Manning testifies at WikiLeaks hearing: 'I thought I was going to die in a cage'. - After 917 days in military captivity, the world finally heard on Thursday from Bradley Manning, the army soldier accused of being the source of the largest leak of government secrets in US history. In a dramatic opening half-hour of testimony on the third day of the pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade military base in Maryland, Manning spoke at length for the first time about the period after his arrest in May 2010. Manning detailed the trauma he experienced at the hands of the US military while he was incarcerated for having allegedly handed hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. His defence lawyer, David Coombs, drew a life-sized representation on the courtroom floor of the 6ft by 8ft cell in which Manning was held at the Quantico base in Virginia after he was brought to the US.

The Guardian: WikiLeaks suspect Manning mistreated by military, psychiatrist says

[VIDEO: NATO Test Run 07-14-2012] Syrian SANA News Agency website [came] under fierce attack from NATO. This operation of disinformation, directly managed from Washington by Ben Rhodes, the US deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, aims at demoralizing the Syrians in order to pave the way for a coup d’état, which will end all hopes of democratization.

The internet has been cut off and mobile phones have been disrupted in Syria, monitoring firms have said.

Networking firm Renesys said the country's connection protocols were unreachable, "effectively removing the country from the internet". Local reports suggested that the internet had been down since early afternoon, and that telephone lines were only working intermittently. The Syrian government has blamed "terrorists" for the disconnection. "The terrorists targeted the internet lines, resulting in some regions being cut off," Syria's minister of information told a pro-government television station. According to activists, it has been known for similar communication cuts to occur in isolated areas before military operations. Amnesty International has described the reports as "very disturbing".

Russia Today: Total blackout: Syria goes offline nationwide
Russia Today: US accelerates intervention in Syrian war
AWIP: US to "deepen" Syria intervention by arming militants: Officials

Thierry Meyssan: NATO preparing vast disinformation campaign
Thierry Meyssan: Syrie: l’OTAN préparerait une vaste opération d’intoxication

Tony Cartalucci: NATO Preparing Psy-Op in Syria - Internet connections & telecom reportedly failing across Syria, right as NATO has finished preparing their proxy "SNC" and readies for final push. In early summer, NATO had attempted to overwhelm Damascus and Aleppo with a torrent of psychological operations, communication disruptions, foreign terrorists crossing Syria's borders, and a devastating assassination of top Syrian officials in the heart of Damascus. The idea was to cause panic, division, mass defections and fold the Syrian state when in reality, it was more than able to fight on. Syria called the bluff and here it still stands. With the Israel-Gaza charade concluded, it was reported that NATO would pivot back toward Syria - and it has. It has handpicked a new proxy-regime to act as the face of the terrorists battling Syrian civilians and soldiers alike within the country, while it has been conducting a concerted and refocused propaganda campaign to paint the Syrian government as once again, "imminently about to fall."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says all the necessary physical infrastructure for absolute totalitarianism through the internet is ready. He told RT that the question now is whether the turnkey process that already started will go all the way. [Transcript:]

RT: So you’ve written this book ‘Cypherpunks. Freedom and the Future of the Internet’ based on one of the programs that you’ve made for RT. In it, you say that the internet can enslave us. I don’t really get that, because the internet it’s a thing, it’s a soulless thing. Who are the actual enslavers behind it?
Julian Assange: The people who control the interception of the internet and, to some degree also, physically control the big data warehouses and the international fiber-optic lines. We all think of the internet as some kind of Platonic Realm where we can throw out ideas and communications and web pages and books and they exist somewhere out there. Actually, they exist on web servers in New York or Nairobi or Beijing, and information comes to us through satellite connections or through fiber-optic cables. So whoever physically controls this controls the realm of our ideas and communications. And whoever is able to sit on those communications channels, can intercept entire nations, and that’s the new game in town, as far as state spying is concerned – intercepting entire nations, not individuals.

RT: This sounds like a futuristic scenario, but you are saying that the future is already here.
JA: The US National Security Agency has been doing this for some 20-30 years. But it has now spread to mid-size nations, even Gaddafi’s Libya was employing the EAGLE system, which is produced by French company AMESYS, pushed there in 2009, advertised in its international documentation as a nationwide interception system. So what’s happened over the last 10 years is the ever-decreasing cost of intercepting each individual now to the degree where it is cheaper to intercept every individual rather that it is to pick particular people to spy upon.

