Secret Service to enforce Trespass Act in Britain? - Athletes from around the globe are now in London for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but sports stars and spectators aren’t the only ones arriving. The US is sending its top spies from the CIA, FBI and other agencies to aid UK authorities during the games.

British security officials have joined forces with America’s top federal intelligence agencies to establish a "threat integration center" in the UK. Experts with America’s Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) are teaming up with British security officials from Scotland Yard, MI-5 and MI-6 to identify and analyze potential threats that could target the games, set to begin this Friday. They will operate out of a temporary headquarters in the US Embassy in London.

The threat integration center is reported to have officially opened up on Wednesday. Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources talking to ABC News claim that around 50 FBI agents are involved in UK operations. The US Secret Service will also be in London to provide security for athletes and dignitaries attending the festivities, which could open international protesters demonstrating the either American athletes or US policy to be subject to HR 347.

Al-Qaeda militants and other Sunni extremists are becoming a greater and greater part of the conflict in Syria, just as the US officially announced it was abandoning any pretense of a diplomatic approach in favor of toppling the regime through proxy rebel groups. - “The evidence is mounting that Syria has become a magnet for Sunni extremists, including those operating under the banner of Al Qaeda,” reports the New York Times. “The presence of jihadists in Syria has accelerated in recent days in part because of a convergence with the sectarian tensions across the country’s long border in Iraq.” According to one US intelligence estimate, as many as a quarter of the 300 rebel groups in Syria may be fighting under the banner of al-Qaeda, says Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Washington’s reaction to blasts in Damascus is a downright justification of terrorism, slams Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. US State Department announced that terror acts in Syria are not surprising in light of the Assad regime’s actions.

“This is direct endorsement of terrorism. How are we supposed to understand that?” Sergey Lavrov shared his astonishment at a press conference in Moscow. “This is a sinister position, I cannot find words to express our attitude towards that.”

Lavrov also expressed his surprise that the UN Security Council refused to condemn acts of terror in Syria. The US permanent representative to the UN Susan Rice has stated that terror acts in Damascus contribute to speeding up the adoption of a resolution on Syria according to the Chapter 7 of the UN Statute, which implies harsh sanctions, including resorting to force.

“In other words this means ‘We are going to support such acts of terrorism until the UNSC does what we want’,” Lavrov commented on the US representative's actions.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said recently that there should be closer work with opposition in Syria as it captures more and more territories to prepare new actions of resistance to the government in Damascus.

PressTV: US using al-Qaeda to overthrow Syrian government: Analyst - “Obama relies on drones, he relies on special forces; he relies on irregular forces and his irregular forces include al-Qaeda, interestingly enough and all kinds of terrorist groups around the world that have now been recruited into this US strategy, so I do not think any intelligent observer is going to be much impressed by what Obama has said,” Webster Griffin Tarpley told Press TV on Tuesday.

PressTV: US justifies terrorism against Syria: Russia - Russian foreign minister says Washington is justifying terrorism against the Syrian government by failing to condemn atrocities committed by the armed groups fighting against Damascus.

Western media say a number of foreign militants have joined armed gangs fighting against the Syrian government, while clashes continue between Syrian security forces and rebels.

According to Agance France Presse (AFP) and the CNN, insurgents have entered the Syrian territory from several Arab countries and are now at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey. The Western news outlets say the foreign militants are mainly from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya and the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, fighting between armed groups and the Syrian army continues in the northwestern city of Aleppo. In the capital, Damascus, however, calm has been restored and reports say fighting is underway mainly in the al-Tal suburb of the city. On Wednesday, Syrian forces clashed with armed gangs in the southwestern city of Dara’a, about 114 kilometers (70 miles) south of the capital, and several nearby villages. There were also reports of sporadic clashes between Syrian troops and rebels in the western city of Homs on Tuesday.

Really? In New Brunswick?” asks a baffled 911 operator as an alarmed caller reports an empty flat strewn with photos of terrorists and Muslim books. But when the FBI dash to the scene, they find not a terrorist cell but a New York police hideout. - Nothing promised such a major embarrassment for the New York Police Department on a June day. Then the 911 telephone line of the New Brunswick Police rang. An alarmed resident of the New Jersey town was saying he had come across something very suspicious.

