The Amber Lyon story is just the latest in a series of articles that expose the total Joseph Goebbels like censorship rampant in mainstream media today.

The Amber Lyon story is just the latest in a series of articles that expose the total Joseph Goebbels like censorship rampant in mainstream media today. The first one I posted several weeks ago exposed how the NY Times basically just regurgitates whatever government officials tell them, while the other showcased how an NPR reporter covering D.C. had to leave and do her own thing out of frustration. This is precisely why alternative media sites are taking off. They provide the only outlets left for genuine journalism. (amberlyonlive.com)

So back to Amber. Back in March 2011, CNN sent a four person team to Bahrain to cover the Arab Spring. Once there, the crew was the subject of extreme intimidation amongst other things, but they were able to record some fantastic footage. As Glenn Greenwald of the UK's Guardian writes in his blockbuster article from today:

"In the segment, Lyon interviewed activists as they explicitly described their torture at the hands of government forces, while family members recounted their relatives' abrupt disappearances. She spoke with government officials justifying the imprisonment of activists. And the segment featured harrowing video footage of regime forces shooting unarmed demonstrators, along with the mass arrests of peaceful protesters. In sum, the early 2011 CNN segment on Bahrain presented one of the starkest reports to date of the brutal repression embraced by the US-backed regime."

Despite [this], and despite the dangers their own journalists and their sources endured to produce it, CNN International (CNNi) never broadcast the documentary. Even in the face of numerous inquiries and complaints from their own employees inside CNN, it continued to refuse to broadcast the program or even provide any explanation for the decision. To date, this documentary has never aired on CNNi. Having just returned from Bahrain, Lyon says she "saw first-hand that these regime claims were lies, and I couldn't believe CNN was making me put what I knew to be government lies into my reporting." (Michael Krieger, Liberty Blitzkrieg.com)

AWIP: Bahrain portion of iRevolution on CNN June 19 2011

■ Study found war against violent Islamists has become increasingly deadly
■ Researchers blame common tactic now being used – the 'double-tap' strike
■ Drone strikes condemned for their ineffectiveness in targeting militants

Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today. The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorised by the operations ’24 hours-a-day’. And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the ‘double-tap’ strike where a drone fires one missile – and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble. One aid agency said they had a six-hour delay before going to the scene. The tactic has cast such a shadow of fear over strike zones that people often wait for hours before daring to visit the scene of an attack. Investigators also discovered that communities living in fear of the drones were suffering severe stress and related illnesses. Many parents had taken their children out of school because they were so afraid of a missile-strike.

Ernst Wolff: The terror of US drone warfare
Stephen Lendman: Drones: Instruments of State Terror
Medea Benjamin: Obama and Drone Warfare: Will Americans Speak Out?
AWIP: Drone strike kills ten in South Waziristan

The NYPD has expanded into a massive global anti-terror operation with surveillance and military capabilities unparalled in the history of local US law enforcement. - The NYPD is the biggest police force in the country, with over 34,000 uniformed officers patrolling New York's streets, and 51,000 employees overall -- more than the FBI. It has a proposed budget of $4.6 billion for 2013, a figure that represents almost 15 percent of the entire city’s budget. NYC's population is a little over 8 million. That means that there are 4.18 police officers per 1,000 people. By comparison, Los Angeles, the second largest city in the U.S. with 3.8 million people, has only 9,895 officers--a ratio of 2.6 police per 1,000 people. What has the NYPD been doing with all that cash and manpower? In addition to ticketing minorities for standing outside of their homes, spying on Muslims who live in New Jersey, abusing protesters, and gunning down black teens over weed, the NYPD has expanded into a massive global anti-terror operation with surveillance and military capabilities unparalleled in the history of US law enforcement.

