile phone users under an unpublicized accord.
For almost 20 years, Canadian telecommunications companies have been told that one of the conditions of getting a license to use wireless spectrum is to permit the government to monitor the devices that use the spectrum.
According to documents, the surveillance activities in Canada are governed by 23 specific technical surveillance standards, which are known as the Solicitor General’s Enforcement Standards (SGES).
Based on the accord, mobile-phone companies should provide police or intelligence agencies with telecommunications data, including eavesdropping, reading text messages, pinpointing users’ whereabouts, as well as unscrambling some encrypted communications.
“Well you know most people don’t realize under the border and prosperity agreement, US police forces can come up here in Canada without any checks and balances and arrest a person and take him down and so our forces can do that too. Adversely, the NSA (the US National Security Agency) and the CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) – a Canadian equivalent – are working hand in hand together and the NSA shares all the information with Israel for whatever reason that is,” said media instructor Dan Gascon.
Leaks by American whistleblower Edward Snowden recently revealed that the NSA collects the phone records and email information of both US citizens and foreign nationals.
The massive surveillance operations by the NSA was uncovered in June, when former US intelligence contractor, Snowden, leaked two top-secret US government spying programs under which the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are spying on millions of American and European phone records and the Internet data from major Internet companies.
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US Air Force once dropped live hydrogen bomb on North Carolina

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 10:23 AM PDT

The US Air Force inadvertently dropped an atomic bomb over North Carolina in 1961. If a simple safety switch had not prevented the explosive from detonating, millions of lives across the northeast would have been at risk, a new document has revealed.
The revelation offers the first conclusive evidence after decades of speculation that the US military narrowly avoided a self-inflicted disaster. The incident is explained in detail in a recently declassified document written by Parker F. Jones, supervisor of the nuclear weapons safety department at Sandia National Laboratories.
The document – written in 1969 and titled “How I Learned to Mistrust the H-bomb,” a play on the Stanley Kubrick film title “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” – was disclosed to the Guardian by journalist Eric Schlosser.
Three days after President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, a B-52 bomber carrying two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs departed from Goldsboro, North Carolina on a routine flight along the East Coast. The plane soon went into a tailspin, throwing the bombs from the B-52 into the air within striking distance of multiple major metropolitan centers.
Each of the explosives carried a payload of 4 megatons – roughly the same as four million tons of TNT explosive – which could have triggered a blast 260 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that wiped out Hiroshima at the end of World War II.
One of the bombs performed in the same way as those dropped over Japan less than 20 years before – by opening its parachute and engaging its trigger mechanisms. The only thing that prevented untold thousands, or perhaps millions, from being killed was a simple low voltage switch that failed to flip.
That hydrogen bomb, known as MK 39 Mod 2, descended onto tree branches in Faro, North Carolina, while the second explosive landed peacefully off Big Daddy’s Road in Pikeville. Jones determined that three of the four switches designed to prevent unintended detonation on MK 39 Mod 2 failed to work properly, and when a final firing signal was triggered that fourth switch was the only safeguard that worked.
Nuclear fallout from a detonation could have risked millions of lives in Baltimore, Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York City, and the areas in between.
“The MK Mod 2 bomb did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in the B-52,” Jones wrote in his 1969 assessment. He determined “one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe…It would have been bad news – in spades.”
Before Schlosser brought the document to light through a Freedom of Information Act request, the US government long denied that any such event ever took place.
“The US government has consistently tried to withhold information from the American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our nuclear weapons policy,” he told the Guardian. “We were told there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet here’s one that very nearly did.”
In “Command and Control,” Schlosser’s new book on the nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviet Union, the journalist writes that he discovered a minimum of 700 “significant” accidents involving nuclear weapons in the years between 1950 and 1968.
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