"What's suspicious?" asked the 911 dispatcher. "It’s suspicious in the sense that the apartment has no furniture except two beds, has no clothing, has New York City Police Department radios," replied a building superintendent of an apartment complex just off the Rutgers University campus. "Really?" "There's computer hardware, software, you know, just lying around,” continued the caller. “There's pictures of terrorists. There's pictures of our neighboring building that they have." "In New Brunswick?" the dispatcher asked – still seemingly unconvinced.

Though the two were talking back in 2009, the tape of the call has only this week been obtained from the New Brunswick Police Department, following a court action by the Associated Press.

Yahoo: It's an audiotape the New York Police Department hoped you would never hear - AUDIO

A Personal Declaration of Secession: Government (of whatever form) cannot righteously rule without consent of the governed. Without your consent, this entity cannot rightfully claim or require any contractual obligation upon you. No individual or collective entity can declare legitimate authority over your life or property without your explicit consent. Without your consent, their claims of ruling you can then only be backed by threatening violence upon you, further illustrating their illegitimacy. And no, you cannot be rightfully born into such an arrangement, just as you cannot be rightfully born a slave. Make your claim to individual sovereignty clear by declaring and affirming your personal secession.

Roger Young: I Hereby Secede

Americans have staged a rally in the city of Anaheim in the state of California to show their outrage at the country's police brutality. - The Tuesday rally followed similar protests that erupted after an Anaheim police officer shot dead 25-year-old Manuel Angel Diaz on Saturday. The unarmed Diaz was killed while running from officers on the eastern part of the city. The incident has sparked days of protests by the angered community. Hundreds of people staged a protest at Anaheim City Hall's council chamber on Tuesday.

Romney's accusations were as shrewdly political as they were divorced from reality - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said in an address on Tuesday that President Obama has not been enough of an ally to Israel, and Israelis deserve a more loyal US president. Speaking at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Reno, Nevada on his upcoming visit to Israel, Romney played the old, predictable political card of who’s a more committed, blind follower and supporter of Israel. It was done purely for political points, and had no substantive motivation or relation to reality.

On the ViewPoint talkshow with Eliot Spitzer, three whistle blowers from the National Security Agency (NSA), Thomas Drake, Kirk Wiebe and William Binney have expressed their allegations surrounding NSA’s illegal domestic surveillance measures. The whistle blowers specifically refer to 9/11 as the date after which electronic surveillance has taken new heights. This means that enormous amounts of email, cell phone conversations have been stored and surveilled, as Eliot Spitzer puts it. When asked whether they knew about the electronic surveillance used by NSA, Kirk Wiebe said that they didn’t even believe the U.S. government could go that far. By using satellites and the huge amount of data the NSA currently holds, they can even create some sort of algorithms to realize who’s talking to whom, thus being able to dissect our private lives. Eliot also says that it is being done without any regard to the Fourth Amendment in the United States Constitution. To get a better understanding, here’s what the 4th amendment presumes:

When police conduct a search, the amendment requires that the warrant establishes probable cause to believe that the search will uncover criminal activity or contraband. They must have legally sufficient reasons to believe a search is necessary.

Also, it is important to know this aspect of the U.S Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

A Mexican official says the CIA and other international security forces "don't fight drug traffickers" as much as "try to manage the drug trade" - "It's like pest control companies, if you finish off the pests, you are out of a job. If they finish the drug business, they finish their jobs."

Juarez, Mexico - The US Central Intelligence Agency and other international security forces "don't fight drug traffickers", a spokesman for the Chihuahua state government in northern Mexico has told Al Jazeera, instead "they try to manage the drug trade". Allegations about official complicity in the drug business are nothing new when they come from activists, professors, campaigners or even former officials. However, an official spokesman for the authorities in one of Mexico's most violent states - one which directly borders Texas - going on the record with such accusations is unique. "It's like pest control companies, they only control," Guillermo Terrazas Villanueva, the Chihuahua spokesman, told Al Jazeera last month at his office in Juarez. "If you finish off the pests, you are out of a job. If they finish the drug business, they finish their jobs." A spokesman for the CIA in Washington wouldn't comment on the accusations directly, instead he referred Al Jazeera to an official website.