Philip Giraldi: The Ubiquitous New Yorker

In an interview today with the Times of Israel, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro denied any disagreements between the US and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the prospect of war with Iran, insisting the two are “totally in sync.” Shapiro, who recently got into a shouting match with Netanyahu in front of a Congressional delegation, insisted that the US has made all the “necessary preparations” for attacking Iran, and believes they have coordinated well with Israel. Netanyahu has been publicly lashing the US for not having attacked Iran already, and has been loudly demanding “red lines” that would guarantee a US attack on Iran at a certain stage of development of that nation’s civilian nuclear program.

Stephen Lendman: Warmonger Netanyahu at UN
AWIP: Lunatic-on-the-Loose: Netanyahu demands 'red line' to stop Iran nuclear programme

US inundates terrorist legions with cash & support after regional embassy attacks and death of own ambassador. - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the US would be providing an additional $45 million in "non-lethal aid" to the "opposition" in Syria, reported the Associated Press. The Western press chose their words carefully, ensuring that the term "civilian opposition" was repeatedly used to describe the armed terrorist forces attempting to violently overthrow the Syrian government. In reality, the "opposition" in Syria constitutes foreign terrorist legions flowing across Syria's borders, and in particular, staging and crossing over from NATO-member Turkey. In fact, it was recently admitted by the terrorist legions themselves that their headquarters has been located within Turkish territory for the duration of the conflict. In a recent France 24 article titled, "Free Syrian Army move HQ from Turkey to Syria," armed militants claimed they had only just recently "moved from Turkey to within Syria."

Election officials in six Florida counties are investigating what appears to be "hundreds" of cases of suspected voter fraud by a GOP consulting firm that has been paid nearly $3 million by the Republican National Committee to register Republican voters in five key battleground states, state officials tell NBC. The allegations of suspected voter fraud committed by Strategic Allied Consulting of Tempe, Arizona spread Thursday to counties throughout Florida. At the same time, the Republican National Committee said it had severed its ties to the firm. "We have heard from supervisors in six counties that they have irregularities in voter registration," said Chris Cate, spokesman for the Florida Department of State, which oversees the state's division of elections.

GSAT-10, the country's newest and heaviest satellite, was launched in the wee hours of Saturday from the Kourou launchpad in French Guiana in South America. It will directly boost telecommunications and direct-to-home broadcasting among others. The satellite, 9th in ISRO's present fleet, will be operational in November and add 30 transponders to the domestic INSAT system, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said soon after the launch. The ISRO launched the 3.4-tonne spacecraft on the European Ariane 5 rocket as the agency cannot currently launch satellites of such mass on its own vehicles.

[The satellite] carries 30 communication transponders - 12 in Ku-band, 12 in C-band and six in extended C-band. The ISRO is currently leasing 95 foreign transpondes to meet domestic demand. The INSAT/GSAT system has 168 transponders. The Ku band is vital for seven DTH TV operators and thousands of VSAT operators who provide phone and Internet broadband connections. Public and private telephone and television providers also use the C band. GSAT-10 also has the second GAGAN payload which augments or finetunes the US GPS signals into far more accurate readings. GAGAN, a venture of the Department of Sapce and Airports authority of India, is primarily meant to benefit airlines and their aircraft flying into and out of India. GSAT-8, launched in May 2008, carried the first GAGAN payload.

The flight at 2.58 a.m. IST was preceded by a countdown lasting for 11.5 hours. By 3.19 a.m. it was visible to scientists waiting to capture its signals at Hassan.

Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney has said much about torture as part of terrorism investigations during the 2012 general campaign. But the future of American government practices when interrogating high-level terrorism suspects appears likely to turn on the outcome of the election. In one of his first acts, President Obama issued an executive order restricting interrogators to a list of nonabusive tactics approved in the Army Field Manual. Even as he embraced a hawkish approach to other counterterrorism issues — like drone strikes, military commissions, indefinite detention and the Patriot Act — Mr. Obama [allegedly] has stuck to that strict no-torture policy. By contrast, Mr. Romney’s advisers have privately urged him to “rescind and replace President Obama’s executive order” and permit secret “enhanced interrogation techniques against high-value detainees that are safe, legal and effective in generating intelligence to save American lives,” according to an internal Romney campaign memorandum.

