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Media attacks on Snowden ‘serving the interests of the surveillance state’

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 09:23:00 -0700

AFP Photo / Philippe Lopez

Instead of devoting coverage to surveillance information revealed by Edward Snowden, the mainstream US media has slandered him. This reaction highlights the inadequacies of the American news cycle, geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser told RT.

RT: It appears Snowden is still in Russia, although he is believed to be in an international transit zone. What do you think he will do next?

Eric Draitser: I think that’s impossible to say at the moment. We hear reports about Ecuador, though we’ve seen with the case of Julian Assange that that’s no guarantee. We’re still waiting to see. But what I think is most interesting is the reaction here in the United States. Your reports have talked about what we’re seeing internationally, maybe in governments or people around the world - but in the United States, we see a concerted propaganda campaign designed to demonize and destroy the image, if not the total character, of Edward Snowden. We see this happening from the right wing and also the left wing. This is now becoming a real story inside the United States – the way in which the controlled media is attacking Snowden and serving the interests of the surveillance state and the partisanship behind President Obama.

RT: The US government wants Moscow to go in and arrest Snowden even though he’s in an international transit zone - a limbo area which is not officially on Russian territory. Do you think this is going to sour relations between the US and Russia?

ED: I think this is going to precipitate a fight out in the open, but remember that relations have been soured long ago. Remember that the United States has been positioning missiles throughout Eastern Europe and Asia for years. Washington has also placed missiles inside Turkey and elsewhere for the purpose of menacing Russia. The United States has engaged in cyber-attacks launched at its enemies in China and Iran, and it’s likely the Russians are involved in that too. So the relationship has been under the assault of the ruling class in the United States for quite a while – and the reason is because President Putin represents opposition. He represents a counter-veiling force to US hegemony. I think that the Snowden case is really simply a microcosm of that. Moreover, we see that Putin and the government in Russia represent the interests of international law, humanitarian concerns, and basic human decency – just like with Syria. The notion of extraditing Snowden to the United States is essentially delivering him into the hands of torturers, into the hands of criminals.

RT: You just talked about these counter-veiling forces rising. One of these forces is China. A lot of reports suggest that China may have helped Snowden leave the country and assisted him along the way. Is Beijing sending Washington a big message here?

ED: Absolutely. And I think the revelations from Snowden about the hacking of computers in Hong Kong is only the tip of the iceberg. We know that the cyber-attacks that have been launched by the United States, Israel, and their partners are only what we know publicly. There’s much more happening behind the scenes and the Chinese are angry about that. They’re also angry at attempts to demonize them as if they are somehow the ones conducting an illegal operation. This is purely a deflection away from the fact that the United States is the criminal violator of human rights, that the United States is the one engaged in illegal activity, and that the United States attempts to impose its will through so-called diplomacy on countries like China and Russia against their own interests and against the interests of international law. Ten years ago, this would have stood. Today, not so much.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Snowden alone in calling out Empire as naked

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 09:19:00 -0700

Snowdon Supporters demonstrate before Obama visit to Berlin.(Photo from instagram.com/rt)

The American Empire stands naked, called out by one man among a hundred thousand who knew its dirty secrets and systematic betrayal of the world's trust.

While international politics in the West has been leaping over each other to suck up to The Empire's New Clothes following September 11, 2001, the United States wasted no time in reinforcing the order of Pax Americana - that the US would establish peace in the world through superior firepower.

The world was turned into a simple black-and-white "You're with us, or you're against us." In the decade that followed, many countries that were inconvenient to Pax Americana were invaded, none of which had anything to do with the events on September 11.

The rattling of sabers were reminiscent of a high school bully: "if you don't accept that we can do whatever we want, we might be mean to you, so behave." Or, as US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed that sentence in just slightly more diplomatic language recently: "Hand over Snowden, or there may be consequences."

Most people in the United States aren't aware that their country is acting like their hated high school bully to most of the rest of the world. The few who do tend to take it with humor: bumper stickers have been seen satirizing this as "Be nice to America, or we'll bring democracy to your country", playing on the media spin that every war of aggression to maintain Pax Americana is about "bringing democracy" somewhere.

So when one man, Edward Snowden, reveals to the world that the Empire stands naked and that it really has been behaving like a bully, wiretapping everybody wholesale, there are shockwaves. But that's where the similarities with the folklore tale ends. Where the naked emperor cringed and realized the game was up, the naked Empire instead chooses to keep rewarding sucking up, pretending that nothing has been revealed at all, and to punish the whistleblower at all costs as a warning to others.

Politicians in the United States have been quick to call Snowden this, that and the other thing. No wonder. The surveillance hawks who couldn't care less of the human rights of the world would much rather talk about Edward Snowden as an individual than about the fact that the world's trust in the United States has been systematically betrayed wholesale.

Shadows are cast on the White House in the early morning in Washington.(Reuters / Larry Downing)

Take Microsoft software as an important example. As part of the NSA unravelings, it was uncovered that Microsoft gives security holes to the National Security Agency for exploiting before it sends out security repair patches to its users and customers - essentially betraying the trust of every customer worldwide, and making sure that no government, corporation, or media outlet can ever trust Microsoft products again: for Microsoft gave the master key to every customers' operations to the NSA.

Without Snowden setting the ball rolling, we would not have known this, and we would continue to have been owned - in the hacker and literal sense of the word - by the United States. Now, we can at least see that any Microsoft-developed software, and probably any closed US-developed software, is a huge security risk that no nation outside the United States can afford to take.

Today, Snowden is said to be comfortable on the inside of Sheremetyevo Airport outside Moscow, pending new travel documents being issued by some friendly country. (You have to love the fact that he's enraging US bully hawks by planning his trip to China, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. The only thing missing would be a trip to Pyongyang with a stopover in Tehran - and we find ourselves rooting for the countries that shield him, those countries we have been told sternly are black-and-white evil.)

What's really interesting is how other people who have had their doubts about the United States have started to come forward. There are now rumors that those who have been doubting the Empire's ability to pay back its enormous debts are starting to raise their voices about it. No wonder: the United States has long been bankrupt, but people have been... pretending... otherwise to make sure that a crash to the world economy doesn't happen on their watch.

If the doubts in creditworthiness take hold, things can come crashing down quicker than you would expect. Compare with 1987, at what felt like the height of the Cold War - who would have guessed that the Soviet Union would be formally dissolved just four years later?

If history teaches us anything, it is that all empires come to an end. History books could theoretically point at Snowden's leak of conscience as the starting point of major, major changes to the geopolitical order. At least they ended a blind and naive trust in the United States' interest in doing good for anybody but itself.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Head of US cyber-attack on Iran probed over leak of details – source

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 09:15:00 -0700

General James E. Cartwright.(Reuters / Hyungwon Kang)

The four-star general who headed the reported cyber-attack by American and Israeli hackers on an Iranian nuclear site is under a DoJ investigation over leaking the details of the operation to the press, reports NBC News.

Retired Marine Gen. James ‘Hoss’ Cartwright, who was deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff between 2007 and 2011, was the one responsible for the ‘Olympic Games’, a massive attack on Iranian uranium enrichment facilities conducted under the Bush and the Obama administrations, the New York Times reported last July.

At the time the newspaper broke details of the top secret operation, including collaboration of Israeli hackers in development of the Stuxnet computer worm, which was used to infect Iranian computer networks and damage hundreds of centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility.

The leak caused outrage in the Congress, as some Republican politicians alleged that it was sanctioned high in the Obama administration to bolster his national security record ahead of the 2012 election campaign.

Legal sources told NBC News that the FBI investigating the leak zeroed on Cartwright, once the second-highest ranking officer in the Pentagon, as the source that provided the newspaper with the sensitive information. Agents identified the former general without resorting to a secret subpoena of the phone records of New York Times reporters, the report says.

Cartwright, 63, received a target letter informing him that he’s under the investigation, but so far the DoJ hasn’t made a final decision on whether to charge him, according to the sources.

Cartwright and his lawyer did not comment to NBC.

If indicted, Cartwright would join Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and six others charged under the 1917 Espionage Act by the Obama administration. The current US government has invoked the law more than all previous administrations combined.

FBI sued over secretive facial recognition program

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 09:13:00 -0700

Reuters / Michael Caronna

Soon the FBI will be done building a database containing the photographs, fingerprints and other biometric data for millions of Americans, but the agency has been far from forthcoming with the details. A new lawsuit filed this week aims to change that.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights group based out of California, sued the United States Department of Justice this week for failing to comply with multiple Freedom of Information Act requests filed last year by the EFF.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation received no fewer than three FOIA requests from the EFF last year for details about its state-of-the-art Next Generation Identification program, or NGI, a system that will store personally-identifiable data for millions of Americans and foreign nationals to act as what the FBI has called a "bigger, faster and better" version of what law enforcement already uses. But while the bureau has indeed already been using fingerprint information to track down potential terrorists and troublemakers for years, the EFF’s main concern revolves around what sort of space-age face recognition abilities NGI will be able to employ.