Egypt’s Constituent Assembly has approved the final draft of the country’s first constitution after the ouster of autocratic ruler Hosni Mubarak. - The assembly’s marathon session began on Thursday and came to end early on Friday, with the members voting for all the 234 articles of the charter. The final draft will be sent to President Mohamed Morsi for approval on Friday, who is expected to submit it for a popular referendum. The panel upheld Islamic principles as the main source of legislation in the country. “Islam is the state religion, and the Arabic language is its official language. The principles of Islamic sharia are the main source of legislation,” an agreed clause read. The assembly also approved a clause stating that the principles of Christian and Jewish legal traditions would guide their personal and religious affairs. The Muslim Brotherhood - whose candidate won the presidential vote six months ago - hopes the move will help end protests against the president.

The UN General Assembly has voted to upgrade Palestinians’ diplomatic status to a “non-member observer state,” thus implicitly recognizing a Palestinian state. This comes despite strong opposition from the US and Israel.

The Palestinian bid has been upheld with 138 votes in favor, 9 against and 41 abstentions. Addressing the General Assembly on Thursday Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the historic vote was the last chance to save the two-state solution. He also told the meeting that it “is being asked today to issue the birth certificate of Palestine.” In his speech Abbas mentioned Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza that took place this month and stressed that the Palestinians would accept "no less than the independence of the state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital." The Israeli government has described Abbas’s speech, which was met with a standing ovation at the General Assembly, as “defamatory and venomous.”"The world watched a defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious propaganda against the IDF (army) and the citizens of Israel," the Israeli PM’s office said in a statement.

BBC: Palestinians win upgraded UN status by wide margin - Video
CBS News: U.N. General Assembly votes to recognize Palestinian state - Video

Wonder’s representatives will claim that he did not know the nature of the group, the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, and that he believes such a performance would be incongruent with his status as a UN “Messenger of Peace,” according to a source who has read email exchanges between Wonder’s representatives and organizers of the event. Representatives for Wonder, who performed at a 1998 gala honoring Israel’s 50th anniversary, say the performance would be incongruent with his status as a UN ‘Messenger of Peace.’

GMO giants DuPont have contracted dozens of retired law enforcement officers to begin patrolling farms in the US next year to spot any potential intellectual property theft. - DuPont Co, the second-largest seed country in the world, is hoping to find farmers that have purchased contracts to use their genetically modified soybean seeds but have breached the terms of agreement by illegally using the product for repeat harvests. Should farmers replant GMO seeds licensed by DuPont, they could be sued for invalidating their contracts. [...] DuPont competitors Monsanto have been known to relentlessly sue small-time farmers who have been caught abusing their own patented GMO products, but the latest maneuver is being considered by some a form of intimidation. DuPont has cut a deal with Saskatchewan-based Agro Protection International, a company that contracts mostly retired police officers to patrol potential violations of IP law.

“Everyone always goes to the idea that we are trying to intimidate people and nothing could be further from the truth,” Agro President Dennis Birtles tells Bloomberg. “We are trying to create deterrence.”[sic!]

Local lawyers say video of an alleged beating by a Seattle police officer is so explosive that if released, it would immediately go viral.

They claim that is the reason Seattle police are keeping the video hidden from public view. As a result, they and their client are suing the department. Back in October, Leo Etherly was bruised and black-eyed. As for how he got that way, Seattle police dash cam video could tell that story. Except police won't allow Etherly to have a copy, and they won't allow Etherly's attorney to share his copy with the public. Here's how Etherly tells it: "I was motionless, and he (the officer) was still punching me and says something to the effect of, 'You effing idiot.'" Witness video shows Etherly's face after he is already handcuffed on the ground. Store surveillance video indistinctly shows Etherly on the hood of a police cruiser. "At that point, (the officer) throws a tremendously fast fist to Leo Etherly's eye, causing permanent partial blindness," said attorney James Egan. But the best video of Etherly's Oct. 6 arrest would be from the police officer's own dashboard camera. Etherly says he was first choked then knocked out, and didn't realize the extent of what happened until he saw the dash cam video. [...] Late Monday afternoon, Seattle police released a brief statement saying that Egan has already received a copy of the dash cam video, but will get another copy through the Public Records Act when the department's process is completed.