Sources claim the US has been coordinating training sessions for Syrian rebels in use of anti-aircraft weapons. - The US has been providing training to Syrian rebel fighters on the use of sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons in neighboring Jordan, as news of the US’s formal recognition of the Syrian Opposition Coalition. Even as President Obama announced the US’s formal recognition of the hand-picked group of Syrian exiles, he still says he will not directly arm any of the rebel groups. But sources have told NPR that “Jordanian authorities, along with their US and British counterparts, have organized training for Syrian rebels on sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons.” Back in October, The New York Times reported that the Obama administration, secretly and without the consent of Congress, sent more than 150 US forces to Jordan, in part to “be positioned” as a contingent force “should the turmoil in Syria expand into a wider conflict.”

Jason Ditz: Hundreds Reported Slain in Attack on Syrian Alawite Village
John Glaser: Syrian Rebels Pledge Allegiance to al-Qaeda-Linked Group
AWIP: US Recognizes Unelected Terrorists as Syrian "Representatives"

Three terrorist bombings took place on Wednesday evening, targeting the Interior Ministry building in Kafarsouseh area in Damascus, martyring five and injuring 23.

A statement from the Interior Ministry said that at 5:20 PM of Wednesday 12/12/2012, three explosions took place in front the Interior Ministry building, two of them caused by explosive devices with a delay between the two, followed five minutes later by the explosion of car bomb carrying around 200 kilograms of explosives, martyring five and injuring 23, including civilians and Ministry personnel. The statement said that the authorities at the Ministry began investigations and lifted evidence, remains of explosives, and body parts from the site and sent them to labs to uncover the details of this terrorists attack. The Ministry affirmed that this criminal act will not dissuade it from combating terrorism along with the Army and Armed Forces, vowing to exert all its forces and sacrifice everything for the sake of the security of citizens and the country, stressing that it will show no leniency in pursuing murderous takfiri terrorists.

Russia Today: Syrian rebels set to execute Ukrainian journalist
SANA: Sixteen Citizens, including Children and Women, Killed in Car Bomb Explosion in Qatana

The military judge in the 9/11 trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others granted a government request to make all mention of alleged torture in the court classified. The defense called the ruling 'shameful.' - In a significant victory for government prosecutors, the military judge presiding over the trial of accused 911 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has granted a government request to treat as classified any testimony or discussion about the alleged torture of Mr. Mohammed and others during CIA interrogations. The judge, US Army Col. James Pohl, issued a broad protective order barring the disclosure of any information deemed by the government to be classified. The ruling was handed down Dec. 6 and was made public on the court’s website on Wednesday. Off limits at the military commission trial at the US Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay are any details surrounding the defendants’ capture, detention, and alleged torture by the CIA. It includes “the enhanced interrogation techniques that were applied to an accused … including descriptions of the techniques as applied, the duration, frequency, sequencing, and limitations of those techniques.”

Japan scrambled fighter jets after a Chinese plane was seen Thursday near small islands in the East China Sea that are claimed by both countries. - This is the first time that the dispute over the islands -- which Japan calls Senkaku and China refers to as Diaoyu -- has involved aircraft, introducing a new sphere of risky encounters for the two Asian neighbors. Chinese government ships have repeatedly entered the waters around the remote, rocky islands since the Japanese government announced in September it was buying several of the islands from private owners. Japanese Coast Guard vessels have engaged in games of cat and mouse with the Chinese ships, with both sides broadcasting messages to one another insisting they have territorial sovereignty over the area.

Google's Chairman Eric Schmidt said £2.5 billion tax avoidance 'is called capitalism'. - The head of the internet giant Google has defiantly defended his company’s tax avoidance strategy claiming he was “proud” of the steps it had taken to cut its tax bill which were just “capitalism”. In an interview in New York Eric Schmidt, Google’s Chairman, confirmed the company had no intention of paying more to the UK exchequer. Documents filed last month show that Google generated around £2.5 billion in UK sales last year but paid just £6m in corporation tax. The Californian based search giant has also been revealed to have sheltered nearly $10bn of its revenues in Bermuda allowing it to avoid some $2bn in worldwide income taxes in 2011. But Mr Schmidt said such schemes were legitimate and the company paid taxes “in the legally prescribed ways”. “I am very proud of the structure that we set up. We did it based on the incentives that the governments offered us to operate,” he said.

Sydney Morning Herald: Google avoids paying tax on upto 80% of its profit
USA Today: Google parks $10 billion in Bermuda, avoiding $2 billion in taxes

The Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, taking its cue from US lawmakers, is preparing to make a list of Americans who have violated the rights of Russian children adopted into US families. - One of the provisions of the Magnitsky Act empowers the US President to create a list of Russian citizens allegedly "responsible for criminal murders” and ban them from entering the United States. Unsurprisingly, Moscow views such acts as gross interference in Russia’s internal affairs, especially since the investigation into the death of the former Hermitage Capital employee is still open. Now, Russian parliamentarians are busy crafting an Anti-Magnitsky Act, named in honor of Dima Yakovlev, an 18-month old Russian boy who died after his adoptive American father left him locked inside of a vehicle for an extended period of time on a hot summer day. Russian authorities are quick to point out, however, that the tragic case of Dima Yarovlev represents the tip of the iceberg as far as US abuses against Russian citizens are concerned.

Paul Craig Roberts: Obdurate Washington - With its power declining, Washington was not able any longer to keep Russia out of the World Trade Organization. Congress showed its spite over its impotence by hooking the normalizing of trade with Russia to what is called the “Magnitsky rule.”

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have found seven galaxies that formed relatively shortly after the universe’s birth some 13.7 billion years ago, scientists said on Wednesday, describing them “as baby pictures of the universe.”

One of the objects may be the oldest galaxy yet found, dating back to a time when the universe was just 380 million years old, a fraction of its current age. “These early galaxies represent the building blocks of present-day galaxies,” John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science, told reporters in a conference call. The discovery of galaxies dating back to the universe’s early years should help scientists figure out what happened after the “dark ages,” a period of time about 200 million years after the [supposed] Big Bang explosion when cooling clouds of hydrogen, clumped together by gravity, began to ignite, [allegedly] triggering the first generation of stars. “It was a very important moment in cosmic history,” said astronomer Richard Ellis, with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Scientists do not know exactly when this “cosmic dawn“ occurred and whether it was a single, dramatic event that caused all the galaxies to form their first stars, or whether it happened more gradually over millions of years. The discovery of seven galaxies spanning a period between 350 million and 600 million years after the Big Bang supports theories that the cosmic dawn was a drawn-out affair, with galaxies slowly building up their stars and chemical elements over time, said Brant Robertson of the University of Arizona in Tucson. Astronomers plan follow-up studies after Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, launches in 2018. The research appears in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

A las seis y media de la tarde en Venezuela (doce de la noche en España) todas las radios y televisiones del país cortaron la emisión para difundir un mensaje hasta ahora inédito. El ministro de Comunicación, Ernesto Villegas, anunció a todos los venezolanos que el presidente, Hugo Chávez, estaba siendo operado en La Habana. Es la cuarta operación a la que se somete desde que se le diagnosticó el cáncer en junio de 2011, pero la primera en la que se informa tan rápido de que la cirugía estaba teniendo lugar. Solo tres horas y media después, el vicepresidente Nicolás Maduro, nombrado hace unos días por el propio Chávez como su sucesor, se dirigió a los venezolanos para asegurar que el mandatario "se encuentra bien" tras la "compleja" intervención de seis horas y que ya está en su habitación.