The prominent Spanish lawyer and international jurist, Baltasar Garzón, will lead the legal team defending WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. Garzón and Assange have already met to discuss their new legal strategy.

A former judge at Spain's central criminal court, Garzón is famous for issuing an international arrest warrant for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet two decades ago, thus revolutionizing the international justice system and triggering a widespread fight against impunity in Latin America and the rest of the world. The announcement by WikiLeaks comes after the jurist met with Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the whistleblower is seeking asylum.

According to a statement released by WikiLeaks, the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the new legal strategy which will be used to defend both WikiLeaks and Assange from the existing abuse of process and expose the arbitrary, extrajudicial actions by the international financial system which target Julian Assange and WikiLeaks specifically. They also discussed how to show how secret US processes against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have compromised and contaminated other legal processes, including the extradition process against Assange.

More than a month ago the WikiLeaks founder entered the embassy of Ecuador in London and filed a request for asylum. Ecuador’s UK ambassador is personally working on the matter and even had to return home for consultations. Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa has reiterated that his government will take “a decision based on humanistic principles that illuminate our revolution, which illuminate our constitution.” However, so far no decision has been announced.

El País: Garzón defenderá al fundador de Wikileaks, Julian Assange

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Wikileaks Press Office: The Spanish judge, lawyer, and international jurist, Baltasar Garzón, will lead the legal team representing Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. The jurist met with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in the United Kingdom recently. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the new legal strategy which will defend both WikiLeaks and Julian Assange from the existing abuse of process; expose the arbitrary, extrajudicial actions by the international financial system which target Julian Assange and WikiLeaks specifically; and show how the secret US processes against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have compromised and contaminated other legal processes, including the extradition process against Mr Assange. Despite been imprisoned, fiscally blockaded, and placed under house arrest for over 650 days, Mr. Assange has not been charged with an offense in any country. Baltasar Garzón revolutionized the international justice system two decades ago by issuing an international arrest warrant for the former Head of State of Chile, Augusto Pinochet. His actions spearheaded the fight against impunity in Latin America and in the rest of the world. The judge has expressed serious concerns regarding the lack of safeguards and transparency whith which actions are being taken against Julian Assange, and the harassment he is being subjected to which has irreparable effects on his physical and mental wellbeing. The threats against his person are further aggravated by the complicit behaviour of the Swedish and U.K. governments, who are wrongfully abrogating his rights.

UN: Israel urged to treat Palestinian child detainees in accordance with rights law: “Israel’s use of solitary confinement against children flagrantly violates international human rights standards" - “Israel’s use of solitary confinement against children flagrantly violates international human rights standards,” the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, said in a news release. “However, using solitary confinement as a punishment for Palestinian children who wish to peacefully protest their situation, including by commencing a hunger strike against conditions of detention, is an appalling abuse of child prisoners,” he added. “I again condemn Israel’s harsh arrest operations and procedures.” Mr. Falk’s comments came in the wake of earlier concerns on the issue, raised today by the UN Special Committee on Israeli practices in the Occupied Territories, at the end of a fact-finding mission to Jordan, Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

How Finland keeps its head above eurozone crisis: What has Finland done right? Its economy is dominated by services but it is competitive in manufacturing. Income per person is among the highest in western Europe - and its revenues are bigger than its debt. [...] Finland has a small banking system focused on domestic customers, as well as "limited exposure to, and therefore relative insulation from, the euro area in terms of trade", notes Moody's. Finland has also insisted on receiving collateral in exchange for its participation in eurozone bailouts – which has impressed Moody's.

King Juan Carlos of Spain ousted from, 'World Wildlife Fund', presidency — a title he’d held since 1968 — after hunting elephants in Botswana - A photo of him with a rifle & a dead elephant caused outrage. He was also criticized for an ostentatious lifestyle when 1 in 4 Spaniards are out of work.

At least 12 people have been killed in a US assassination drone strike in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border. - In the attack, which occurred on Monday, US drones fired several missiles at a private compound in the Shawal area in the North Waziristan tribal region, Reuters reported. The targeted compound is in Dray Nashtar village, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan. Local residents said that the airstrike sparked a huge fire in the building. Most of the bodies have been recovered from the rubble.