The FBI previously acknowledged that NGI will “house multimodal biometrics records like palm prints and iris scans” in one master system, as well as facial imaging information and intelligence about scars, marks and tattoos. Eventually, the agency said, it hopes to incorporate technology to track down people using only their voice. For now, though, the EFF is interested in what the facial recognition infrastructure will be able to do, and is demanding the FBI fesses up.

“NGI will change almost everything about how the FBI treats photograph submissions,” the complaint filed this week reads. Citing government documents, the EFF says that the system will allow “the increased capacity to retain photographic images, additional opportunities for agencies to submit photographic images and additional search capabilities, including automated searches.”

“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,’” the EFF continues.

When all is said and done, the FBI will be able to use NGI to scan millions of entries in a single database to find someone based off of a single photograph, and the EFF fears that could send things down a slippery slope.

“Governmental use of face recognition — and the potential for misuse — raises many privacy concerns,” the EFF says in the lawsuit.

AFP Photo / Mandel Ngan

Using statements already made by the FBI about the program, the EFF presents an argument about why they should be worried that’s hard to counter.

“The FBI has also stated in a public presentation given at a national biometrics conference that it wants to use its facial recognition system to 'identify unknown persons of interest from images' and 'identify subjects in public datasets,'” the complaint continues. “In the same presentation, the FBI included a graphic image that implied the Bureau wanted to use facial recognition to be able to track people from one political rally to another.”

Another digital watchdog group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, previously alleged that NGI system could be integrated with other surveillance technology in order to enable “real-time image-matching of live feeds from CCTV surveillance cameras.”

Obtaining information about how the FBI will manage and operate this information has been a priority for the EFF for over a year now, and the failure to comply with those FOIA requests has finally prompted the organization to ask a court to intervene.

"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 this week. "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."

The EFF is asking the court to enforce the FOIA requests sent last June and July, which could compel the FBI to disclose information about the face-recognition program and any plans to merge civilian and criminal records in a single database. They are also asking for the total number of face-recognition capable records currently in the database and an assessment of what number the agency expects to have when it rolls out the program in 2014.

"Before the federal government decides to expand its surveillance powers, there needs to be a public debate," Lynch said. "But there can be no public debate until the details of the program are presented to the public."

In a July 18, 2012 assessment, the FBI reported that the program was “on scope, on schedule, on cost and 60 percent deployed.” The program is being put together by contractors Lockheed Martin, who are expected to rake in $1 billion from the government by the time the NGI system is finally up and running.

The FBI previously admitted that they found 7,380 records that were "potentially responsive” to one of the EFF’s request, but has yet to deliver actual information pursuant to any of the three FOIA submissions filed, prompting the nonprofit to allege the FBI is “dragging its feet."

"FBI has not explained to the public how NGI or IAFIS's system design would ensure that civil submissions are not 'tainted' by criminal submissions or explained why it is necessary to combine the two types of data," the EFF wrote in the complaint.

Congress to double student loan interest rates

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 09:10:00 -0700

U.S. Capitol building.(Reuters / Kevin Lamarque)

Seven million college students will see their student loan costs double on Monday, after a group of bipartisan lawmakers failed to agree on a plan to keep interest rates down.

The Senate adjourned for the July 4 recess on Thursday, but failed to keep interest rates on Stafford loans at the current 3.4 percent rate. The federally subsidized loans are set to expire on July 1, after which the interest rate cap will rise to 6.8 percent.

Congress’ Joint Economic Committee estimates that the average student will be paying $2,600 more starting July 1. On a $23,000 student loan repaid over 10 years, a student would be paying about $3,000 total interest.

“At one level it’s modest, but if you have an entry-level position or can’t find work, it starts to add up,” Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council of Education, told Fox News.

In order to keep interest rates down, lawmakers would have to extend the cap, set a new one, or find another way to keep rates low. A bipartisan group of senators introduced the “Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act”, which would have secured a 1.85 percent interest rate on undergraduate Stafford Loans, a 3.4 percent rate on graduate loans, and a 4.4 percent rate on PLUS loans that are issued to parents of students. But after paying little attention to the issue for the past 11 months, lawmakers failed to agree on this proposal and spent the past few weeks arguing about a solution.

“We’re tired of this being a political football,” Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said at a news conference with the co-sponsors of the bill. “This is a responsible program from the standpoint of the American taxpayer.”

Senate Democrats on Thursday advocated for a temporary one-year delay of the current Stafford loan rates, but Republicans opposed the idea, and the Senate adjourned for recess.

“Last year we kicked the can down the road and passed a one-year extension for only a small group of students… Why would we want to make the same mistake again and just kick the can down the road another year?” Burr told AP.

But Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) believes it would be best to extend current rates until Congress can come up with a better solution, to avoid the rise in interest rates.

“Students across this country would rather have no deal than a bad deal,” Reed said. “We’re at the point where we have to do our best to extend the 3.4 percent interest rate while we work on a good deal, not just any deal.”

Sen. Tom Harkin, the chairman of the Senate education panel, said lawmakers would consider a retroactive fix on July 10. The US government is already forecast to make a record $51 billion profit from the federal student loan program this year at current interest rates, which Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) described as “billions of dollars off the backs of our students.”

If lawmakers fail to make a retroactive deal that would undo the impending spike in interest rates, US college students may find themselves unable to afford taking out a federal loan.

Newly released NSA slides explain mechanics of US surveillance

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 09:08:00 -0700

AFP Photo

In the latest revelations of the NSA leaks scandal, new slides have emerged thoroughly explaining the targeting process of the US government top-secret PRISM program deployed to spy on communication data of targets operating abroad. The screenshots published by the Washington Post, detail how PRISM tasks are issued by analysts and describes the approval process of an individual requests. To begin with, an NSA analyst "tasks" PRISM to gather information about a surveillance target. The system then temporarily freezes that request and automatically ask for an approval from a supervisor. If the superior decides that the request possesses a "reasonable belief" of perceived threat, then PRISM goes to work.

NSA slide published by the Washington Post

In the surveillance process, NSA often obtains its live data from the FBI that retrieves matching information, using government equipment from companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

With the participation of those companies, PRISM – and therefore Washington intelligence workers – "incidentally" have access to the bulk of Americans’ email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype) chats, file transfers and social networking details.
For stored data, the FBI deploys its own databases that review the selects request, before it is forwarded to the NSA.

NSA slide published by the Washington Post

The information is then analyzed and processed by a system that can interpret voice, text, video and "digital network information.” The FBI interceptions from private firms are also being channeled to more "customers" at the NSA, CIA or FBI. Each target is then assigned a PRISM case notation which reflects the availability of real-time surveillance as well as stored data.

NSA slide published by the Washington Post

Depending on the access to private firm’s information, the NSA begins to monitor live notifications of the target’s mobile logs. On the April 5 slide some 117,675 users were targeted in PRISM database.

NSA slide published by the Washington Post

Saturday’s revelations expand the slides that were revealed earlier in June, revealing the existence of the PRISM program, which mines data from the nine leading US Internet companies. Earlier information also revealed the world’s electronic communications flow and Washington’s control over providers. The NSA venture does not require individual warrants. It is also court approved and is administered through federal judges who rule on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Nigerian troops committing atrocities in fight against Islamic uprising - report

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 09:01:00 -0700

Nigerian soldiers on the 101st airbase in Bamako (AFP Photo / Eric Feferberg)

A Nigerian human rights watchdog released a report that says security forces are killing, torturing, illegally detaining and raping civilians in a fight to halt an Islamic uprising in northeast Nigeria that has killed nearly 2,000 people since 2010.

A Nigerian human rights watchdog released a report that says security forces are killing, torturing, illegally detaining and raping civilians in a fight to halt an Islamic uprising that has killed nearly 2,000 people since 2010.

The report, put out by Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission on Sunday, said troops went on a rampage in the northeast of the country after a soldier was killed in April in the fishing village of Baga. Quoting police sources, the soldiers "started shooting indiscriminately at anybody in sight, including domestic animals.” the report said, as quoted by AP.

The retaliation left the homes of many villagers gutted and torched, with troops attempting to hide evidence of the carnage by disposing of bodies.

"The Commission equally received several credibly attested allegations of gross violations by officials of the JTF (joint task force of police and military), including allegations of summary executions, torture, arbitrary detention amounting to internment and outrages against the dignity of civilians, as well as rape," it said.

Members of the Nigerian Defence headquarter team inspecting an alleged Boko Haram base in Kirenowa (AFP Photo)

Military officials said 36 people were killed, most of them “extremist fighters.” Witnesses told AP at the time that some 187 civilians were killed.

