The website WikiLeaks has begun releasing what it says are 5 million e-mails from the private intelligence company Stratfor, starting with a company "glossary" that features unflattering descriptions of U.S. government agencies. - In a statement released early Monday in Europe (Sunday evening ET), the website promises a raft of juicy disclosures about Stratfor, a Texas-based firm that promotes itself to corporate and government clients as a source of intelligence on international affairs. The company has been targeted by hackers who have released private data about subscribers in recent months, prompting the company to offer its clients a year of paid identity-protection coverage. There was no immediate comment on the disclosures from Stratfor, and the authenticity of the documents could not be independently confirmed Sunday night.

Wikileaks: The Global Intelligence Files - LONDON—Today, Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example :

"[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control... This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase" – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez.

The material contains privileged information about the US government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks. There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. The emails also expose the revolving door that operates in private intelligence companies in the United States. Government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money. The Global Intelligence Files exposes how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world.

BusinessInsider: That 'Extraordinary' Wikileaks Dump: A Big Pile Of Emails From STRATFOR

Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has expressed concern over the growing threat of a military strike on Iran, saying such an attack will have catastrophic repercussions. - “Russia is alarmed by the growing threat of a military strike” against Iran, Putin wrote in article in the daily Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper on Monday. “If this happens, the consequences will be truly catastrophic, their real scope impossible to imagine,” he added. “We propose to recognize Iran’s right to develop a civilian nuclear program, including the right to enrich uranium” in exchange for placing the country’s nuclear activities under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Russian premier further said. Putin added that in this case, all unilateral and international sanctions imposed against Iran need to be lifted.

PressTV: Britain prepares for military strike against Iran
Google/AP: Putin warns West over Syria, Iran

After more than 40 years of development and extensive use by the military, the United States has set the date when the nation’s airspace will be open for drones. Should you be scared? - Short answer: No, but like any new technology, unmanned aerial vehicles have their dark side. Legislation passed by Congress last week gives the Federal Aviation Administration until Sept. 30, 2015, to open the nation’s skies to drones. The first step comes in 90 days when police, firefighters and other civilian first-response agencies can start flying UAVs weighing no more than 4.4 pounds, provided they meet still-to-be-determined requirements, such as having an operator on the ground within line-of-sight of the drone and flying it at least 400 feet above ground. Currently, UAVs can only fly in restricted airspace zones controlled by the U.S. military.

A US-led NATO airstrike carried out by French troops has claimed the lives of four Afghan civilians, including children.

The airstrike targeted Kapisa’s Tagab district, leaving another four people injured. The attack comes less than two weeks after another US-led strike killed eight Afghan civilians in the same province. The victims were reportedly bombed twice while herding sheep in the snow.

Afghans have been holding almost six consecutive days of rallies against US-led forces in Afghanistan and the recent desecration of the holy Quran by US troops.

On February 4, the United Nations announced that last year was the deadliest year on record for Afghan civilians. The number of deaths marked a rise of eight percent from the previous year, and was roughly double the number from 2007. Thousands of civilians, including women and children, have been killed as a result of the war. The US-led invasion of Afghanistan took place in 2001. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but insecurity continues to rise across Afghanistan, despite the presence of thousands of US-led troops there.

A trial to determine how much BP owes for the worst oil spill ever in the U.S. was adjourned by one week to allow more settlement talks between the oil company and plaintiffs’ lawyers. - The civil trial in New Orleans was originally scheduled for Monday, but BP and the group of attorneys known as the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (PSC) announced in a joint statement late on Sunday the trial will be delayed “to allow BP and the PSC more time to continue settlement discussions and attempt to reach an agreement.” British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, 2010, and sank two days later after burning for 36 hours in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. The blast claimed the lives of 11 people. An oil spill ensued, damaging Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

