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.