The report revealed the killings came after Islamic militants had looted a weapons depot, with subsequent reports suggesting the militants were becoming better armed and "had become both more organized and emboldened by their apparent successes, despite the enhanced security presence."

That contradicted reports that the military had taken control of the region in an emergency operation canvassing thee states, or roughly one-sixth of the country. Instead, it appears government troops have pushed the Islamic insurgents into rocky territory where it is more difficult to locate them. It is from these caves and rugged hideouts that the extremists are attacking towns and villages with regularity.

The government commission issued an interim report saying it would determine when its investigators are able to visit the conflict zone, where soldiers have cut mobile phone and internet connections. Nigeria declared a state of emergency on May 14 when extremists from the Boko Haram terrorist group took control of some towns and villages.

The suspected leader of the Nigerian Islamist group linked to Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Imam Abu Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Abubakar Ash Shekawi, also known as Abubakar Shekau (AFP Photo)

The uprising poses the biggest threat in years to security in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, with 160 million citizens, and the continent's largest producer of oil.

Village communities trapped between the Islamic militants and security forces "reportedly live in desperate fear and destitution," the commission said.

It warned of an imminent threat to public health, as well as food shortages since many farmers have been driven from their fields.

Northeast Nigeria is the poorest region in the country, with government statistics showing 75 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day.

8 people shot at Brooklyn, NYC party

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 08:57:00 -0700

AFP Photo / Spencer Platt

Eight people were wounded, one critically, in a shooting at a Brooklyn, New York, house party. Four men and four women were taken to a hospital. Shots were heard at a party in a residential area around 1am local time on Sunday, a spokesman for the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information at the New York Police Department confirmed.

BNO News: NYPD confirms multiple people shot in Brooklyn, but cannot yet confirm scanner reports saying 7 shot — Michael van Poppel (@mpoppel) June 30, 2013

Police could not immediately comment on the identities of those hurt or the extent of their injuries. All were transported to Kings County Hospital and one of the victims has life-threatening injuries. So far police have made no arrests.

Brooklyn: Clarendon Rd & East 52 St. NYPD o/s with 7 people shot 1 in traumatic arrest 4 in serious condition. Level 1 called. — New York City Alerts (@NYCityAlerts) June 30, 2013

At least 57 treated after nitrogen leak at Intel plant in Arizona

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 08:54:00 -0700

Intel plant, Arizona (Image from thedroidguy.com)

A massive nitrogen leak at an Arizona Intel plant caused the hospitalization of at least 11 people, with a further 46 needing medical treatment on Saturday morning. The severity of the injuries of those hospitalized is yet to be confirmed.

“This is not over,” Tom Dwiggins, spokesman for the Chandler Fire Department, told local news teams standing outside the facility where the leak began.

Those who were taken for treatment reported breathing problems and skin and eye irritation. Fire authorities from Chandler, Sun Lakes and Phoenix who arrived at the scene stopped short of evacuating neighborhoods in the area.

Fire crews managed to find the source of the leak, which has now been secured, according to Dwiggins.

“After meeting with the command staff, we've stopped the leak and there's no concern for [residents in surrounding] neighborhoods,” Dwiggins said.

The incident is still being investigated as it remains unclear what caused the problems.

The Intel plant in Chandler was only built last year, when it was decided that the facility would span 285,000 square feet. Intel announced at the time that it was specifically looking for military veterans with relevant training to fill new jobs at the semiconductor manufacturing plant. It claims to be the largest employer in Chandler.

US chemical plants in America have fallen victim to a number of unfortunate accidents this year, the most serious being April’s Texas fertilizer plant explosion in which 15 people died, and over a hundred were hospitalized.

More recently, two chemical plant explosions in Louisiana were rocked by massive blasts, with 77 injured and one killed in the first, and at least one dead and some seven injured in an accident in the same state only two days later.

HRW slams Saudi Arabia after 7 ‘tortured’ men jailed for ‘inciting protests’ on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 08:52:00 -0700

Reuters / Stringer

Human Rights Watch has slated Saudi Arabia for violating international human rights obligations after it jailed seven people for up to 10 years for ‘inciting protests’ via Facebook. The indicted denied charges and said they were tortured into confession.

The sentencing after a two-month long trial took place on June 24, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which it has obtained the court judgment, and revealed the procedure “violates international human rights principles.”

The seven men were arrested between September 23 and 26, 2011. They have been kept in the General Investigations Prison in the capital of Saudi’s Eastern Province, Damman for a year-and-a-half without being charged. They have been tried by Specialized Criminal Court, set up in 2008 to deal with terrorism-related cases. The trial began on April 29.

The charges against the seven vary. However, they all have been accused of joining Facebook pages aiming to “incite protests, illegal gathering, and breaking allegiance with the king” and “of assisting and encouraging these calls are corresponding with the Facebook pages’ followers and concealing them,” the HRW cited the court judgment.

They have been also convicted of violating Article 6 of the Anti-Cyber Crime Law, which bans producing, sending, or storing any material via an information network that “harms public order.”

“Breaking allegiance [with the king] comes by way of arms and it comes by way of protests, marches, and writing articles and publications … the behavior of the [second] course … is sometimes the more dangerous and more malicious method,” the presiding judge concluded in the judgment.

None of the seven was accused of directly participating in protests, nor of using or advocating violence.

Abd al-Hamid al-Amer has got harshest sentence – 10 years in prison for founding two Facebook groups in early 2011 which supported of a prominent Shia sheikh and religious leader Tawfiq al-Amer, arrested for publicly calling for a constitutional monarchy.

Prosecutors said that those pages were used to call for followers “to join the movements” and “gave them ideas and guidance on the important sites in which to protest and set the timing [of the protests].”

All seven accused have admitted they participated in Facebook pages titled “al-Ahsa March 4 Youth Movement” and “The Free Men of al-Ahsa”, but did not know that was unlawful. Therefore, they denied accusations of having intentions to break allegiance with the king or harm public order, but the prosecution produced signed confessions.

During the trial, the accused reported to the court that confessions were signed under torture by the intelligence officers, but the judge overruled the claim as “not acceptable,” due especially to “their inability to prove the allegations of coercion and torture.”

According to one of the seven convicts’ family members, the men had not lawyers as they could not afford them. Under Saudi Arabia’s Criminal Procedure Law, unlike in many countries, there is no provision for a public defender for those who cannot afford a lawyer, HRW reported.

Moreover, as Saudi Arabia has no written penal code, prosecutors and judges tend to criminalize acts based on their own interpretation of Islamic law.

HRW insists the whole procedure lacks clearness and violates “international human rights principles, such as those that prohibit arbitrary arrest and guarantee fair trials.”

The men intend to appeal their sentences.

The HRW has stressed that the trial also comes against Article 15 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which Saudi Arabia ratified in 2009.

“No crime and no penalty can be established without a prior provision of the law. In all circumstances, the law most favorable to the defendant shall be applied,” the article states.

The HRW has called on the European Union’s High Representative Catherine Ashton and EU member states’ representatives, who are meeting with their Gulf region counterparts in Bahrain on June 30, to condemn the convictions and publicly “press Saudi Arabia to stop jailing human rights activists and peaceful dissidents.”

“Sending people off to years in prison for peaceful Facebook posts sends a strong message that there’s no safe way to speak out in Saudi Arabia, even on online social networks,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “If the EU doesn’t raise these cases with Saudi officials this weekend, its silence will look like craven compliance with the rights abuses of an authoritarian state.”

The latest conviction of the seven followed a wave of similar cases of convictions of peaceful dissidents and human rights activists in June, according to HRW.

Obama has ‘no vision, no future’ planned for Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 08:50:00 -0700

US President Barack Obama walks with South-Africa minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane during an arrival ceremony at Waterkloof Air Base in Centurion, near Pretoria on June 28, 2013. (AFP Photo / Jim Watson)

President Obama’s trip to Africa is little more than a public relations stunt to a continent desperate for his help, Lawrence K. Freeman, editor of Executive Intelligence Review magazine, told RT.

RT: What can we expect from Obama’s three-nation tour, do you think?

Lawrence Freeman: There’s not going to be much accomplished. The purpose of the trip is not to help the African people to develop these African nations. This is a very calculated, glorified public relations tour to three countries and most people in Africa are going to realize, and do realize already, that this country is doing nothing to help their continent. And what they do know is that the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi, led by Obama and NATO, has been a catastrophe for north and West Africa in supporting various elements that have now allowed the destabilization of many of these countries, especially with the arms and the flow of Tuaregs and terrorists coming out of Libya. So the South African people are not pleased or happy with President Obama and he’s going to offer absolutely nothing except maybe entice private sector companies to make a few investments. But this is really pathetic in terms of what Africa needs.

RT: To what extent is this more about China’s influence there?