It appears that a growing band of Israeli messianic settlers have banded together to orchestrate a crisis on the Temple Mount. Their ultimate goal seems to be taking Jewish control over the sacred ground, including two of the holiest sites in Islam, the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque. - For many years, there have been radical settler groups preparing for such a day. Ateret Cohanim maintains a yeshiva which is training priests to resume the Temple rituals including animal sacrifice. Dov Hikind’s wife earns $150,000 a year as its U.S. fundraiser. They’re also breeding cattle in the hopes of find that miraculous red heifer which would serve as a sign that God is ready to resume Jewish rites on this sacred ground. The settlers know that for Jews to rebuild the Temple would mean a holy war in the Holy Land that would likely dwarf the Crusades for passion and bloodletting. For these Jews, such an eventuality would bring the days of the coming of the Messiah closer, thus making the human suffering not just acceptable, but even desirable.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard defeated Kevin Rudd, her predecessor and former foreign minister, in a Labor Party leadership ballot held earlier today. Gillard was backed by 71 of her parliamentary colleagues, against 31 who voted for Rudd. Far from overcoming the crisis wracking the government, the leadership ballot has resolved none of the key policy issues underlying the vitriolic infighting within the Labor Party. Gillard declared that “we will move forward as a united team.” No one in her party, however, or in the political and media establishment as a whole, believes that the bitter divisions opened up by the rancorous public debate over the Labor leadership—unprecedented in post-war Australian politics—will be patched up.

Peter Symonds: Australian government torn apart by US-China tensions - The underlying causes of the conflict are not to be found, primarily, in the sphere of domestic politics. Both Rudd and Gillard are committed to the austerity agenda demanded by finance capital and are pitching themselves to big business as the best instrument for implementing the required assault on the working class. Rather, the fracturing of the Labor Party is bound up with powerful geo-political rivalries centred on the Obama administration’s growing confrontation with China. The Australian ruling class has been swept into this maelstrom, confronted point blank with the longstanding dilemma posed by its heavy economic dependence on China, on the one hand, and its geo-strategic reliance on its military alliance with the United States, on the other.

Afghan policemen form a line during an anti-U.S. demonstration
in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Feb. 24, 2012. Thousands of Af-
ghans staged new demonstrations Friday over the burning of
Qurans at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan. (AP / M. Sadeq)

This latest US offense has fanned the flames of intense anti-American sentiment in the two countries.

Massive protests over the U.S. military’s burning of Muslim holy books have caused two dozen deaths in Afghanistan and has now spread to Pakistan, where anti-American sentiment has hit unprecedented levels.

Afghan protesters tried to storm a U.S. consulate in Herat and march on NATO headquarters in Kabul on Friday in the fourth straight day of demonstrations, which ended up killing 24 people due to violent crowds and harsh attacks from Afghan security forces.

Afghan provincial spokesman Moheedin Noori said up to 50 people had been wounded in Herat, mostly by gunfire. Two U.S. troops have been killed in a shooting earlier in the week and four others wounded. German troops in northern Afghanistan have even withdrawn early from a military base because of the unrest.

Hundreds of Pakistani protesters took to the streets on Friday too, chanting “Death to America,” demanding that U.S. leaders resign and setting fire to a U.S. flag over the burning of Qurans in Afghanistan. Up to 300 people angrily demonstrated in the northwestern city of Peshawar, along with hundreds more in Islamabad and Karachi.

Google/AFP: Afghan Quran protests enter 5th day

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the Western powers of trying to topple the Iranian government under the cover of fighting nuclear proliferation. - "Under the guise of trying to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction... they (Western powers) are attempting something else entirely and setting different goals -- regime change," Putin said on Friday. He reiterated that Moscow is taking a different stance from what the West is trying to impose on it. "We have such suspicions," the Russian premier said, adding, "And we are trying to take a stand that differs from the one they are trying to force on us” about Iran’s nuclear issue. Putin's comments come as the latest US intelligence report on Iran's nuclear energy program has confirmed its peaceful nature.

Russia Today: US media Iran hysteria
AWIP: Israel's threats against Iran "ridiculous"
ABC News: Iran: Attack Will Lead to Israel's Collapse

Will President Bashar al-Asad make it to 2013? Chances are he will. Despite his regime's rapid loss of legitimacy, its growing isolation and tanking economy, no countervailing force has yet emerged that can take it down. - Many opposition and foreign leaders are predicting that the regime will fall within months. Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Riad al-Shaqfa stated that Bashar would fall "in the next few months."1 The U.S. State Department has called President Asad a "dead man walking." Israel's defense minister has insisted that Asad will fall in a matter of weeks. Certainly, the revolutionary process that began to sweep the Middle East a year ago is powerful; most Syrians want change, and many are willing to fight for freedom and dignity. One cannot envision the Asad family retaining power in the long run; all the same, predictions of its rapid demise may be wishful thinking. Four elements are important in assessing the regime's chances of surviving to 2013: its own strengths, the opposition's weaknesses, the chances of foreign intervention, and the impact of sanctions and economic decline. [Joshua Landis' Blog: Syria Comment][Via Moon of Alabama]