Ray McGovern: Obama Ruling Shields Torturers

Israel's prime minister tells UN general assembly that Iran is more than 70% of the way to producing a nuclear weapon.

Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has called on the international community to set a "clear, red line" to stop Iran making a nuclear weapon, a line he claimed would be reached as early as next spring. To illustrate those claims, Netanyahu presented the UN general assembly in New York with a diagram of a cartoon bomb, complete with a burning fuse, and used a red felt pen to mark a line near the top of the bomb beyond which he said Iran should not be allowed to pass. That line, representing 90% of the way to making a warhead, would be reached "by next spring, at most by next summer".

As Israeli PM Netanyahu Discusses Iran’s Nukes, Let’s Not Forget His Lies About Iraq’s WMD’s
Russia Today: Netanyahu: 'Nuclear Iran same as nuclear-armed al-Qaeda'
PressTV: Israelis in poll: War is a threat to Israel existence
Justin Raimondo: Bibi’s Crazy UN Speech
Barry Grey: US elections conceal preparations for war with Iran

Harriet Sherwood: Netanyahu's bomb diagram succeeds – but not in the way the PM wanted - Binyamin Netanyahu's cartoon nuclear bomb certainly grabbed attention, but not necessarily the kind he wanted. No doubt it was intended as a bold and graphic way of presenting the Iranian nuclear threat, but much of the initial response – on Twitter, at least – was ridicule. In his speech to the UN general assembly, the Israeli prime minister adopted the persona of an elementary school science teacher talking to a particularly dim class to explain Iran's nuclear programme and the point at which it must be stopped.

Joseph Kishore: Israeli prime minister lays out path to war with Iran - Speaking as the head of state for a government that, in close alliance with the United States, is responsible for military aggression throughout the Middle East and beyond, and is engaged in a brutal occupation of Palestine, Netanyahu said that Israel “cherishes peace.” Israel currently has a stockpile of some 400 atomic bombs and has refused to submit to international inspections. [...] Israeli-US plans for war—which would have devastating and incalculable consequences—are being carried out entirely behind the backs of the American people. One of the principal concerns of the Obama administration has been to delay actions until after the US elections in November, to ensure that the population has no say in the matter.

The US Defense Department will soon be equipped with new unmanned aerial vehicles that will operate more “autonomously” at a greater pace. - The Pentagon is reportedly investing heavily in the new smarter robotic weapons that will get rid of their remote operators on the ground to work virtually without human intervention and with minimum supervision. "Before they were blind, deaf and dumb. Now we're beginning to make them to see, hear and sense," says Mark Maybury, chief scientist for the US Air Force. The future drones will have a longer range, more powerful jet engines and a radar-evading stealth design. Using drones as a weapon started under George W. Bush but the trend escalated dramatically after Barak Obama took office with Pakistan, along with Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia, as the spotlight of the remote warfare.

A new study released this week by researchers at Stanford and NYU has found that American drone strikes in Pakistan are killing far more civilians than advertised, taking out few high value targets, and have become the primary recruiting tool for the terrorist groups the policy is aimed at combating. The report, “Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians From US Drone Practices in Pakistan,” is based on “more than 130 interviews with victims, witnesses, and experts, and review of thousands of pages of documentation and media reporting” conducted over nine months. The research found that, over the last eight years, drone strikes have “killed 2,562-3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children.” Meanwhile, only 2 percent of those killed were “high-level” targets. This means that the strikes have killed three times as many children as terrorist leaders. The report also shows that the impact of the drone war isn't limited to those directly affected by strikes because the constant presence of drones overhead "terrorizes men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities. " People in these regions have become afraid to render assistance to innocent victims or to attend funerals, as both rescuers and mourners have been targeted for secondary strikes. The report’s findings are irrefutably stunning. Even more so is the fact that these revelations won’t play any role at all in the pending presidential campaign.

