BBC Persian's Amir Payam interviewed Russell Means, American Indian Leader in January 23, 2012 at his ranch in Porcupine, Pine Ridge reservation, SD [Video link]

Survey, conducted by Dialog on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, exposes anti-Arab, ultra-nationalist views espoused by a majority of Israeli Jews. - Most of the Jewish public in Israel supports the establishment of an apartheid regime in Israel if it formally annexes the West Bank. A majority also explicitly favors discrimination against the state's Arab citizens, a survey shows. The survey, conducted by Dialog on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, exposes anti-Arab, ultra-nationalist views espoused by a majority of Israeli Jews. The survey was commissioned by the Yisraela Goldblum Fund and is based on a sample of 503 interviewees. The questions were written by a group of academia-based peace and civil rights activists. Dialog is headed by Tel Aviv University Prof. Camil Fuchs. The majority of the Jewish public, 59 percent, wants preference for Jews over Arabs in admission to jobs in government ministries. Almost half the Jews, 49 percent, want the state to treat Jewish citizens better than Arab ones; 42 percent don't want to live in the same building with Arabs and 42 percent don't want their children in the same class with Arab children.

A former CIA officer who was charged with repeatedly leaking classified information pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to a single charge of disclosing the identity of an undercover CIA operative. - Under the plea agreement, the former officer, John C. Kiriakou, will be sentenced to prison for up to 30 months. The agreement marks the end of a case that involved the spilling of secrets to reporters and that was part of the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on leaks. Kiriakou, 47, worked undercover for the CIA for years and took part in multiple operations that led to the capture of al-Qaeda suspects in Pakistan. But he is most widely known for being among the first former CIA officials to speak publicly about the agency’s secret interrogation program, describing in a 2007 television interview the use of waterboarding on al-Qaeda suspects. As part of the "agreement", the Justice Department dropped four other charges against Kiriakou, including allegations that he had illegally shared sensitive national defense information with reporters and had lied to the CIA’s publication review board about the contents of a memoir he published.

The United Nations is calling for more surveillance of Internet users, saying it would help to investigate and prosecute terrorists. - United Nations report calls for Internet surveillance, saying lack of "internationally agreed framework for retention of data" is a problem, as are open Wi-Fi networks in airports, cafes, and libraries. A 148-page report (PDF) released today titled "The Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes" warns that terrorists are using social networks and other sharing sites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Dropbox, to spread "propaganda."

RAF makes urgent purchase of five more Reaper drones, which will be the first to be controlled from a UK base. - The UK is to double the number of armed RAF "drones" flying combat and surveillance operations in Afghanistan and, for the first time, the aircraft will be controlled from terminals and screens in Britain. In the new squadron of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), five Reaper drones will be sent to Afghanistan, the Guardian can reveal. It is expected they will begin operations within six weeks. Pilots based at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire will fly the recently bought American-made UAVs at a hi-tech hub built on the site in the past 18 months. The UK's existing five Reaper drones, which are used to target suspected insurgents in Helmand, have been operated from Creech air force base in Nevada because Britain has not had the capability to fly them from here.

PressTV: US, France mull taking drone war to Mali
Daily Mail: CIA chiefs face arrest over horrific evidence of bloody 'video-game' sorties by drone pilots

Russell Means has been called the most famous American Indian since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse by the Los Angeles Times and recognized as a natural leader with a fearless dedication and indestructible sense of pride. This morning at 4:44 a.m. Means walked on amongst the ancestors.

Means was a political activist and an early leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM) who had counted nine assassination attempts on his life, lost his fight with cancer. According to his son, Scott Means, “My dad now walks among our ancestors. He began his journey to the spirit world at 4:44 a.m. with the morning star, at his home and ranch in Porcupine[, South Dakota]. There will be four opportunities for the people to honor his life; to be announced at a later date. Thank you for your prayers and continued support. We love you. As our dad and husband would say, ‘May the Great Mystery continue to guide and protect the paths of you and your loved ones.’”

Russell Means on AWIP
Russell Means on You Tube
OB Rag: Saying Good-bye to Russell Means - Video

While an international proposal has been made for a truce in Syria, the insurgents in the Arab country are receiving US dollars and heavy weaponry from their foreign supporters. - The insurgents receive USD 150 a month for fighting against the Syrian government and the money is coming from some foreign states, including Qatar and Turkey, the commanders of the armed groups in the flashpoint city of Aleppo said earlier. The insurgent commanders recently distributed the first salaries of the armed groups in Aleppo. This is while UN-Arab League Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi called on the Syrian government and the foreign-backed insurgents to unilaterally declare a ceasefire.