Russia Today: Head in sand: UK recognizes Syrian rebels
Reuters: Hamas ditches Assad, backs Syrian revolt
Stephen Lendman: Spoiling for War on Syria

A new video showing Israeli soldiers abusing a cuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainee was released after being shot by a hidden camera in Ni’lin village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah.

The video shows a cuffed and blindfolded Palestinian youth who was kidnapped during the weekly nonviolent protest against the illegal Israeli Annexation Wall and Settlements. These protests are organized by the local residents, along with Israel and International peace activists.

The cuffed Palestinian is seen on the ground while the soldiers are just moving him around, dragging his feet sometimes, and placing him in a sitting position against a wall next to another blindfolded and cuffed Palestinian.

It also shows the one of the soldiers standing next to him with his foot raised close to the head of the youth, posing as if he is going to crush his head while filming the abuse using what seems to be his mobile phone.

There have been several incidents where soldiers filmed themselves abusing detained Palestinians at roadblocks, and in other areas in the occupied territories.

In many other incidents, soldiers were caught on tape abusing the Palestinians, similar to the case of Ashraf Abu Rahma who was kidnapped in 2008, during a nonviolent protest against the Wall in Bil’in village, near Ramallah, and one soldiers had him stand near the military jeep while another soldier shot him in the leg at a close range.

Several soldiers even posted on Facebook videos they took of themselves or fellow soldiers while abusing Palestinians in the occupied territories.

In 2010, Israeli soldier Eden Abergil posted pictures on her personal Facebook page posing in front of Palestinians detained, cuffed and blindfolded at a roadblock in the West Bank.

An army private has declined to enter a plea to charges he engineered the biggest leak of classified information in US history. - Bradley Manning also deferred a choice of whether to be tried by a military jury or judge alone. Military judge Colonel Denise Lind presided over the 50-minute hearing at Fort Meade near Baltimore. She did not set a trial date but scheduled another court session for March 15-16. Defence lawyer David Coombs proposed a trial date some time in April. He said the government's proposed calendar could push the start of the trial to August 3, which could jeopardise his client's right to a speedy trial. Manning has been in pretrial confinement since May 2010. He faces 22 counts, including aiding the enemy. That charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. The others carry a combined maximum of more than 150 years. The 24-year-old from Oklahoma allegedly gave the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks more than 700,000 documents and video clips.

The website of an international prison contractor was defaced by hackers who on Friday replaced the company’s home page with a hip-hop homage devoted to former death row inmate Mumia Abu Jamal. - Hackers allied to the loose-knit Anonymous movement claimed responsibility for vandalizing the site of Boca Raton, Florida-based GEO Group Inc., which manages some 60 custodial facilities in Europe, North America, Australia and South Africa. Anonymous said in a statement posted to the stricken website that its hack was “part of our ongoing efforts to dismantle the prison industrial complex.”

Russia Today: Anonymous takes on prison industrial complex with latest hack

A policy brief recently issued by the National Poverty Center (NPC) reveals that the number of households in the US living on less than $2 a day per person has increased by 130 percent since 1996, from 636,000 to some 1.46 million today. This means that some 4 million people in “the richest country on earth” (according to US capitalism’s apologists) are surviving on less than $60 a month each, i.e., essentially on no income whatsoever.

Google is rolling out its selective censorship program. 'Not being evil' now means that upon request by intelligence services and law enforcement in a particular country, a blogspot may be blocked from that specific country while being left open to others. - Where this will lead is anyone's guess but it seems to be just another day at the office towards repressing the semi-free internet as we know it. As blogger's new comment word verification system with its often illegible secret words makes it difficult to post replies, I disabled the WV and what do I get? Foreign based spam bots are having a field day trying to infiltrate the comment section with their sales pitches for Viagra and knock-off watches. Over 50 of them the last three days and most not even in English. Many will suggest moving away from google but aren't all the 'free' but not really free blogging platforms going in the same direction; data mining, advertising and spooks keeping an eye on you? They don't call it Zio-blogger for nothing. [...] Self-censorship is one of the goals. "Don't even think about researching and writing (or speaking) about a topic that some group or prominent individual declares insensitive and offensive. It will only get you in trouble." That is a trap. A mind trap where we question ourselves and the results are paralysis. We all know who benefits the most from this self-censorship.

