More than a year and a half after his arrest, the Army private accused of being the source of the massive WikiLeaks disclosure of classified military and diplomatic material is to make his first "court" appearance Friday.

Pfc. Bradley Manning, who has been held at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., will face an Article 32 hearing at Fort Meade in Maryland, outside Washington. It's also the home of the National Security Agency. The hearing, which is expected to last up to a week, is to determine whether there's enough evidence for a court-martial. The 23-year-old former intelligence analyst faces 22 charges of violating the military code, from theft of records to aiding the enemy. He could face life in prison or possibly death.

FreeBradleyManning: March & rally for Bradley during pre-trial hearing
ANSWER: March & rally for Bradley during pre-trial hearing
Website: I am Bradley Manning
Daniel Ellsberg: This Shameful Abuse of Bradley Manning
Kelley B. Vlahos: Bradley Manning Finally Gets a Hearing

Exactly 220 years to the date after the Bill of Rights was ratified, the US Senate today voted 86 to 13 in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, allowing the indefinite detention and torture of Americans. - After a back-and-forth in recent days between both the Senate and House yielded intense criticism from Americans attempting to hold onto their Constitutional rights, NDAA FY2012 is now on its way to the White House, where yesterday the Obama administration revealed that the president would not veto the legislation, cancelling out a warning he offered less than a month earlier. Obama has finally brought about change to America, but it’s nothing to be hopeful about.

John Glaser: Congress Passes Defense Bill Codifying Indefinite Detention
Stephen Lendman: Obama Approves Draconian Police State Law
Paul Craig Roberts: We Have a Republican Party That Is a Gestapo Party - Video [December 3, 2011]
Andrew P. Napolitano: The Government as Lawbreaker, Again
Elite Multimedia: 40 Members of Congress Protest ‘Indefinite Detention’ Bill

In addition to kidnapping Americans and tossing them into Camp Gitmo without recourse or trial, the draconian NDAA bill passed in the House yesterday contains language that will allow the Pentagon to wage cyberwar on domestic enemies of the state. - In July, the Pentagon released its cybersecurity plan. It declared the internet a domain of war but did not specify how the military would use it for offensive strikes. The report claimed that hostile parties “are working to exploit DOD unclassified and classified networks, and some foreign intelligence organizations have already acquired the capacity to disrupt elements of DOD’s information infrastructure.” In addition, according to the Pentagon, “non-state actors increasingly threaten to penetrate and disrupt DOD networks and systems.”

The narrative surrounding the lost RQ-170 Sentinel drone over the skies of Iran last week continues to morph, with US military officials now saying that the drone, which was previously supposed to be “patrolling” the border, was actually spying on nuclear sites in Iran.

Seeking to explain the sudden and dramatic change, military officials quoted by CNN conceded that the US military “did not have a good understanding of what was going on” with the high tech spy drone.

Iran also changed their story on the drone, backing off its claim that it had “shot down” the drone and now saying that it had used some sort of false GPS signal to trick the drone into believing it landed in Afghanistan when in fact it landed undamaged inside Iran.

This could be even worse for US officials, who were already concerned with the apparent lack of damage to the drone, as it would not only suggest Iran can grant access to a fully intact stealth drone to nations like Russia and China, but that the drones are also vulnerable to such tricks in the future.

Ismail Salami: US fear and loathing over spy drone
PressTV: Iran downing drone, body blow to US

Former Central Intelligence Agency officer, Rober Baer, said that Hezbollah’s naming of several agents and the agency’s Beirut Station Chief was a “serious blow” to the United States. - Talking to the English-written Lebanese newspaper, Daily Star, Baer said the resistance unmasking of the agency’s spies “is a serious blow to the US’ ability to gather intelligence”. The former CIA officer described Hezbollah as the “sophisticated enemy”, saying he “has enormous abilities” and "he can do whatever we can imagine". Baer also talked about an apparent “intensifying covert war between the West and Iran”. “There’s obviously an espionage war going on in Iran. And to lose an asset in the middle of a war like this, I think it’s catastrophic.”

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that the United States intends to dominate other countries, adding that the world is sick and tired of taking orders from Washington. - "Sometimes it seems to me that America does not need allies, it needs vassals," Putin said on Thursday during an annual televised call-in show, Reuters reported. He added that "people are tired of the dictates of one country." Putin said that Russia once wanted to be a US ally, but now he could not see any alliance between the two countries. As an instance of the US imposing its political will on its allies, he cited its invasion of Iraq in 2003, when Washington attacked the Middle Eastern country and then forced its allies to join the war. “Is that alliance? Is that mutual decision-making? Alliance means discussion, making a joint decision, outlining an agenda concerning common threats and ways to tackle them,” the premier questioned.

MSNBC: Putin: 'US seeks vassals, not allies'

Russia has submitted its own draft resolution on Syria to the United Nation Security Council (UNSC), calling on all sides involved to end to the ongoing violence in the country.

A draft was put forward to the members of the UNSC on Thursday, AFP reported. Moreover, the draft urges both the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the country's opposition to engage in dialogue and to work together towards reform. According to experts, the draft shows no change in Russian policy on Syria. Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March, with demonstrations being held both against and in favor of President Assad. Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed in the turmoil. While the opposition and Western countries accuse Syrian security forces of being behind the killings, Damascus blames outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups for the deadly violence, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad. Meanwhile, the confession of Syrian rebels to carry out armed activities and killing people as well as security forces proves that recent developments in the country are to be seen as parts of an attempt to start a revolt in order to overthrow the current government and replace it with a US-backed regime.