Some local media reports said five drones were still hovering over the area, creating panic among the people in the tribal region, and hampering the rescue work.

Despite Pakistani government’s repeated calls on Washington to end the drone attacks, the US government continues its strikes on the tribal regions of the country.

Asian Tribune: Civilian death by drone attacks is high: but US sidesteps the issue arguing legality

Anaheim police have shot dead yet another man just a day after killing 24-year old Manuel Diaz. The previous day's shooting sparked a protest against police brutality that was violently broken up by authorities. - Police say the second shooting took place on Sunday, when anti-gang crime officers spotted a stolen SUV and started chasing it. Three suspects were said to have jumped out of the SUV, with police continuing their pursuit on foot. The men reportedly opened fire at an officer, and the policeman retaliated by shooting dead one of the shooters. However, eyewitnesses say police shot dead a man who was already handcuffed, OC Weekly reports. Residents on the scene allegedly tried to take photos from a second floor of an apartment block, but police obscured their view with flash lights. The second alleged killing took place a few blocks away from the place where 24-year-old Manuel Diaz was gunned down by police on Saturday.

All 16 requests for assistance are refused in full - The table below contains the letter from Julian Assange’s solicitor, human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce from Birnberg Peirce and Partners, and Ken Pascoe, the Consul-General of the Australian High Commission in London. Australia refuses to make representations on Mr. Assange’s behalf in any manner whatsoever. The letter outlines the requests that Mr. Assange makes for representations by his government regarding due process and fair trial, and the Australian government’s position: an effective declaration of abandonment. Not only does Australia fail to make representations that are perfectly appropriate and customary - they explicitly refuse to do so. Note that the Australian government took almost two months to respond to Ms. Peirce’s letter, despite her insistence that the matter was urgent, and that Mr. Assange’s due process rights were being violated, and are being violated, in the absence of the Australian government’s representations.

[Video] When a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy is killed in the West Bank city of Jenin by Israeli soldiers who mistook his toy gun for the real thing, it could have been just one more blip on the news: one more human tragedy that devastated a family and community, but rippled no further into the world's consciousness.

But something extraordinary happened that turned Ahmed Khatib's tragic 2005 death into a gift of hope for six Israeli children. Even while overwhelmed with grief, Ahmed's parents consented to donate their son's organs. Amid the violence and hatred surrounding an intractable conflict, a simple act of humanity rose above the clamor and captured worldwide attention.

Heart of Jenin tells the story of Ahmed's tragic death and his father Ismael Khatib's journey to visit three of the organ recipients two years later. One of Ahmed's kidneys went to an Orthodox Jewish girl, his other to a Bedouin boy. While his parents hesitated to donate Ahmed's heart, it now beats in the chest of a Druze girl. Crossing from northern Israel to the Negev desert and ending up in Jerusalem, Khatib encounters every complexity of the conflict: deep-seated animosity, hardened judgments, and heartfelt generosity. While laying bare the deep divisions between Israelis and Palestinians, Heart of Jenin offers a rare vision of common humanity and hope. To learn more, go to: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/heart-of-jenin/introduction/4991

Israel’s Defense Ministry has ordered eight Palestinian villages in the West Bank to be razed, claiming the land is needed for military training. Hundreds of Palestinians are to be displaced despite evidence that the villages have existed since 1830. The residents of the villages, located in the southern region of Hebron, are accused of “illegal dwelling in a fire zone.” The government said in a memo to the Supreme Court on Sunday that the 1,500-plus residents will be moved to the nearby city of Yatta, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. The Defense Ministry has obtained evidence the Palestinians have permanent homes there.

Haaretz: Israel orders demolition of 8 Palestinian villages, claims need for IDF training land

Prosecutors and European regulators are close to arresting individual traders and charging them with colluding to manipulate global benchmark interest rates, according to people familiar with a sweeping investigation into the rigging scandal. - Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., have recently contacted lawyers representing some of the suspects to notify them that criminal charges and arrests could be imminent, said two of those sources, who asked not to be identified because the investigation is ongoing. [...] The prospect of charges and arrests means prosecutors are getting a fuller picture of how traders at major banks allegedly sought to influence the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor, and other global rates that underpin hundreds of trillions of dollars in assets. The criminal charges would come alongside efforts by regulators to five major banks, and could show that the alleged activity was not rampant at the lenders.