US Army analyst Bradley Manning, who is accused of leaking thousands of “classified” documents to WikiLeaks, has deferred his plea to the 22 charges, also postponing a decision on whether he wants a military judge or a jury to hear his case.

Kevin Zeese, attorney to the Bradley Manning support network, believes that a fair hearing in front of a military court and a jury of officers is “almost impossible” for Manning.

“President Obama has already announced that Bradley Manning is guilty,” he told RT. “President Obama is the commander-in-chief. The judge, the jurors, the prosecutor – everybody working in that court is under President Obama’s command. I can’t imagine anyone in that court thinking they'll have much of a career if they find Bradley Manning not guilty.”

Zeese states that, so far, the preliminary hearing on Manning’s case has been a “kangaroo court”. “They were denying information that Bradley Manning needs for his defense. It looks like it’s a railroad job – a kangaroo court trying to set an example and prevent anyone else from being a future Bradley Manning,” he said.

PressTV: US soldier Bradley Manning charged with ‘aiding the enemy’
Jason Ditz: Manning Defers Plea as Arraignment Begins

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who dramatically resigned as foreign minister in Washington on Wednesday morning, today launched a challenge to the leadership of Julia Gillard. Gillard replaced Rudd in a backroom coup in mid-2010. - On his arrival back in Australia this morning, Rudd revealed new details of what he termed the “midnight coup” of 2010—revelations that raise key questions about the events of June 23-24 and the forces that orchestrated them. At an airport media conference, Rudd said he had been given no notice of the move against him, despite the evidence that emerged last week that Gillard’s office had been preparing for his removal for two weeks. Rudd went on to confirm that on the evening of June 23, 2010 Gillard had initially made an agreement with him, witnessed by an “independent person,” to allow him four months to “work through” the complaints she had raised about his leadership. Ten minutes later, however, Gillard returned to his office and declared that “all bets were off” and she would move immediately against him. [...] Whoever prevails, the government will be bitterly split, with leading figures camped in exile on the parliamentary backbenches. The outright character assassinations and full-blown battle are symptoms of a profound and systemic crisis wracking the entire ruling establishment.

John Pilger: Julia Gillard, the new warlord of Oz
Patrick O’Connor: WikiLeaks cables reveal secret ties between Rudd coup plotters and US embassy
Patrick O’Connor: Gillard spruiks her economic “reform” credentials but coup questions persist

BBC: Rudd and Gillard set for showdown
Bloomberg: Gillard-Rudd Rift Endangers Labor Agenda
Thirteenth Monkey: Politics Down Under: Challenge for the Leadership of Australia

The US and other NATO countries could soon launch a ground assault on Syria. The final decision will be made soon, following this week’s Tunis conference where allied countries will meet to discuss possible scenarios of military intervention. - Sources in Washington tell Israeli news agency Debka that the Pentagon is currently drafting the approach they want America to take in the Syria ordeal, and once it is ready for the president, Obama could approve military action. Debka adds, however, that the decision will also depend on what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton takes away from this week’s Tunis conference. Representatives from 80 countries across the glove are expected to descend on Tunis on Friday under the name “Friends of Syria.” Should Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and the UAR support a western intervention in Syria, Clinton could offer an endorsement to the Pentagon, who will in turn finish their draft for war plans and send them to the White House for approval. According to Debka's sources, UK, France, Italy and Turkey also prepare to send their troops into Syria.

Stephen Lendman: Escalating Syrian Tensions
Patrick Martin: International tensions mount over Syria conflict
Alex Lantier: US sends drones over Syria as fighting spreads

Jason Ditz: Clinton: Syria Rebels to Find Arms ‘Somewhere’

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi has severely criticized Israeli military threats against Iran over its peaceful nuclear program, saying such saber-rattling is “ridiculous.”