LF: Well there is this silly notion in the US that somehow China is our competitor in Africa. But in fact what China has done over the last recent period, five to ten years, is invest massively and construct all types of infrastructure projects throughout many African countries totaling tens of billions of dollars per year. So the US had to stop doing that 40 years ago. The US does not build infrastructure. The US does not provide government-backed investment in the kinds of projects that are necessary for the people of Africa. We’ve done nothing, for example, to develop water management in the African Sahel. We’ve done nothing to develop the Arab culture capability of these regions and therefore you have the spread of terrorism, the spread of insurgency because you have these alienated youth who see no future because their economies are dying. In fact Obama’s done less than George Bush and less than Bill Clinton even though he’s called the Son of Africa. So he has a record of failure and in fact he’s been supporting destabilization, such as the overthrow of Gaddafi, which has actually worsened conditions throughout Africa.

RT: In terms of visits, he had one brief visit to Ghana in 2009 and now this short visit. Why only that, why not more?

LF: He’s not really concerned. In 2009 he spent less than 24 hours and made one speech in Ghana. Here he’s visiting three countries - Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania - and avoiding going to other countries such as Nigeria, such as Mali, many other countries that are in the spotlight right now. He doesn’t have anything to offer them, the United States - the transatlantic community of Europe and the United States, the financial system, is collapsing. We see this throughout Europe and the United States, dying economically, politically, and culturally. We have no vision, we have no future. Obama cares nothing about the welfare of the South African people as he cares nothing about the welfare of the people of the United States. In fact he’s supporting a British policy of genocide throughout Africa by allowing destabilization and by allowing hunger and shortages of food and medicine to kill Africans in large numbers, and this is something that could be corrected and changed if we had a policy to do that.

Two Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked chiefs killed by own forces

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 08:47:00 -0700

Al-Qaeda linked al-shabab recruits walk down a street on March 5, 2012 in the Deniile district of Somalian capital, Mogadishu, following their graduation (AFP Photo / Mohamed Abdiwahab)

Two top commanders of Somalia's Al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group have been killed by their own fighters, following power struggle inside the extremist organization.

One of the dead, Ibrahim Haji Jama Mead, also known as Al-Afghani, tops Washington’s wanted list of terrorists. Last June, the State Department placed a US$5 million bounty for information leading to his location.

The other, Abul Hamid Hashi Olhayi was also a top commander of the extremist group and one of the founders of the terrorist group.

"We have informed their widows of their deaths, as they must now wear the clothes of mourning," Shabab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab told AFP.

Al-Afghani’s sister confirmed the death but called it an execution while Shabab claimed that both men died in a battle.

"We deny reports that the men were killed after capture," Musab said. "The two men were killed in a shoot out after resisting arrest on court orders."

Al-Afghani - “The Afghan” - dubbed so for his activities in Afghanistan, held prominent positions in the Islamic extremist movement in Somalia occupying positions as first deputy leader of al-Shabab in charge of finance and also as the head of al-Shabab's Kisimayo administration.

The man was believed to be representing Shabab’s hard-line faction that focuses on global jihad. In the last few years, the insurgent movement has split into rival factions, based along clan lines and ideological differences. It is believed that Al-Afghani challenged the command of top chief Ahmed Abdi Godane, also wanted by the US.

Security agents stand near the scene of a suicide bomb attack outside the United Nations compound in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, June 19, 2013 (Reuters / Feisal Omar)

N. Korea deploys improved artillery on border with South – report

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 08:44:00 -0700

A North Korean border guard post (AFP Photo)

North Korea has begun upgrading its artillery in frontline military units on the border with the South, deploying new guns able to engage targets deep within the neighboring state’s territory, South Korean media reports.

The North's military is replacing 107mm-caliber multiple rocket launchers with the improved 240mm guns, Yonhap news agency claims, referring to a government source.

"We are detecting signs that the North is deploying the improved 240mm-caliber multiple rocket launchers, and the signs are showing up at some western and eastern front-line military units," Yonhap quoted the source as saying.

The unnamed official expressed concern that the new ordnance poses increased military threats to areas south of South Korea's capital region, near the border with the North.

There’s little data on the military equipment produces by North Korea, but according to Yonhap, the 240mm launcher has a range of 60km, while the improved version increases the range to 70km.

A Department of Defense report submitted to the US Congress on May 2 indicated that the North has a total of 5,100 multiple rocket launchers.

Pyongyang is believed to have deployed multiple rocket launchers with 107mm, 122mm and 240mm calibers on the border with the South.

Back in 2010, the North used it’s artillery to shell South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, killing two soldiers and two civilians.

The two Koreas technically remain ‘at war’ as the sides still haven’t signed a peace treaty after the Korean War ended in 1953.

Tensions mounted on the Korean Peninsula earlier this year after the North conducted new nuclear and missile tests.

Pyongyang threatened Seoul and the Washington with war and closed off the joint industrial zone in Kaesong, following a new round of international sanctions, but later expressed willingness to negotiate.

Monsanto unapproved GMO wheat govt-stored up to 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 08:42:00 -0700

AFP Photo / Jean-Francois Monier

Monsanto’s unapproved GMO wheat, which made its way onto an Oregon field and is feared to have contaminated US wheat supplies, was stored at a US government-controlled facility until at least late 2011.

The confirmation that the controversial strain of wheat was stored at the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins, Colorado, comes as US Department of Agriculture (USDA) investigates how the unapproved wheat ended up in an Oregon field this spring.

The documents detailing shipments of the bioengineered wheat received by Reuters consist of correspondence between Monsanto and the Colorado facility. The site can store seeds for decades while retaining their viability, much longer than is possible with conventional storage.

Monsanto insists the contamination of the field was sabotage. The company suggested earlier that someone was able to secretly access bioengineered wheat, which had been made resistant to Roundup, a Monsanto-sold pesticide, and planted it in the Oregon field to damage Monsanto's work with biotech crops.

The USDA announcement of the discovered bioengineered wheat on an 80-acre farm in Oregon opened up a probe into the matter.

The plant was developed by Monsanto between 1998 and 2005, but was never approved or made into a commercial product.

The company has thus far failed to determine how the crop entered the environment, and insisted that all genetically-modified seeds stored at the high-tech Colorado facility were incinerated on January 5, 2012.

"At our direction, the seed was destroyed ... as it was old material and we had no plans for its future use," said Monsanto spokesman Thomas Helscher.

The seed storage at Fort Collins received 43 physical containers of Monsanto's wheat that contained more than 1,000 unique varieties, documents reveal.

Some of the wheat was also stored at Monsanto’s facilities in St. Louis, Missouri.

The USDA is currently trying to confirm that all Monsanto seeds were accounted for and destroyed as the company reports.

The agency is investigating how Monsanto’s GMO wheat was handled when transferred to Fort Collins in late 2004 and early 2005 after the contract for the storage of wheat was set in November 2004.

At the time Monsanto was in the process of shutting down work with the so-called ‘Roundup Ready’ wheat.

There is no indication that the GMO wheat made it to commercial supplies, but it cannot be held responsible for wheat sent elsewhere, USDA spokesman Ed Curlett said.

The contamination scandal has hurt US grain exports, as Japan and South Korea issued import restrictions in the wake of the discovery. US farmers have filed several lawsuits seeking damages from Monsanto.

There had been worldwide protests held against GMO-companies, primarily Monsanto, which is viewed globally as a champion of bioengineered foods.

Ecuador's Correa: Solution for Edward Snowden's destination 'in hands of Russia'

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 08:40:00 -0700

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa speaks during his programme 'Enlace Ciudadano', at the Refineria del Pacifico camp, in El Aromo, Manabi, 390 west of Quito, on June 29, 2013 (AFP Photo / Rodrigo Buendia)

Ecuador President Rafael Correa says Russia will decide the destination of former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, currently believed to be holed up at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. seeking safe passage to Ecuador after leaving Hong Kong.

"At this moment, the solution of Snowden's destination is in the hands of Russian authorities," Correa said in an interview with the private Oromar channel, according to AFP.

"We have not sought out this situation. Snowden is in contact with [WikiLeaks founder Julian] Assange, who recommended he seek asylum in Ecuador," Correa stated.

Meanwhile, President Putin's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday that Snowden's fate is not on the Kremlin's agenda.

He said that Vladimir Putin had already voiced his take on the issue on Tuesday, when he confirmed that Snowden was in Moscow indeed, as a transit passenger, and rejected the US demands for the leaker’s extradition.

“We can only extradite foreign citizens to such countries with which we have signed the appropriate international agreements on criminal extradition,” Putin said, adding that as Snowden had committed no crime on Russian soil, he is free to travel at will.

"Snowden is a free person. The sooner he chooses his final destination, the better it is for him and Russia," he stated.

"On top of this," Peskov went on, "the president pointed out that he is not tackling this issue and prefers appropriate services to deal with it. Therefore, this subject matter is not on the Kremlin agenda."