Paul Craig Roberts: The Libor Scandal In Full Perspective
Paul Craig Roberts: The Real Libor Scandal ~ Paul Craig Roberts and Nomi Prins
Ellen Brown: Titanic Banks Hit LIBOR Iceberg: Will Lawsuits Sink the Ship?

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is turning more and more to the CIA for making his government’s critical decisions as the foundation of his regime crumbles, a political analyst says.

In an article published on Tuesday, independent journalist Thomas C. Mountain said that the isolation surrounding Meles Zenawi grows almost by the day as he faces “more insurgencies, an ongoing economic crisis and calls for regime change from the religious community”.

“Hated in his ethnic homeland of Tigray, once his power base, and hated by the Amhara elite, the ethnic minority who previously ruled Ethiopia, Meles has ceded de facto control of his ministries to technocrats from the CIA and US State Department,” Mountain said. “Zenawi knows all to well how quickly he can become expendable when it comes to the interests of Pax Americana and has made sure that the Ethiopian army has been purged of any and all who might replace him.”

However, Mountain added that despite CIA's grave power inside Ethiopia the end of the Zenawi regime grows closer and with it there will be no longer “a regional power and policeman on the beat for the imperial interests of the USA”. “So far $ 7 billion a year in western aid has kept Meles Zenawi and his army, the largest, best equipped in Africa, in power and able to do Pax Americana's dirty work in the Horn of Africa.

It was one of the biggest secrets of the post-9/11 era: soon after the attacks, President Bush gave the CIA permission to create a top secret assassination unit to find and kill Al Qaeda operatives. The program was kept from Congress for seven years. And when Leon Panetta told legislators about it in 2009, he revealed that the CIA had hired the private security firm Blackwater to help run it. "The move was historic," says Evan Wright, the two-time National Magazine Award-winning journalist who wrote Generation Kill. "It seems to have marked the first time the U.S. government outsourced a covert assassination service to private enterprise."

A Fijian man who served in the British Army for 13 years is fighting to stay in the UK after being told he must leave the country by 9 August. - Isimeli Baleiwai served in Afghanistan and Iraq, before leaving the Army in June. He is married to a UK national. But disciplinary action for a 2010 fight with a colleague means he is considered to have a criminal record. The Border Agency said applications for settlement by ex-forces personnel were considered the same way as all others. The 32-year-old applied for British citizenship in March 2012 because he planned to leave the Army. He left voluntarily on 15 June after 13 years' service.

Super rich hiding up to $32 trillion offshore, which amounts to roughly the US and Japanese GDP combined. Up to $280bn is lost in tax revenues. Some of the world's biggest banks are involved: HSBC, Citigroup, Bank of America, UBS, Credit Suisse. - Rich individuals and their families have as much as $32 trillion of hidden financial assets in offshore tax havens, representing up to $280bn in lost income tax revenues, according to research published on Sunday. The study estimating the extent of global private financial wealth held in offshore accounts - excluding non-financial assets such as real estate, gold, yachts and racehorses - puts the sum at between $21 and $32 trillion. This amounts to roughly the US and Japanese GDP combined. Roughly 10 million people worldwide have offshore accounts, with 100,000 people owning half of those secreted assets. Much of this activity [...] [is] illegal.

[Video] In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss bankers robbing Central Banks and governments because that's where the credit is and the modern Central Bank robbing banker uses his Tommy gun of choice - the derivative (along with the occasional 'accidental transfer'). In the second half of the show Max talks to Ellen Brown [fast forward to the 12:45 mark] about the European Stability Mechanism as a permanent bailout fund for the rich.

Ellen Brown: Titanic Banks Hit LIBOR Iceberg: Will Lawsuits Sink the Ship?
Paul Craig Roberts: The Libor Scandal In Full Perspective
Paul Craig Roberts: The Real Libor Scandal ~ Paul Craig Roberts and Nomi Prins