There are over 1.3 million persons with disabilities in Kenya ... a vast majority live in poverty. The government and donors release billions of shillings each year to help this special group of people. It is now emerging that some of these funds are not reaching the intended people but instead ending up in the pockets of a few. Unscrupulous people, running briefcase organizations are diverting money meant for people with disabilities for self-gain. Worse still, the top most Government body in the disability movement, the National Council for persons with disabilities --NCPWD, is marred with cases of corruption and misappropriation of funds. This, as thousands continue to suffer. Tonight KTN's Sophia Wanuna reveals the most disgusting rot as we present the first part of - Masters of deceit -- in our investigative segment -- the Inside story. We would like to warn our viewers that some of the pictures in this series may be disturbing, so viewer discretion is advised. [Video] [Masters of Deceit Part 2]

Reuters today provides us with a spectacularly contradictory headline in their report, "Libyan fighters join Syrian revolt." Obviously foreign fighters from Libya, raiding cities, attacking government and civilian targets, and attempting to subvert and overthrow the sovereign government of Syria is not a "revolt." It is an invasion. - Reuters reported, that Mahdi al-Harati, "a powerful militia chief from Libya's western mountains," who is actually a militant of the US, British, and UN listed terrorist organization Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), "now leads a unit in Syria, made up mainly of Syrians but also including some foreign fighters, including 20 senior members of his own Libyan rebel unit." Reuters would go on to explain, "the Libyans aiding the Syrian rebels include specialists in communications, logistics, humanitarian issues and heavy weapons," and that they "operate training bases, teaching fitness and battlefield tactics." Reuters concedes that the ongoing battle has nothing to do with democracy, but instead is purely a sectarian campaign aimed at "pushing out" Syria's minorities, perceived to be "oppressing" "Sunni Muslims." Reuters' propaganda piece is rounded off with a Libyan terrorist allegedly threatening that "the militancy would spread across the region as long as the West does not do more to hasten the downfall of Assad," a talking point plucked straight from the halls of America's corporate-financier funded think-tanks.

A Russian nuclear-powered submarine operated in restricted U.S. waters for up to a month without U.S. Navy officials raising the alarm, a news report said. - The Akula-class submarine, an attack warship capable of carrying long-range ballistic missiles, traveled in the Gulf of Mexico in June and July, the Washington Free Beacon reported Tuesday. That Russian bombers made incursions into strategic U.S. airspace over Alaska and California at the same time was taken as a sign of Moscow's growing military assertiveness by the authors of the report. The submarine patrol comes at a time when President Barack Obama's administration is planning defense cuts of up to $487 billion over the next 10 years and raises questions about the U.S. Navy's submarine-detection capabilities.

American defense officials accuse Iran of training and aiding pro-regime militias in Syria. The accusations are hypocritical, coming from a country that does the same for the other side of the conflict, geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser told RT. - US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have shared their concerns about a growing Iranian presence in Syria and its role in backing the government of Bashar al-Assad during a news briefing at the Pentagon on Tuesday. "There's now an indication that [Iranians] are trying to develop – or trying to train a militia within Syria to be able to fight on behalf of the regime," Panetta explained. It is “dangerous” that Iran supports a regime that “we think ultimately is going to come down,” he added. Meanwhile, General Dempsey added that Iranian-trained militias are being used to take some pressure off of Syrian government forces, which have been worn out by the 18-month long war.

Infographics are popular these days, and I was surprised to see one about the occupation of Palestine featured in the Politics section of the GOOD official website. The graphic, titled “Cartographic Regression“, highlights Palestinian land-loss from 1917 until today.

My opinions on the graphic are mostly but not entirely favorable. I do appreciate GOOD’s attempt to visually show how Palestinians have been forced to deal with illegal land-theft and colonization for almost an entire century, but certain omissions, such as the de facto annexation of Palestinian land through the Apartheid Wall’s encroachment into the West Bank, leave me disappointed.

Nevertheless, if there is one thing to praise about this piece, it is the detail of the West Bank territory in the map of present-day Palestine. We are oftentimes made to believe that Palestinians maintain complete control over their respective territories, but in the West Bank, where illegal Israeli settlements continue to grow and military forces are deployed to systematically restrict freedom of movement for the indigenous Palestinian people, the area is broken into dozens of small zones that don’t necessarily feature full Palestinian autonomy. Entire roads crossing the West Bank, for example, are for “Israelis only”. This is one detail the graphic designer got right.

The nickname of this town, home of the factory that makes Kalashnikov rifles, is the “Armory of Russia.” Over the years, it has armed a good number of other countries, too, as the lathes and presses of the Izhevsk Machine Works clanged around the clock to forge AK-47s and similar guns for insurgents and armies around the world. But these days, many of Izhevsk’s weapons are headed somewhere else: the United States. Despite the gun’s violent history — or perhaps because of it — American hunters and gun enthusiasts are snapping up tens of thousands of Kalashnikov rifles and shotguns.