"Given that it's not our issue, I don't know what kind of further development of the events and which legal and other aspects of the subject matter could follow. I can neither say anything, nor explain or give an appraisal," Peskov added.

Washington wants the 30-year-old Snowden, who faces espionage charges, over his leaking of details about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) dragnet telephone and internet surveillance programs.

'Decision ours to make'

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been residing in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for over a year, said during a conference call with the media broadcast by RT that Snowden had been given special refugee documents by the Ecuadorian government which facilitated his travel to Russia. But the country's top Foreign Ministry official said on Wednesday that Ecuador has not granted Edward Snowden any refugee documents.

Correa also said that he didn't authorize travel documents that the diplomats in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London issued to Snowden. He explained that London consul Fidel Narvaez gave the document to Snowden, "exceeding his authority in doing so."

"[Narvaez] will be punished," Correa promised.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (AFP Photo / Drew Angerer)

On Saturday US Vice-President Joe Biden "cordially" asked Ecuador not to grant asylum to former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, according to Correa. He said his country will make a decision based on sovereignty.

Biden initiated the phone call, Correa said, mentioning that Biden's good manners were in sharp contrast to "those badly behaved and confused ones in the Senate who threaten our country," and who had promised to cut off Ecuador's trade benefits in response to Snowden's asylum request.

"He communicated a very courteous request from the United States that we reject the [asylum] request," Correa recalled.

In Correa’s weekly broadcast on state TV, the staunch critic of the US, said he vowed to respect Washington's opinion in evaluating Snowden's request, should the whistleblower arrive in Ecuador. However, his country cannot begin processing the request unless the National Security Agency leaker reaches Ecuador.

Correa explained that "when he [Snowden] comes to Ecuadoran soil, if in fact he ever does, and we have to process the request, the first people whose opinion we will seek is that of the United States."

"Just as we did in the Assange case with England [sic], we are going to listen to everyone but the decision would be ours as a sovereign nation," he added, according to AFP.

"The really grave thing is what Snowden has reported," AP quoted Correa as saying. "He will have to assume his responsibilities, but the grave thing is his reporting of the biggest massive spy operation in the history of humanity, inside and outside the United States."

Correa said that while he doesn't want "to harm his country" he is "not going to give up on the principles and the sovereignty" of Ecuador.

US Senator Robert Menendez, who heads the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, warned earlier this week that Ecuador’s stance in Snowden's case could hurt the country's international trade, which is highly dependent on exports to the US.

"Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior," the influential US lawmaker said.

EU demands ‘full clarification’ over NSA spying on European diplomats, warns of severe impact on relations

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 08:35:00 -0700

European Parliament in the eastern French city of Strasbourg (AFP Photo)

The president of the European parliament has demanded an explanation from US authorities over the latest revelation that EU diplomatic missions in Washington, New York and Brussels were under electronic surveillance from the NSA.

“I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of US authorities spying on EU offices,” said the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz. “If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations.”

“On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations," he added.

Meanwhile, Germany's justice minister also called for an immediate explanation from the United States saying the news that Washington bugged European Union offices was "reminiscent of the Cold War."

"It must ultimately be immediately and extensively explained by the American side whether media reports about completely disproportionate tapping measures by the US in the EU are accurate or not," Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in a statement.

Other EU diplomats also expressed shock concerning the latest batch of revelations in the NSA leak, reported by Der Spiegel magazine on Saturday.

"If these reports are true, it's disgusting,” Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told Der Spiegel.

"The United States would be better off monitoring its secret services rather than its allies,” Asselborn continued. “We must get a guarantee from the very highest level now that this stops immediately."

A spokesman for the Office of the US Director of National Intelligence had no comment on the Der Spiegel story, Reuters reported.

Der Spiegel, quoting from a September 2010 "top secret" US National Security Agency (NSA) document leaked by former CIA employee Edward Snowden, reported on Saturday the NSA was eavesdropping on the EU’s internal computer networks in Washington, as well as at the 28-member bloc UN office in New York.

The German magazine also reported that five years ago, the NSA also targeted telecommunications at the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, home to the European Council, where all EU member states have their offices.

Snowden, 30, fled the US for Hong Kong in May, just weeks before The Guardian and Washington Post published details he provided about a top-secret US government surveillance program that accumulated internet and telephone traffic both at home and abroad.

The whistleblower is presently in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, where it is believed he is attempting to gain political asylum in Ecuador.

Lode Vanoost, former deputy speaker of the Belgian parliament, believes that the main purpose of the US surveillance program was “economic spying” on the EU.

“At the moment, the EU is negotiating a new free trade agreement with the United States,” the former deputy speaker noted. “Well, [now the US can gather] what their opponent is already discussing internally of strategy. That is one of the possibilities.”

Vanoost also believes that part of the reason for the spying was due to the decline in US economic strength.

“On the economic level, [the US] is losing ground everywhere,” he said. “Look at what the BRIC countries are doing. The EU is having stronger ties with Russia, with Africa, with Latin America. And the US doesn’t seem to get its economic priorities imposed as it used to. So what I see is a big risk for economic spying.”

He added that there is “too much at stake” for there to be a total breakdown in US-EU bilateral relations, however, “behind closed doors there will be some very tough words” exchanged between EU and American officials.

Ireland officially back in recession - report

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 16:32:00 -0700

A woman helps out a beggar sitting next to a political poster stuck to a telephone box in Dublin.(Reuters / Darren Staples)

Economic growth in Ireland shrank by 0.6 percent, making its third successive quarter of contraction, and it’s official re-entrance into recession, Central Statistics Office reports.

The island nation’s gross domestic product contracted by 0.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted rate for a third successive quarter, meaning the economy is back in recession for the first time since 2009, the data shows.

Similarly, the statistics office has revised its GDP contraction in Q3 2012 to 1.0 percent, down from the 0.4 figure delivered three months ago, and five times the number originally forecast last winter.

Overall, the economy grew by 0.2 percent in 2012, missing the 0.9 predicted by economists.

Ireland lost out big on capital investment, which decreased by 19.8 percent from the previous quarter.

Gross national product performed better, as preliminary estimates for first quarter of 2013 increased by 2.9 percent, seasonally adjusted.

The recently bailed out euro member’s recovery from the financial crisis has been slow, and today’s data indicates it may be slower than originally anticipated. Ireland has one of the highest budget deficits, and will continue to cut spending and increase taxes in austerity measures.

The budget deficit is astronomical largely due to the burden inflicted by the failure of six banks and recapitalization of the main three - Bank of Ireland, Allied Irish Bank and Anglo Irish Bank. The total cost of the bailout is nearing 64 billion euros, of which 40 percent was paid by taxpayer contributions.

Prime Minister Enda Kenny is hoping to wrap up her country’s three-year international bailout plan by the end of 2013.

Economies across Europe are slipping back into recession. France’s economy shrank by 0.2 percent in Q1, and with the exception of Austria and Germany, all euro member states have been sluggish in their growth due to the general economic slowdown of the continent.

Bond market returns in Ireland had some investors optimistic that it was moving towards growth, and not contraction.

Bonds dropped Tuesday after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi delivered a negative regional economic outlook, which he said will continue to necessitate monetary policy.

Overall the economy grew by just 0.2 percent last year, rather than the 0.9 percent initially thought, and the export-led recovery stalled in the second half of 2012 due to the slowdown in much of the rest of the eurozone.

Qatar’s new, young emir won’t lose step with Washington

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 16:27:00 -0700

Qatar's Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani.(Reuters / Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah)

Doha’s bite can be felt hard in the foreign policy arena, particularly in Syria, where it has been the principle arms supplier to the Al-Qaeda-linked militants fighting Assad. How will Qatar policies shift as the Gulf’s youngest leader takes the throne?

If we judge leaders by their cutthroat survivalist credentials, Qatar’s outgoing Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is arguably the political equivalent of Bear Grylls. The deep-pocketed monarch came to power in 1995 after overthrowing his own father in a palace coup while the latter was vacationing in Switzerland, and promptly altered the kingdom’s economic policies, giving rise to a boom in the development of natural gas and rapid economic development.

Qataris, part of a citizen population of fewer than 250,000 people, went from living in Bedouin tents scattered across the searing desert landscape to futuristic glass skyscrapers that dominate the capital, Doha, after the gas-boom; they pay no taxes and receive free or highly - subsidized social services. Qatar has amassed enormous material wealth since Hamad took the throne; its economy has grown from $8 billion in 1995 to over $174 billion, but now he’s passing the torch down to his 33-year-old son, Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, who officially inherited power on June 25.

It may be a pint-sized nation, but the billions Qatar has invested into global prestige projects over the past two decades has undeniably put this tiny peninsula on the map. The elder Hamad is the principle financier of the Al Jazeera news network, and it’s pretty transparent how Qatar’s foreign policy influences the network’s coverage of Iran, Libya and Syria, despite the station’s best efforts to ensure its impartiality.