“Zionists make a lot of noise and rhetorically threaten to take military action against Iran but these remarks are ridiculous,” Vahidi said during an address to an international conference in Tehran, held on Thursday to commemorate the martyred commanders in the Islamic world. “The Zionist regime is on the verge of dissolution and undoubtedly its [potential military] action against the Islamic Republic of Iran will certainly lead to the disintegration of the occupying regime,” the Iranian defense minister added.

PressTV: NIE report shows US knows Iran not after nuclear weapon
Los Angeles Times: Iran is not trying to build nuclear bomb concludes U.S. intelligence

It appears that a growing band of Israeli messianic settlers have banded together to orchestrate a crisis on the Temple Mount. Their ultimate goal seems to be taking Jewish control over the sacred ground, including two of the holiest sites in Islam, the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque. - For many years, there have been radical settler groups preparing for such a day. Ateret Cohanim maintains a yeshiva which is training priests to resume the Temple rituals including animal sacrifice. Dov Hikind’s wife earns $150,000 a year as its U.S. fundraiser. They’re also breeding cattle in the hopes of find that miraculous red heifer which would serve as a sign that God is ready to resume Jewish rites on this sacred ground. The settlers know that for Jews to rebuild the Temple would mean a holy war in the Holy Land that would likely dwarf the Crusades for passion and bloodletting. For these Jews, such an eventuality would bring the days of the coming of the Messiah closer, thus making the human suffering not just acceptable, but even desirable. These Temple activists are also fundraising on behalf of their messianic Armageddon.

Afghanistan wants NATO to put on public trial those who burned copies of the Koran at a NATO base, President Hamid Karzai's office said on Thursday, after a third day of bloody protests over the incident.

It said NATO had agreed to a trial, but that could not be immediately confirmed. Karzai had earlier accused a U.S. officer of "ignorantly" burning copies of the Koran, in an incident that has deepened anti-Western sentiment in a country NATO is trying to stabilize before foreign combat troops leave by the end of 2014. Demonstrations have drawn thousands of angry Afghans to the streets, chanting "Death to America!" amid violence that has killed 11 people including two U.S. service personnel. "NATO officials, in response to a request for the trial and punishment of the perpetrators ... promised this crime will brought to court as soon as possible," Karzai's office said in a statement.

Robert Dreyfuss: Counting the Dead in Afghanistan
Bill van Auken: Afghans besiege US bases in Koran protests
PressTV: OIC slams Qur’an burning at US base in Afghanistan

In an unusual legal move, when a New York City man goes on trial this spring for allegedly plotting to blow up the subway, it will be an anonymous jury that determines his fate. - U.S. District Court Judge Raymond Dearie sided with prosecutors who argued for an anonymous jury because the charges against Adis Medunjanin "are of the highest possible seriousness." [- Hardly]

Civil rights group Big Brother Watch has accused Britain of having an out-of-control surveillance culture that is doing little to improve public safety. - London is considered the most spied-on city in the world, courtesy of its ubiquitous CCTV cameras, purportedly there to reduce crime. But according to a recent report, there's been little or no change in London's crime rates since they were more widely installed in the mid 1980s. Privacy activists are worried that Britain will become the bleak totalitarian society George Orwell painted in his classic novel “1984,” where citizens were spied on and personal freedom sacrificed for the benefit of an all-powerful state.

NEW ORLEANS -- A federal judge has ruled that BP PLC and one of its minority partners in the blown-out Macondo well are liable for civil penalties under the Clean Water Act for their roles in the nation's worst offshore oil spill. - U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier also ruled Wednesday that Deepwater Horizon rig owner Transocean Ltd. may be liable under the same law as an "operator" of the well. The judge, however, said he couldn't decide before a trial scheduled to start Feb. 27 whether Transocean meets the definition of that term. The Justice Department argued that BP, minority partner Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Transocean are each liable for per barrel civil penalties for oil discharged from the well. Barbier rejected Anadarko's argument that oil discharged from Transocean's rig, not the well.

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman has condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war threat, saying that Lebanon’s existence will not be affected by the remarks. On Wednesday, Netanyahu said that an Israeli strike against Lebanon would be supported by the United States and countries of the Persian Gulf. Speaking at a press conference during his visit to Switzerland, the Israeli premier said that “would be no Lebanon in the new world map.” Sleiman [also] said Lebanon’s diversity came in absolute contrast to “Israel’s racist system, which has no place in the world”.