Ernst Wolff: The terror of US drone warfare
Stephen Lendman: Drones: Instruments of State Terror
Medea Benjamin: Obama and Drone Warfare: Will Americans Speak Out?
AWIP: Drone strike kills ten in South Waziristan

US military's new legal theory threatens to convert unauthorized leaks into a capital offense. Who is the real 'enemy'? - A US air force systems analyst who expressed support for WikiLeaks and accused leaker Bradley Manning triggered a formal military investigation last year to determine whether she herself had leaked any documents to the group. Air Force investigative documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, show that the analyst was repeatedly interviewed about her contacts with and support for WikiLeaks - what investigators repeatedly refer to as the "anti-US or anti-military group" - as well as her support for the group's founder, Julian Assange. The investigation was ultimately closed when they could find no evidence of unauthorized leaking, but what makes these documents noteworthy is the possible crime cited by military officials as the one they were investigating: namely, "Communicating With the Enemy", under Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). That is one of the most serious crimes a person can commit - it carries the penalty of death - and is committed when a person engages in "unauthorized communication, correspondence, or intercourse with the enemy".

Russian President Vladimir Putin says West's policies have destabilized a number of Arab states and are now creating chaos in Syria. - "They have already created a situation of chaos in many territories and are now continuing the same policy in other countries -- including Syria," Putin said on Thursday. The remarks came one day after British Prime Minister David Cameron used the UN General Assembly podium to attack nations like Russia and China who vetoed sanctions resolutions against Syria.

Patrick Clawson of the influential neo-con Washington Institute for Near East Studies OPENLY suggests that the US should provoke Iran into taking the first shot. This Israel Lobbyist suggests False Flag attack to start war with Iran. Just like 911 in New York causing the deaths of American civilians and soldiers, a million dead Iraqis and for what?

Washington's Blog: Will Israel Blow Up Something and Falsely Blame It On Iran?

The United States would consider stationing troops on New Zealand soil if our Government asked for them as part of a burgeoning defence relationship, US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta says. Mr Panetta left New Zealand on Saturday after a whistlestop visit as part of a broader US push to shore up allegiances in the Pacific... His visit marked a watershed in the relationship, after he announced the US would lift a ban on New Zealand naval ships using US ports, and scrap the requirement for a waiver before defence top brass from both countries meet.

Despite the official US military withdrawal last December, American special forces "recently" returned to Iraq on a counter-terrorism mission, according to an American general in charge of weapons sales there. The mission was reported by the New York Times, in the fifteenth paragraph [LOL!] of a story about deepening sectarian divides. The irony is that the US is protecting a pro-Iran Shiite regime in Baghdad against a Sunni-based insurgency while at the same time supporting a Sunni-led movement against the Iran-backed dictatorship in Syria.

Hundreds of prisoners have been confined in California’s high-security segregation units (Security Housing Units, SHUs) for 10 or more years in conditions of severe isolation and reduced sensory stimulation. This report describes Amnesty International’s concerns about these conditions. It also examines recent proposals put forward by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to reform the method for assigning prisoners to the units and to provide a route out of SHUs through a protracted four-step process lasting at least four years.

Maya Nasser, 33, correspondent working for Iran's Press TV, killed, and bureau chief injured, amid fierce fighting in capital.

A corespondent for Iran's Press TV was shot dead on Wednesday while reporting from the scene of devastating twin explosions in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Maya Nasser, a 33-year-old Syrian national, was killed after being hit by "insurgent" sniper fire, Press TV said. The channel's Damascus bureau chief, Hussein Murtada, who also works for the Arabic-language Al-Alam TV network, was injured after coming under attack, the channel said. Nasser tweeted news of the explosions soon after 7am on Wednesday. He then appears to have set off with his Lebanese colleague to the scene, as fierce fighting continued. Murtada was reportedly shot in the back. Nasser, reportedly a Christian, was one of the few correspondents based in Damascus to have reported on Syria's brutal war in English. His blog had been sympathetic to the Syrian government, and blamed the conflict on the "west and al-Qaida". But it also gave a vivid portrait of life under fire and the perils of driving through checkpoints.