It would be awfully difficult to find anything published on Al Jazeera that is critical of Qatar or the emir, and that’s probably because the kingdom has some of the world’s harshest provisions on free speech – namely, a media law that prohibits criticism of Qatar or any state in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Despite the West’s endorsement of the Arab Spring protests, criticism was remarkably muted when police recently arrested a poet in Qatar who made vague criticisms of the royal establishment – and after a bit of international pressure, his sentence was reduced from life in prison to just 15 years. (Hamad, your reformist credentials are really showing!)

Reuters / Fadi Al-Assaad

Cowboys in Doha

Political parties are banned in Qatar, there are no elections, the Emir has absolute authority, and - wait for it - they “promote democracy” in Syria! The kingdom is a primary sponsor of the armed opposition in Syria, as well as the suit’n’ties in the Syrian National Council; it played a critical role in the brutal regime change operation in Libya, and has lent support to jihadists in Mali. Al Jazeera’s Arabic service plays host to a range of hardline voices, such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who famously called for Muammar Gaddafi’s assassination and claimed that the Prophet Mohammed would support NATO if he were around today.

Qatar is of course a key US ally and partner, and hosts the Pentagon’s most important military bases in the region, in addition to hosting 5,500 US troops. President Obama described Hamad as “a pretty influential guy,” and when asked about the blatant hypocrisy of an absolute monarch exporting democracy around West Asia, he insinuated that Qatar’s six figure per capita income dampens the Qatari people’s democratic sentiments.

In an effort to improve national education, Hamad pushed for high-end American universities to open up shop in Doha, which also hosts an arm of the Brooking Institute, an influential US think-tank that champions aggressive foreign policy directions that show little concern for international law and national sovereignty.

Qatar has long been a small fish among whales, contending with a hegemonic Pentagon, a reactionary and fanatical Saudi Arabia next door, and Shiite anti-monarchy Iran a stone’s throw away. The emir’s total embrace of Washington, his billion dollar prestige projects, and his support of the Muslim Brotherhood and their jihadist foot soldiers stem from Qatar’s ambitions of regional economic and political dominance, as well as taking the route it perceives to be the surest bet for regime security in a hostile neighborhood. Even Qatar’s modest globalized liberalization (women can drive in Qatar) has itself emerged out of the emir’s clear understanding that he has to at least attempt to look liberal and in keeping with the times.

Western media often downplays Doha’s lack of democracy, but talk up its attempts to broker diplomatic settlements to international conflicts, which have yielded little fruit.

Doha skyline is seen at night.(Reuters / Fadi Al-Assaad)

Arms, Allah, and lots of Benjamin Franklins

The Qatari regime is all about the Benjamins, and it uses its enormous financial muscle to support friendly political forces affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. It is said that the emir has an understanding with the Muslim Brotherhood whereby he exports their ideology, and in exchange, they keep their revolution outside of Qatar.

There seems to be an underlying economic component to Doha’s moves on the global chessboard, especially with regard to Syria. Qatar gets its gas from the South Pars field, which it shares with Iran, and as global demand for clean energy rises, so do Doha’s ambitions of being the EU’s main supplier.

If Europe shifts to burning gas instead of coal to reduce CO2 emissions, it could potentially become the largest natural gas consumer. Doha wants direct transit routes to emerging EU markets, but Assad is in the way, and he agreed to participate in the proposed Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, which would significantly bolster anti-hegemony Shia states and essentially allow Tehran, which is selling the same product, to get a leg-up over Doha. Of course, Qatar never seems to be seriously criticized in Western capitals, despite it being a strong candidate for the ‘state-sponsor of terror’ label that it should rightfully wear.

Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.(AFP Photo / Bertrand Langlois)

Like father, like son

To his credit, the elder emir oversaw a highly stable regime and did much to raise living standards drastically and, more notably, he has turned his ambitions into reality through calculated risk-taking – an unlikely attribute for an Arab monarch. In stark contrast to Saudi Arabia, where all the princes slated to take the throne are in their 80s and 90s, the new emir is the world’s second-youngest leader, just ahead of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.

Emir Tamim bin Hamad al Thani and the new generation of leaders he will appoint have inherited a medieval political system with a globalized face; he is said to have been heavily involved in shaping Qatar’s policy toward the conflicts in Libya and Syria.

Qatar’s previous emir was one of the loudest voices calling for troops to be sent to Syria, and he even started paying the salaries of anti-Assad fighters – there’s no way his son would shift gears. The young emir is not facing any real criticism in the West, nor any real domestic opposition, but perhaps he could plausibly find himself facing nasty blowback from Doha’s foreign policy choices, which would be the only significant hindrance he may face.

The country is going to keep being a favorite customer of the US defense industry, the question is, will Tamim deepen Qatar’s role in the Syrian conflict? As the US and others prepare to overtly provide arms to militants in Syria, Doha can definitely be expected to move more vigorously in step with Washington.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Snowden alone in calling out Empire as naked

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 16:18:00 -0700

Snowdon Supporters demonstrate before Obama visit to Berlin.(Photo from instagram.com/rt)

The American Empire stands naked, called out by one man among a hundred thousand who knew its dirty secrets and systematic betrayal of the world's trust.

While international politics in the West has been leaping over each other to suck up to The Empire's New Clothes following September 11, 2001, the United States wasted no time in reinforcing the order of Pax Americana - that the US would establish peace in the world through superior firepower.

The world was turned into a simple black-and-white "You're with us, or you're against us." In the decade that followed, many countries that were inconvenient to Pax Americana were invaded, none of which had anything to do with the events on September 11.

The rattling of sabers were reminiscent of a high school bully: "if you don't accept that we can do whatever we want, we might be mean to you, so behave." Or, as US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed that sentence in just slightly more diplomatic language recently: "Hand over Snowden, or there may be consequences."

Most people in the United States aren't aware that their country is acting like their hated high school bully to most of the rest of the world. The few who do tend to take it with humor: bumper stickers have been seen satirizing this as "Be nice to America, or we'll bring democracy to your country", playing on the media spin that every war of aggression to maintain Pax Americana is about "bringing democracy" somewhere.

So when one man, Edward Snowden, reveals to the world that the Empire stands naked and that it really has been behaving like a bully, wiretapping everybody wholesale, there are shockwaves. But that's where the similarities with the folklore tale ends. Where the naked emperor cringed and realized the game was up, the naked Empire instead chooses to keep rewarding sucking up, pretending that nothing has been revealed at all, and to punish the whistleblower at all costs as a warning to others.

Politicians in the United States have been quick to call Snowden this, that and the other thing. No wonder. The surveillance hawks who couldn't care less of the human rights of the world would much rather talk about Edward Snowden as an individual than about the fact that the world's trust in the United States has been systematically betrayed wholesale.

Shadows are cast on the White House in the early morning in Washington.(Reuters / Larry Downing)

Take Microsoft software as an important example. As part of the NSA unravelings, it was uncovered that Microsoft gives security holes to the National Security Agency for exploiting before it sends out security repair patches to its users and customers - essentially betraying the trust of every customer worldwide, and making sure that no government, corporation, or media outlet can ever trust Microsoft products again: for Microsoft gave the master key to every customers' operations to the NSA.

Without Snowden setting the ball rolling, we would not have known this, and we would continue to have been owned - in the hacker and literal sense of the word - by the United States. Now, we can at least see that any Microsoft-developed software, and probably any closed US-developed software, is a huge security risk that no nation outside the United States can afford to take.

Today, Snowden is said to be comfortable on the inside of Sheremetyevo Airport outside Moscow, pending new travel documents being issued by some friendly country. (You have to love the fact that he's enraging US bully hawks by planning his trip to China, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. The only thing missing would be a trip to Pyongyang with a stopover in Tehran - and we find ourselves rooting for the countries that shield him, those countries we have been told sternly are black-and-white evil.)

What's really interesting is how other people who have had their doubts about the United States have started to come forward. There are now rumors that those who have been doubting the Empire's ability to pay back its enormous debts are starting to raise their voices about it. No wonder: the United States has long been bankrupt, but people have been... pretending... otherwise to make sure that a crash to the world economy doesn't happen on their watch.

If the doubts in creditworthiness take hold, things can come crashing down quicker than you would expect. Compare with 1987, at what felt like the height of the Cold War - who would have guessed that the Soviet Union would be formally dissolved just four years later?

If history teaches us anything, it is that all empires come to an end. History books could theoretically point at Snowden's leak of conscience as the starting point of major, major changes to the geopolitical order. At least they ended a blind and naive trust in the United States' interest in doing good for anybody but itself.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

St. Louis police chief wants drones to monitor city

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 15:57:00 -0700

St. Louis Police Capt. Sam Dotson (Image from slmpd.org)

A Missouri police chief has asked the Federal Aviation Administration for his very own surveillance drone, which he would use to conduct police chases and monitor the city for criminals.