Pro-government militias intercept food, fuel and medicine and use grad rockets and gas weapons against Bani Walid, a man whose family remains in the town told RT. He claims the daily shelling of the town is Misrata militias’ attempt to eliminate it.

Several hundreds of Bani Walid natives marched to the seat of the national parliament in Tripoli on Sunday to protest the assault on their home town, which has been continuing for over two weeks. The protesters demanded a peaceful solution to “the tribal war that is happening in the town.” The demonstrators, however, failed to enter the parliament, being dispersed by guards firing rounds into the air. Pro-government forces and militias besieged the hilltop town of Bani Walid following the death of former rebel Omran Shaban. Shaban is credited for capturing the country’s ex-leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in October 2011. The Warfalla tribe controlling Bani Walid has been accused of kidnapping and torturing the former rebel. Libya’s government has been empowered by the congress to use force to arrest those suspected of killing Shaban. Since the rebel was a Misrata native, Misrata militias joined the assault on Bani Walid. The joint forces have been shelling Bani Walid almost non-stop since early October. At least 26 people died and over 200 more were injured in Saturday clashes alone, according to AFP. Gunfire and sporadic blasts continued into Sunday, and an AFP photographer says he saw hundreds of people were fleeing the besieged town.

The hacktivist collective Anonymous will reportedly launch TYLER – a 'secure, no cost and decentralized' online leaks release platform to circumvent problems inherent in WikiLeaks - on the day many (and Mayans) believe to be the end of the world. - One of the group’s members, who specified that he is representing the collective, spoke about the TYLER project and the rift with WikiLeaks in an email interview with the Voice of Russia. According to unnamed hacker, the conflict between Anonymous and Julian Assange’s whistleblowing site revolves around the coercive fund raising techniques and a lack of transparency regarding WikiLeaks finances. Previously, Anonymous has been a longtime advocate of WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, vocally supporting the website’s mission of sharing secret data, news leaks, and classified information with the public. However, information recently posted by Anonymous on AnonPaste.me says WikiLeaks "has chosen to dishonor and insult Anonymous and all information activists" by requiring payment to view documents it previously made available for free. But Anonymous is not a structured group with a defined leader – and the identity of the people behind the posts slamming WikiLeaks for asking for donations and various Twitter usernames remains unclear. The uncertainty has left many wondering whether these opinions represent the group as a whole, or just a few scattered members.

Researchers in the US have been shocked to discover a beluga whale whose vocalisations were remarkably close to human speech.

While dolphins have been taught to mimic the pattern and durations of sounds in human speech, no animal has spontaneously tried such mimicry. But researchers heard a nine-year-old whale named NOC make sounds octaves below normal, in clipped bursts. The researchers outline in Current Biology just how NOC did it. But the first mystery was figuring out where the sound was coming from. The whales are known as "canaries of the sea" for their high-pitched chirps, and while a number of anecdotal reports of whales making human-like speech, none had ever been recorded. When a diver at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in California surfaced saying, "Who told me to get out?" the researchers there knew they had another example on their hands. Once they identified NOC as the culprit, they made the first-ever recordings of the behaviour.

They found that vocal bursts averaged about three per second, with pauses reminiscent of human speech. Analysis of the recordings showed that the frequencies within them were spread out into "harmonics" in a way very unlike whales' normal vocalisations and more like those of humans. They then rewarded NOC for the speech-like sounds to teach him to make them on command and fitted him with a pressure transducer within his nasal cavity, where sounds are produced, to monitor just what was going on. They found that he was able to rapidly change the pressure within his nasal cavity to produce the sounds. To amplify the comparatively low-frequency parts of the vocalisations, he over-inflated what is known at the vestibular sac in his blowhole - which normally acts to stop water entering the lungs. In short, the mimicry was no easy task for NOC.

The buzz about currency wars and currency manipulation is back. In the last presidential debate, Mitt Romney called China "a currency manipulator for years and years," and said that he would label the country a currency manipulator on his first day in office. Tonight's debate is expected to focus even more on the China talking point. However, there is one country you won't hear either candidate criticize tonight, even though it's been intervening to prevent its currency from strengthening against the dollar as well: Israel. And when you look at Israel's foreign exchange holdings as a percentage of GDP, you see that at 61 percent, Israel's ratio is significantly higher than that of China, which stands around 45 percent.