Armed rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad are directly supplied with weapons by some regional countries, including Saudi Arabia, confirmed the US Senator John McCain. He wants the US to follow the lead. - “I’m glad that some of the nations in the Gulf, the Saudis, are providing some weapons [to the Syrian opposition],” the former conservative presidential candidate told CNN in an interview on Sunday. McCain was arguing that the US should help the Syrian opposition with arms regardless of concerns over the presence of extremist forces among the anti-Assad groups, and that Washington would not be able to prevent them from laying their hands on arms. The American senator also lashed out at Russia, which sells arms to the Assad government, implying that it is used in the crackdown on the opposition. The accusation comes just days after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that the arms Moscow supplied to Damascus are air defense systems and other hardware, which can be used only in a war with a regular army using aircraft and other advanced weapons. The US provides support to the Syrian opposition trying to organize them into a unified force. But so far it refrained from giving them American weapons, supplying non-lethal material only. McCain is a strong proponent of more direct military involvement into Syria.

PressTV: Israel engages in publicity stunt to encourage military intervention in Syria - In the latest anti-Damascus move, Ayoob Kara, a senior member of the Israeli Likud Party led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed in an interview with Israel Radio on June 9 that the Syrian government has used “chemical weapons against men, women, and children” during the past months of unrest in the country.

Jonathan Azaziah: Syria: Zionist Mobilization Kicks Into High Gear - The Zionist end game is to fracture Syria into multiple states of ethnic-sectarian distinction (39), ripping apart the unified fabric of the society that has prospered under the leadership of the Assad family for decades. The means of achieving this end lies within the savage opposition, a creature of Zionist-Saudi cooperation. This creature must be exposed for the Israeli-engineered beast that it is and the plot that it represents now more than ever as Zionist mobilization continues its climb towards all-out invasion. It must be exposed for Malik. It must be exposed for Hamza. And it must be exposed for the millions of other Syrians and their children whose lives are very much at stake. It is up to the people of conscience to reject the status quo, break free from the mainstream shackles and do so.

Tony Cartalucci: WARNING: Possible NATO-FSA False Flag Attack in Syria - Unconfirmed reports warn of possible plot to deploy chemical weapons, then blame Syrian government. June 10, 2012 - RT has warned of a possible plot being fomented by Syrian rebels inside NATO member Turkey. The plot involves Syrian rebels deploying chemical weapons obtained in Libya against Syrian civilians, then blaming the Syrian government for the mass casualty event. This of course would provide the West the "casus belli" it has been searching for to circumvent the UN Security Council and implement its long-planned campaign of regime change.

Michel Chossudovsky: Confronting IRAN, “Protecting ISRAEL”: The Real Reason for US War on SYRIA - The killings are carried out quite deliberately as part of a diabolical covert operation. The enemy is then blamed for the resulting atrocities. The objective is to justify a military agenda on humanitarian grounds. In US military jargon, it’s called a “massive casualty producing event”, the historical origins of which go back to “Operation Northwoods”, an infamous 1962 Pentagon Plan, consisting in killing civilians in the Miami Cuban community, with a view to justifying a war on Cuba.

Stephen Lendman: Insurgents Named Responsible for Syrian Massacres - The "trail of blood leads" to Washington, not Damascus. Ban reports in for orders. His comments sound pre-scripted. Obama speech writers likely wrote them. Dutifully he repeats him. Like conspiratorial administration officials, he bears direct responsibility for months of Western-instigated violence. He's equally culpable. He's guilty of crimes of war and against humanity.

The former head of the Vatican Bank has become the Papacy’s Enemy Number One, after police discovered a trove of documents exposing financial misdeeds in the Holy See. The banker now reportedly fears for his life. - Earlier this week police conducted a dawn raid on the house and office of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. Investigators say they were looking for evidence in a graft case against defense and aerospace firm Finmeccanica, which was formerly run by a close friend of Gotti Tedeschi. Instead, as it turns out, police stumbled upon an entirely different find. They discovered 47 binders containing private communication exposing the opaque inner workings of the secretive Holy See. They included financial documents, details of money transfers and confidential internal reports – all prepared by Gotti Tedeschi to build a convincing expose of corruption in the Vatican.

Wayne Madsen comments: Prime Minister Mario Monti, who works for the global bankers, will bring the anti-capitalist talk of the Pope under control. And behind the bankers are a group, known alternately as the Pharisees, Sanhedrin, and the Illuminati, which has wanted to bring the Church down for two millennia.

Normally in the film making process, script changes are made all the time. But few realize it's the Pentagon frequently calling the shots. RT talks to writer and former journalist for Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, - David L. Robb. He shares his thoughts and sheds light on the approval process.

In yet another example of the ever growing reach of the American Homeland Security state, Cryptocat developer Nadim Kobeissi, who is Canadian, claims to have been detained on four separate occasions at the US/Canadian border by the Department of Homeland Security in the last three weeks. - While detention and harassment at the border by DHS is unfortunately nothing new, what is interesting is the major topic of Kobeissi’s interrogations. In this case, it was Kobeissi’s open source chat app, Cryptocat that seems to have raised the eyebrows of someone in the upper reaches of DHS. As Jon Matonis of Forbes states, DHS interrogators were curious about which encryption algorithms are deployed by Cryptocat as well as the level of censorship resistance held by the program. Cryptocat is an app that establishes a secure, encrypted chat session that is allegedly not subject to government or commercial surveillance.

A brigade will deploy to Africa next year in a pilot program that assigns brigades on a rotational basis to regions around the globe, the Army announced in May. - Roughly 3,000 soldiers — and likely more — are expected to serve tours across the continent in 2013, training foreign militaries and "aiding" locals. As part of a “regionally aligned force concept,” soldiers will live and work among Africans in safe communities approved by the U.S. government, said Maj. Gen. David R. Hogg, head of U.S. Army Africa. As the Afghanistan war winds down, the new readiness model affords Army units more time to "learn regional cultures and languages" and train for specific "threats" and missions. Africa, in particular, has emerged as a greater priority for the U.S. government because "terrorist groups" there have become an increasing threat to U.S. and regional security.

Lori Price: US as 'Facehugger'

Switzerland’s refusal to yield to pressure from the United States in adopting the US-engineered European Union (EU) sanctions against Iran has “disappointed” Washington, the US envoy to Bern says. - Under the United States' sway, EU foreign ministers agreed to ban oil imports from Iran on January 23 and to freeze the assets of the Iranian Central Bank across the EU in a bid to pressure Iran over its nuclear energy program. The embargoes are slated to go into force as of July 1. The move came after the US imposed new sanctions against Iran on the New Year’s Eve with the aim of preventing other countries from importing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with its central bank.

Switzerland, which is not an EU member and not under "legal" obligation to adopt the US-led sanctions against Iran, has thus far refused to yield to the American pressure to adopt the embargoes, postponing it to a 'later date.' It also exempted the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) from asset freeze.

"We expressed our disappointment. We would like them (Swiss officials) to do it (adopt the US-engineered EU sanctions on Iran)," US Ambassador to Switzerland Donald S. Beyer told a news conference in Geneva on Wednesday.