“To help keep officers safe, to help keep the community safe. For monitoring public spaces – things like the upcoming Fair St. Louis [and] baseball games – for terrorists, suspicious activity,” St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson told KSDK.

The police chief does not like to use the word ‘drone’, so in his request to the FAA, he asked for permission to use an ‘unmanned surveillance vehicle’, he told KTVI. Dotson believes the surveillance vehicles would help police capture fleeing criminals and ultimately reduce crime in St. Louis.

“Criminals believe, and with some truth, that if they flee from police officers, officers will not pursue and they will ultimately elude capture,” Dotson wrote in hisMarch 25letter to the FAA. “If we are serious about crime reduction strategies, we must look to new technologies which help keep officers and the public safe and apprehend criminals.”

Dotson says purchasing drones, at the price of $80,000-$300,000 a piece, is a more cost-effective solution than purchasing helicopters, which cost about $2-$2.5 million. Some surveillance drones can even cost less than $10,000, Dotson told Fox2 News. The newest generation of surveillance drones can be as small as a coffee cup and do not carry any weapons.

If approved to employ a drone, Doston said he would seek out donations and grants to buy the unmanned surveillance vehicle.

News of Dotson’s intentions has concerned privacy advocates, who are already complaining about the FBI’s use of drones for domestic surveillance. Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Eastern Missouri, told the St Louis Post-Dispatch that the police chief is taking surveillance too far.

“This is a significant expansion of government surveillance,” he said. “Our laws have not kept up with our privacy rights. Our Fourth Amendment privacy rights aren’t safe from unreasonable search and seizure when you’re looking at drones."

The St. Louis Police Department is not the first to request drones for domestic surveillance purposes. The Electronic Frontier Foundation last year discovered that dozens of police agencies had submitted FAA applications, requesting permission for drone usage. The FAA has only granted permission to about a half-dozen of these police departments, most of which are in rural areas and thus unable to interfere with airports, the St. Louis-Post Dispatch reports.

The FAA does not allow the use of drones for commercial purposes, and requires the vehicles to fly below 400 feet.

Senate passes immigration reform bill

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 15:56:00 -0700

U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) talks to reporters after a procedural vote to move forward on immigration reform legislation at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, June 27, 2013. (Reuters / Jonathan Ernst)

The United States Senate approved a landmark immigration bill Thursday afternoon after lawmakers in Washington voted 68-to-32 in favor of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013.

The Senate put its collective support behind the bill, a bipartisan effort that has been at the center of discussion on both sides of the aisle since it was introduced in Washington in April of this year.

Should the bill clear both chambers of Congress, President Barack Obama will be asked to ink his name to a comprehensive immigration reform bill that will provide new opportunities for unlawful residents to stay in America legally, while at the same time pumping millions of dollars into the United States’ border with Mexico in an attempt to limit the influx of illegal aliens.

"We're on the edge of passing one of the most significant pieces of legislation that this body has passed in a very long time," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) told Senate colleagues on Capitol Hill Wednesday. "The vast majority of members in this body realize that the immigration system is broken and needs fixing."

Early Thursday morning, every voting member of Schumer’s Democratic Party and 14 Republican senators gave the bill a final go-ahead after deciding to end debate on the act’s amendments.

"There is no reason after these votes today to delay this,” added Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada). "We're poised to pass a historic immigration bill. It's landmark legislation that will secure our borders and help 11 million people get right with the law,” he said

If the bill passed today by the Senate is signed into law by Pres. Obama, millions of presently illegal immigrants would be granted lawful status to stay in the United States. Currently around 11 million residents of the US reside there illegally, and new mechanisms would provide a pathway for citizenship in many cases, albeit not without hurdles. Illegal immigrants would be required to pay Uncle Sam back taxes before being presented with permanent legal status, a measure which is expected to bring in nearly one trillion dollars during the next 20 years. Additionally under the bill, 20,000 new Border Patrol jobs would be created and a 700 mile fence would be erected on the US/Mexico border. Businesses would also have to check on the legal statuses of prospective employees, and lower-skilled and farm workers would be admitted legally into the US under only a temporary program.

S Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, speaks on immigration during a briefing for reporters at the Capitol on June 27, 2013 in Washington, DC. (AFP Photo / Mandel Ngan)

That morning decision set the stage for a 4 p.m. vote, which ended as predicted with the Democrat-controlled Senate signing off on the bill which will next be sent to the House of Representatives. Once that chamber and its Republican majority have its hands on the act, however, the bill is expected to stall and come short of ever being sent to the White House.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), an outspoken opponent of the act, said Thursday that “Today’s vote is largely symbolic.”

Other Republicans who spoke up early Thursday include Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who said he’d be casting a ballot against the bill “with a great deal of regret.” Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia) was not able to have his amendments involving agricultural workers tacked onto the bill and said Thursday he was left feeling “terribly disappointed and frustrated.”

At the same time, however, GOP support on the act has so far surpassed what pundits had predicted. Both votes in the Senate on Thursday suggest that the Republican Party is willing with some degree to work towards immigration law reform, and the securing of more than a dozen GOP lawmakers could put the pressure on the rest of the party to act swiftly in adopting a bill that’ll suite the Senate version.

Of particular contention among GOP lawmakers is the balance between amnesty for currently illegal immigrants and what some have called the militarization of the US/Mexico border. More hawkish conservatives are calling for a bill that will focus more heavily on securing the Mexican border, whereas Democrats seem content with their current plan, which will indeed bring added fortification while also emphasizing a program that will allow illegal aliens to stay in the US.

On Thursday, House Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam (R-Illinois) told reporters that the current bill is a “pipe dream” and said, “Our conference is all about trying to get a deal with a secure border.”

“Once there is a level of confidence on a secure border then you can deal with moving forward on these other elements,” Roskam said.

The last time Congress was asked to rewrite federal immigration laws came in 2006, but that attempt died in the Senate before ever being sent to the House. Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the speaker of the House, said his chamber will ignore the Senate approved-bill and will draft its own version that will more heavily emphasize border security.

"Apparently some haven't gotten the message: The House is not going to take up and vote on whatever the Senate passes. We're going to do our own bill -- through regular order -- and move the legislation that reflects the will of our majority and the will of the American people," Speaker Boehner said during a Thursday press briefing.

US-Japan war games off the California coast imitate Chinese invasion

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 15:52:00 -0700

Marines of the U.S. Marine Corps take part in a practice for a joint landing operation drill (Reuters / Lee Jae Won)

The US and Japan are preparing for a possible Chinese invasion of the Senkaku Islands. Using a small island off the coast of California, US and Japanese forces are mimicking an armed invasion and an amphibious assault to prepare for a real-life scenario.

The unprecedented drills, code-named Dawn Blitz, are being conducted on San Clemente Island, which is 75 miles northwest of San Diego, the Christian Science Monitor reports. They began with an assault led by 80 US Marines and three MV-22 Osprey aircraft, and were followed by a Japanese counterattack using 1,000 troops and two warships. Although Japanese officials claim they are not preparing to target a third country, the exercises have made Chinese officials uncomfortable.

China and Japan have long disputed the Senkaku Islands, which are located in the East China Sea but which the Japanese government purchased from private owners in 2012. The islands are uninhabited, but believed to hold rich oil and gas deposits. The purchase triggered violent protests that tens of thousands of Chinese took part in, and harmed Sino-Japanese relations.

In the months after the purchase, the Chinese navy practiced military exercises near the islands, and joint US-Japanese naval drills subsequently occurred in the waters of the island chain. The latest drills off the California coast are only adding to tensions regarding the Senkaku Islands. Chinese officials reportedly objected to the drills, but their concerns were ignored by Washington, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

"We're aware of China's objections, but from a Japanese and US perspective, the object of the exercise is to build a powerful deterrent and demonstrate that the two forces are seamlessly connected – to show the Chinese that they are battle-ready," an official source familiar with Dawn Blitz told the Monitor on condition of anonymity. "There is nothing unusual in that."

The exercises began just two days after President Obama met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a California summit on June 8. But even though some believe the US is in a tricky position, the official does not believe the US is in the wrong, since the US-Japan security treaty requires the country to help Japan deter any attacks on its territory.

"I don't think Dawn Blitz puts the US in a tricky position," the official said. "They started the drill just after the Obama-Xi summit to avoid any diplomatic repercussions. But the fact that Japan and the US went ahead with the exercise also sends a message – that they are on the same page when it comes to deterring possible Chinese aggression."

Lt. Gen. Koichi Isobe, Japan’s vice chief of staff, told reporters that Japan’s self-defense forces (SDF) need to develop the capabilities to ward off any attacks that might occur on the remote islands.