Al-Manar News: Russia Proposes Syria Resolution, US Hails Cautiously
Russia Today: Russia puts new draft resolution on Syria to UNSC

Transcripts of military interviews from the investigation into the Haditha massacre were found [in/at a] trailer in a junkyard in Baghdad, which specializes in selling trailers and office supplies left over from American military base closings. - The 400 pages of interrogations, once closely guarded as secrets of war, were supposed to have been destroyed as the last American troops prepare to leave Iraq. Instead, they were discovered along with reams of other classified documents, including military maps showing helicopter routes and radar capabilities, by a reporter for The New York Times at a junkyard outside Baghdad. An attendant was burning them as fuel to cook a dinner of smoked carp. The documents — many marked secret — form part of the military’s internal investigation, and confirm much of what happened at Haditha, a Euphrates River town where Marines killed 24 Iraqis, including a 76-year-old man in a wheelchair, women and children, some just toddlers. Haditha became a defining moment of the war, helping cement an enduring Iraqi distrust of the United States and a resentment that not one Marine has been convicted.

City of London Police have sparked controversy by producing a brief in which the Occupy London movement is listed under domestic terrorism/extremism threats to City businesses. - The document was given to protesters at their “Bank of Ideas” base on Sun Street – a former site of financial corporation UBS. City police have stepped up an effort to quell the movement since they occupied the building on 18 November, with the document stating: “It is likely that activists aspire to identify other locations to occupy, especially those they identify with capitalism.

A Palestinian fisherman has been injured after Israeli forces opened fire on his boat in Gaza's maritime boundary, medics reported. - According to Palestinian sources, a 45-year-old fisherman was injured in his legs by two gunshots fired from an Israeli naval vessel while he was fishing within the Israeli-imposed limit off the coast of the Gaza Strip on Friday. Tel Aviv has recently tightened Gaza's fishing space, allowing Palestinians to catch fish only within three miles off the coast of Gaza, which has resulted in an 85-percent loss of the fishermen's income. Palestinian fishermen are harassed daily by the Israeli naval forces patrolling the Gaza Strip's coastline around the clock. According to the head of the fishing syndicate in Gaza said that, since 2000, seven fishermen had been killed, scores injured, and hundreds abducted for interrogation, including many, who are still imprisoned in Israeli jails. Israel has subjected Gaza to an all-out land, naval, and aerial blockade since June 2007 after Hamas resistance movement took control of the coastal territory. The restrictions have deprived 1.5 million Palestinians of food, fuel, and other necessities.

In Western Europe, the Icelandic parliament recently passed a measure without objections to recognise the state of Palestine. The vote passed with 38 votes in favour and 13 abstaining. - The chairman of the opposition says Icelanders do not have sufficient knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to get involved. The opposition also maintains that the dispute should be resolved through bilateral negotiations. Iceland’s Foreign Minister Össur Skarphéðinsson said in a UN address that it would be foolish to deny Palestine rights in the middle of the democratic revolution brought on by the Arab Spring. In this episode, The Stream speaks to Össur Skarphéðinsson, Foreign Minister of Iceland and Michael Tarazi, former legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization.

IMEMC: Iceland Recognizes Palestine as a State

Louis Aliot, partner of rightist presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, is in Israel to persuade those eligible to vote in the French presidential election to give their vote this spring. - The National Front has its roots in French fascism and it has always had a racist and anti-Semitic image, but one of its representatives is in Israel to recruit supporters.

"They invited me so they could hear our worldview and Marine Le Pen's platform, particularly in the face of the Arab Spring," Aliot said. The group comprised "Frenchmen who live in Israel, many of them of Algerian origin." What did he think of them?, we asked. "What was interesting was that it's not important what position you have on Israeli politics, you will always have strong ties to the land. We share that position," he said. "Just as the Jews are defending their right to Israel, we in France are fighting to defend our identity and our land. "We don't always see eye-to-eye on Israel's foreign policy but we have the same position on the dangers posed by radical Islam, which exists in Europe and also threatens Israel, which we call 'the western island,'" Aliot said.

Jewish extremists set fire to a mosque in the West Bank on Thursday and defaced it with Hebrew graffiti a day after a similar arson attack on a Jerusalem mosque. Suspicion fell on Jewish extremists widely assumed to be behind stepped-up violence against Palestinians and the Israeli military. The governor of the Palestinian city of Ramallah, Laila Ghanam, said arsonists doused the mosque in the village of Burqa with gasoline, then set it on fire. - The Hebrew words for “war” and “Mitzpe Yitzhar” were painted in red on a wall, and the Israeli military said carpets and chairs were burned. Mitzpe Yitzhar is an unauthorized Jewish settlement outpost in the West Bank where Israeli security forces demolished two structures early Thursday. On Wednesday, suspected extremists torched an unused mosque in Jerusalem.

Pierre Klochendler: Fighting Settlers’ Impunity and Immunity

Christine Lagarde calls for "global unity" to tackle financial crisis as French launch verbal broadsides at David Cameron and UK. - The world risks sliding into a 1930s-style slump unless countries settle their differences and work together to tackle Europe's deepening debt crisis, the head of the International Monetary Fund has warned. On a day that saw an escalation in the tit-for-tat trade battle between China and the United States and a deepening of the diplomatic rift between Britain and France, Christine Lagarde issued her strongest warning yet about the health of the global economy and said if the international community failed to co-operate the risk was of "retraction, rising protectionism, isolation". She added: "This is exactly the description of what happened in the 1930s, and what followed is not something we are looking forward to."