At least nine people have been arrested by Orange County Police as they pushed protesters back during a street rally in outrage over the recent officer-involved shootings that left two locals dead. More than 200 people have gathered outside Anaheim police headquarters chanting slogans condemning the police and taking over a parking lot, where they drew outlines of bodies.

"The whole system is guilty" and "Am I next?" the angry crowds were chanting in rage, says the LA Times. One eyewitness tweeted, “The pics from Anaheim are disgusting, how much firepower does one need against unarmed civilians?”

The world’s first ‘smart city’ is being built in Asia- and it promises to serve as an experiment for the high-tech tyranny that is surely to come about as a response to the collapse of this present era of human industrial civilization. Dubbed ‘Songdo’, the city will rest upon a wholly man made island in the Yellow sea and will incorporate just about every aspect of an Orwellian ‘super state’ imaginable. Millions of wireless sensors and microchips will be embedded throughout the sprawling city-scape. ‘Smart appliances’ such as refrigerators that let you know when you’re running low on certain foods and bathroom mirrors that inform you of your physical health will be evident in every home.

The problem with Songdo is not so much with its innovation and high tech systems approach to properly maintaining a city of the twenty first century- but rather, it provides for those who are at present in control of the Earth and its resources an effective way to contain- and dare I say, ‘enslave’- the whole of the human population.

The U.S. Internet's infrastructure needs to be redesigned to allow the NSA to know instantly when overseas hackers might be attacking public or private infrastructure and computer networks, the agency's leader, General Keith Alexander, said today. Alexander spoke at the annual Def Con computer hacking conference in Las Vegas. It was a symbolic appearance that he said was motivated by a need to interest the hacker community in helping to make the Internet more secure. Alexander, who is also commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, described the Internet as "at great risk from exploitation, disruption, and destruction."

Mitt Romney is opening his high-dollar fundraiser here Monday to the news media, reversing his campaign’s earlier decision to block press access to the event. - By banning reporters from covering the event, the Romney campaign would have violated the ground rules it had previously negotiated with news organizations regarding coverage of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s finance events. After reporters objected and several national news outlets, including The Washington Post, reported on Saturday that the campaign was keeping its Jerusalem fundraiser closed to the press, it reversed its decision. Campaign spokesman Rick Gorka said a regular press pool would be allowed in to cover the Monday morning event, held at the King David Hotel.

The Telegraph: Barclays told to stop fundraising for Mitt Romney
The Telegraph: Mitt Romney backs Israeli military action against Iran
The Australian: Obama releases Israeli military funding
Justin Raimondo: Playing to the Peanut Gallery - Our elections are international affairs
Jason Ditz: Romney in Israel: Endorses Iran War

For twenty years now the international donor community has financially supported Palestinian institution-building, infrastructure development, the economy, public employees' salaries, health and education, social welfare, the police, electricity production, private credit guarantees, and the bigger part of the civil society organizations with regards to democracy promotion, human rights, tolerance, women rights etc. Peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state have been the declared goals of all the support. But actual results are the fragmentation and pacification of the Palestinian people. This documentary film, directed by Mariam Shahin and George Azar, and funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, features Palestinian criticism of this externally funded "development".

Jerry del Missier, the former Barclays Bank executive at the centre of the interest-rate rigging scandal that cost the lender £290m, has walked away with a pay-off of almost £9m. - Mr del Missier, the bank’s former chief operating officer who resigned three weeks ago, is understood to have negotiated the deal with Barclays’ outgoing chairman Marcus Agius in the days before he quit. The pay-out looks certain to trigger another political storm over bankers’ pay. Mr del Missier was one of Barclays’ highest-paid executives, receiving a salary and bonus package for 2011 worth £6.7m plus a further £10.8m from share awards from previous years. He became co-head of the investment bank in January 2011, when former chief executive Bob Diamond was promoted to the top job, but emerged as a leading figure in the Libor rigging scandal. Only last week Canadian Mr del Missier conceded to MPs on the Treasury select committee that he had told Barclays traders to lower the bank’s Libor submissions in the autumn of 2008. That followed a controversial telephone call between Mr Diamond and Paul Tucker, the deputy governor of the Bank of England.

AWIP: Paul Craig Roberts - Libor Fraud Now Part of the System

Has there ever been a Middle Eastern war of such hypocrisy? A war of such cowardice and such mean morality, of such false rhetoric and such public humiliation? I'm not talking about the physical victims of the Syrian tragedy. I'm referring to the utter lies and mendacity of our masters and our own public opinion – eastern as well as western – in response to the slaughter, a vicious pantomime more worthy of Swiftian satire than Tolstoy or Shakespeare.

While Qatar and Saudi Arabia arm and fund the rebels of Syria to overthrow Bashar al-Assad's Alawite/Shia-Baathist dictatorship, Washington mutters not a word of criticism against them. President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, say they want a democracy in Syria. But Qatar is an autocracy and Saudi Arabia is among the most pernicious of caliphate-kingly-dictatorships in the Arab world. Rulers of both states inherit power from their families – just as Bashar has done – and Saudi Arabia is an ally of the Salafist-Wahabi rebels in Syria, just as it was the most fervent supporter of the medieval Taliban during Afghanistan's dark ages. Indeed, 15 of the 19 hijacker-mass murderers of 11 September, 2001, came from Saudi Arabia – after which, of course, we bombed Afghanistan. The Saudis are repressing their own Shia minority just as they now wish to destroy the Alawite-Shia minority of Syria. And we believe Saudi Arabia wants to set up a democracy in Syria?

Niall Green: Syrian ethnic, sectarian conflicts deepen as US plots to install client regime

Germany Breaks 25% Renewable Energy Barrier - It produced 67.9 billion kWh renewable energy in 1st 1/2 of 2012, an increase of 19.5% from last year. The world's top market for power converted from solar radiation, its installed capacity accounts for over 1/3 of global total.

Deep-sea explorers have pulled up 48 tons of silver treasure from three miles below the surface of the North Atlantic in what may be the deepest, largest precious metal recovery in history.

The haul was retrieved from the S.S. Gairsoppa, a 412-foot steel-hulled British cargo ship that sank in February 1941.

The expedition, by Odyssey Marine Exploration, a company specializing in shipwreck exploration, recovered 1,203 bars of silver, totaling 1.4 million ounces. Viewers will have the chance to follow the pursuit of the lost treasure on an upcoming Discovery Channel special produced by JWM Productions. The cache has been transported to a secure facility in the United Kingdom, which contracted the project under the Department of Transport. Under the contract, Odyssey will retain 80 percent of the net value of recovered goods, after expenses, according to a press release.

The Gairsoppa was a merchant ship that was torpedoed by a German U-boat during World War II. Since the U.K. government had insured the privately owned cargo under the War Risk Insurance program, it had paid out the owners for the lost silver and then became owners of the lost cargo. The Odyssey expedition has so far managed to recover an estimated 43 percent of the total lost silver treasure. The company hopes to recover the balance of the silver within 90 days. Recovering the loot, however, has been no easy task.