"The defense of remote islands is a pressing issue, but the SDF [Japan's self-defense forces] has just begun training to develop such capabilities, which are required of US Marines," Japan's vice chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Koichi Isobe, told reporters. "Japan needs to determine its defense strategy and procure necessary equipment and train SDF members for this purpose."

The US has publicly refused to take sides regarding the Senkaku Islands, but its training exercises with Japan may inadvertently cause a shift in its neutrality.

Boston Marathon bombing suspect charged with multiple murders, WMD use

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 15:50:00 -0700

Dzokhar Tsarnaev (AFP Photo)

Boston Bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev has been officially charged with killing four people and using weapons of mass destruction, federal prosecutors announced Thursday. Tsarnaev, 19, faces a potential death sentence over the alleged crimes.

According to the United States Attorneys’ Office, 17 of the 30 charges levied against the teenager carry a penalty of life in prison or execution.

“The defendant’s alleged conduct forever changed lives," prosecutors said in a statement.

Officials believe the former UMass Dartmouth student and his older brother Tamerlan planted homemade explosives near the finish line ahead of the April 15 race. The double explosion that went off as runners crossed the line en masse caused three deaths and 264 injuries.

The indictment says the Tsarnaev brothers used pressure cookers stuffed with low-explosive powder, ball bearings, nails, adhesive, electronic components, and other substances to manufacture their devices.

Jahar Tsarni, as prosecutors referred to him, is also charged with carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury. While fleeing the police, the brothers stopped a vehicle and ordered the driver to turn over the car and $800, according to officers.

“I thought it was just a robbery...He took out his gun, pointed it to me,” the carjacking victim told CBS. “He told that, ‘You know I am serious. Don’t be stupid.’”

Four days later, the Tsarnaev brothers allegedly killed a police officer during a firefight. Tamerlan also died in the incident.

Runners continue to run towards the finish line of the Boston Marathon as an explosion erupts near the finish line of the race in Boston, Massachusetts, April 15, 2013. (Reuters / Dan Lampariello)

A wounded Dzokhar later hid inside a boat in the backyard of a Watertown, Massachusetts residence. He was arrested after a massive manhunt and placed in a medical prison facility where he has stayed ever since.

Prosecutors say Tsarnaev scribbled an anti-government message as he bled from a throat and leg wound, waiting for the police to find him.

“The US Government is killing our innocent civilians. I can’t stand to see such evil go unpunished. We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all,” it read, the indictment claims. “Stop killing our innocent people, we will stop.”

One of the passages, the FBI claimed, quoted Anwar al-Awlaki, the American propagandist killed in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen. Previous reports indicated that Tamerlan Tsarnaev watched Awlaki’s speeches on YouTube.

“Today’s indictment is the result of the dedicated and collective efforts of law enforcement and intelligence partners, working with a sense of urgency and purpose to find those responsible for those deadly attacks,” said FBI Director Robert S. Mueller. “These continuing efforts reflect the pursuit of justice for those who lost their lives and the scores of individuals who were injured.”

While the indictment did not speculate on any larger conspiracy behind the attacks, prosecutors did say they found an issue of Inspire magazine - an English language Al-Qaeda publication - downloaded by Dzokhar. The literature, which was dated summer of 2010, contained “detailed instructions for constructing IEDs using pressure cookers, explosive powder from fireworks, shrapnel, adhesive and other materials,” the indictment read.

“IEDs constructed in this manner are designed to shred flesh, shatter bone, and cause extreme pain and suffering, as well as death.”

Dzokhar was initially unable to talk, but said in a phone call released by his mother earlier this month that he is well-fed and recovering physically.

The Tsarnaev brothers are ethnic Chechens and have roots in Russia’s North Caucasus – a region that has witnessed a massive Islamist insurgency in the past and partly remains a hotbed of extremism.

US sources claim China and Russia got access to Snowden's computers

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 15:47:00 -0700

Reuters / Kacper Pempel

United States officials believe that classified intelligence taken out of the country by NSA leaker Edward Snowden has been compromised by agencies in Russia and China.

Snowden, a 30-year-old former employee of intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, fled the US for Hong Kong last month and then supplied journalists with classified information pertaining to vast surveillance operations conducted by the American government’s National Security Agency.

Both Russian and US officials have made claims that Snowden is now in Moscow, likely arranging for possible asylum in another country. In the meantime, though, US sources speaking with the Washington Free Beacon say that China and Russia have gained access to “highly classified US intelligence and military information contained on electronic media” held by Snowden.

“The exact compromise of the secret data held on Snowden’s laptop computers remains unknown but is the subject of an ongoing damage assessment within NSA and other intelligence agencies,” Bill Gertz of the Free Beacon wrote on Wednesday.

According to Gertz, those officials fear that Snowden may have accessed recently created nuclear war plans that could pose as future embarrassment for the US in the wake of disclosures already attributed to Snowden.

Previously, Snowden supplied The Guardian newspaper with documentation showing how the NSA routinely collects the phone records pertaining to millions of Americans every day. On Thursday this week, The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald and Spencer Ackerman published their latest installment in the NSA leaks, exposing further surveillance under the administration of President Barack Obama that put Internet records directly into the hands of government officials.

Snowden has said that he’s personally reviewed the trove of documents supplied to The Guardian and other outlets, carefully evaluated every single one “to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest.” Glenn Greenwald said that Snowden brought “thousands” of files with him to Hong Kong, “dozens” of which he believes are newsworthy.

What exactly Snowden knows remains a mystery, however, and he reportedly has four laptops in his possession right now that contain classified intelligence.

Earlier this month, the Washington Post cited an anonymous former intelligence official who claimed that Russian authorities were almost certain to seize any computer files Snowden brought into the country.

In a separate article earlier this month, the Post quoted another former senior US intelligence official who predicted that any intelligence compromised by Russia would have seen a similar fate en route from Hong Kong.

“I guarantee the Chinese intelligence service got their hands on that right away. If they imaged the hard drives and then returned them to him, well, then the Russians have that stuff now,” the source said.

“The Chinese already have everything Snowden had,” a separate source added to the Beacon’s Gertz this week.

US mulls sending military training teams to Lebanon and Iraq

noreply@blogger.com (Shared RT News) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 15:45:00 -0700

US soldiers board the last C17 aircraft carrying US troops out of Iraq at Camp Adder on the outskirts of the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.(AFP Photo / Martin Bureau)

US military commanders are examining ways the US could bolster security in Syria’s neighboring countries, and have recommended sending military trainers to Lebanon and Iraq.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, on Wednesday revealed US plans to strengthen military assistance in Lebanon and Iraq as the conflict in Syria begins to spill over its borders. Dempsey noted that Iraq is suffering the re-emergence of al-Qaeda. Terrorist fighters, including members of the al Nusra Front, are crossing from Iraq into Syria, he said.

"We've made a recommendation that as we look at the challenges faced by the Lebanese armed forces, the Iraqi security forces with a re-emerging al Qaeda in Iraq, and the Jordanians, that we would work with them to help them build additional capability," Dempsey told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday.

To strengthen US security assistance in the region, he recommends that the US accelerate arms sales and send military training teams to Lebanon and Iraq. He already asked Gen. Lloyd Austin, the head of the US Central Command, to consider small deployments in upcoming weeks, Dempsey spokesman Col. Edward Thomas told CNN.

Thomas said that “it’s in the realm of the possible” that training teams will be sent back into Iraq – a move that would mark the first significant deployment since the US withdrew its troops in 2011. Dempsey emphasized that the US was not sending combat troops into Lebanon or Iraq, but noted that a Patriot missile battery and about a dozen F-16 fighter jets had already been left in Jordan, bringing the total number of American forces in the country to 1,000.

"Militarily, what we're doing is assisting our partners in the region, the neighbors of Syria, to ensure that they're prepared to account for the potential spillover effects," Dempsey said during Pentagon briefing. "As you know, we've just taken a decision to leave some Patriot missile batteries and some F-16s in Jordan as part of the defense of Jordan. We're working with our Iraqi counterparts, the Lebanese Armed Forces and Turkey through NATO."

Syria’s two-year war has already killed more than 100,000 people, and both Iraq and Lebanon have witnessed an increase in violence as the Syrian conflict has divided supporters of President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian rebels.

Ali al-Moussawi, the media adviser for Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, on Thursday told AP that Baghdad would be welcome to increased arms sales and US training teams to address instability in the region.

The US has long maintained that its involvement in the conflict would be limited. But if military commanders agree to send trainers to the region, the US would have a more direct role in addressing the violence along the Syrian border.

“When you say would we send the United States Army or the United States military into Lebanon, I'm talking about teams of trainers, and I'm talking about accelerating foreign military sales for equipment for them," Dempsey said, trying to reassure Americans that combat troops would not be deployed. "This is about building their capability, not ours."