'TrapWire' Software Links Civilian Cameras. - The US surveillance state is big enough that most Americans are already well aware that they are being watched. A new revelation from WikiLeaks’ Stratfor Emails leak suggests it is even bigger than we thought. According to those leaked emails, civilian CCTV cameras are being used by the Department of Homeland Security through a system called TrapWire, to spy on the whereabouts of everybody, all the time. TrapWire is supposed to be “predictive” software, capable of telling just by looking at you if you’re a terrorist or not, and if you’re about to do something. The details of how it does that are scarce, as are details about the CIA-linked company Abraxas that created it.

Business Insider: WIKILEAKS: Surveillance Cameras Around The Country Are Being Used In A Huge Spy Network
AWIP: TrapWire investigation links transit systems and Anonymizer in global surveillance network

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled Tuesday that police can use cell phone data obtained without a warrant to establish an individual's location. - The case, United States v. Skinner, involved a suspected drug trafficker, Melvin Skinner, who was tracked and arrested by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). "The drug runners in this case used pay-as-you-go (and thus presumably more difficult to trace) cell phones to communicate during the cross country shipment of drugs," Judge John Rogers wrote in his opinion. "Unfortunately for the drug runners, the phones were trackable [traceable] in a way they may not have suspected. The Constitution, however, does not protect their erroneous expectations regarding the undetectability of their modern tools."

In confirmation of the Israeli judiciary’s flagrant disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians, an Israeli court sentenced an Israeli soldier, who is accused of killing a Palestinian woman and her daughter during “Operation Cast Lead” (27 December 2008 -18 January 2009), to only 45 days of imprisonment. The bill of indictment against the soldier was changed from involuntary killing to illegal misuse of weapons.

On 12 August 2012, an Israeli military court sentenced an Israeli soldier who is accused of killing Raya Salama ‘Abdul Karim Abu Hajjaj (64) and Majeda ‘Abdul Karim Abu Hajjaj (37, both from the Juhor al-Dik village southeast of Gaza City, to 45 day of imprisonment. According to a statement issued by the Israeli military spokesman, this sentence was issued in the context of the agreement reached following mediation and evidence analysis, with a recommendation to conduct a military trial.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) emphasizes, according to the evidence and information it has, that the killing of the mother and her daughter while carrying white flags was direct, deliberate and cold-blooded, particularly as the area was completely controlled by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Many civilians, mostly women and children, got out of their house raising white flags when the IOF ordered the population in the area to leave.

It is clear that the Israeli military court’s decision against the soldier confirms the absence of individual criminal responsibility and provides further judicial protection for Israeli soldiers, especially as the penalty for involuntary killing may amount to 20 years of imprisonment.

Uprooted Palestinians: When Talmudic Law is Put into Practice
B'Tselem: Reopen investigation into the killing of Majedah and Rayah Abu Hajaj in operation Cast Lead

As a rising star in Hungary’s far-right Jobbik Party, Csanad Szegedi was notorious for his incendiary comments on Jews: He accused them of “buying up” the country, railed about the “Jewishness” of the political elite and claimed Jews were desecrating national symbols. - Then came a revelation that knocked him off his perch as ultra-nationalist standard-bearer: Szegedi himself is a Jew. Following weeks of Internet rumours, Szegedi acknowledged in June that his grandparents on his mother’s side were Jews — making him one too under Jewish law, even though he doesn’t practice the faith. His grandmother was an Auschwitz survivor and his grandfather a veteran of forced labour camps. Since then, the 30-year-old has become a pariah in Jobbik and his political career is on the brink of collapse. He declined to be interviewed for this story.

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa took to Twitter to dispel rumors that his government had granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange political asylum. Correa added that no decision has been made either way. - “Assange asylum rumor is false,” Correa confirmed on his Twitter feed. He added that he is waiting for a Foreign Ministry report on the issue, without which a decision will not be made. Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino has confirmed that on Wednesday, his ministry will present its conclusions on Assange’s asylum petition to President Correa for an executive decision. On Monday, Correa said he hoped to make an official announcement on the issue “before the end of the week,” possibly following a meeting with Ricardo Patino and other diplomats in London scheduled for Wednesday. According to an earlier report in The Guardian, Ecuador decided to grant Assange asylum. However, a representative of the Correa administration in Ecuador confirmed to RT by phone that no official decision has been made on whether to grant Assange asylum.

Christian Science Monitor: Ecuador to decide about Assange asylum this week