PressTV: Press TV correspondent killed in Syrian capital

No fix for 'Jesus rifles' deploying to Afghanistan - U.S. military issued rifle scopes bearing New Testament Bible verses still in circulation years after correction was ordered. - When the so-called "Jesus rifle" came to light in Jan. 2010, it sparked constitutional and security concerns, and a maelstrom of media coverage. The Pentagon ordered the removal of the secret code referring to Bible passages that the manufacturer had inscribed on the scopes of the standard issue rifles carried by U.S. soldiers into battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly three years later — despite the military's assertion that is making "good progress" — the code remains on many rifles deploying to Afghanistan, which some soldiers argue is endangering their lives by reinforcing suspicions that the United States is waging a crusade against Muslims.

The code on an ACOG (Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight) made for the U.S. military by defense contractor Trijicon. The lettering at the end, JN8:12 refers to the Bible passage John 8:12: Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Alan Ireland: At daggers drawn with 'demonized flesh'

Last December, we wrote about a report put out by the Swiss executive branch noting that, based on their research, it appeared that unauthorized file sharing was not a big deal, showing that consumers were still spending just as much on entertainment, and that much of it was going directly to artists, rather than to middlemen. In other words, it was a market shift, not a big law enforcement problem. At the time, we wondered if Switzerland had just bought itself a place on the USTR's "Special 301 list" that the administration uses each year to shame countries that Hollywood doesn't like. That list doesn't come out for a bit, but there's another, similar list, put out by the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus (yeah) that has added Switzerland to its "bad countries" list along with China, Russia and Ukraine. I

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has called on the United States to move from words to actions, and put an end to its persecution of WikiLeaks, its people and its sources. He made the statement during an address to a panel of UN delegates.

Addressing the representatives of the United Nations' member countries, the WikiLeaks founder spoke of the difference between words and actions, praising US President Barack Obama for his words.

Assange was highly critical of US involvement in the Arab Spring, denouncing Obama as audacious for exploiting it. He added that it is "disrespectful of the dead" to claim that the US has supported forces of change.

Julian Assange also spoke at length about Bradley Manning, the US private accused of supplying WikiLeaks with hundreds of sensitive diplomatic and military cables. Assange accused the US government of detaining Manning without charge and mistreating him, even attempting to offer him a deal in exchange for Manning's testimony against Assange. The WikiLeaks founder told the UN panel that Bradley Manning, accused of 'death penalty crimes', was "degraded, abused and psychologically tortured."

The Age: US calls Assange 'enemy of state'

Reuters: Assange mocks Obama via video at U.N. event - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lashed out at U.S. President Barack Obama for supporting freedom of speech in the Middle East while simultaneously persecuting his organization for leaking diplomatic cables.

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has slammed the current global politics as discriminatory, based on inequality, and characterized by unilateralism and double-standards.

“Unilateralism, application of double-standards, and imposition of wars, instability and occupation to ensure economic interests and expand dominance over sensitive centers of the world have turned to be the order of the day,” Ahmadinejad said during his speech at the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday. Ahmadinejad stated that the world is in urgent need of a new order and the “abysmal global situation is because of the mismanagement of the world by a small minority that has a destructive behavior.”

John Glaser: Ahmadinejad Condemns Israel’s ‘Continued Threats’ of War

Hundreds of thousands participated in demonstrations in Greece on Wednesday to protest against the latest package of austerity measures introduced by the coalition government led by the head of the conservative New Democracy party, Antonis Samaras. The demonstrations were the first major mobilisations since Samaras became prime minister three months ago. Millions of workers also responded to the call for a 24-hour general strike by the country’s two main trade union federations, representing workers in both the private and public sectors—the General Confederation of Employees of Greece (GSEE) and the Civil Servants’ Confederation (ADEDY). Transport and public services, including schools, universities and hospitals, came to a halt in many parts of the country. Many flights were cancelled and ferry services were severely disrupted. Staff at the tax, customs and finance ministries declared they would continue their strike until Friday.