A federal judge in California has rejected the Obama administration's effort to use secret arguments and evidence to defeat a lawsuit relating to the so-called no-fly list designed to keep suspected terrorists off of airline flights. U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup turned down a motion by the Justice Department to dismiss former Stanford student Rahinah Ibrahim's lawsuit against various federal government agencies over her reported inclusion on the no-fly list as well as an incident in September 2005 where she was barred from taking a flight from San Francisco and detained for a couple of hours. Alsup, who sits in San Francisco, also refused the Justice Department's offer to show him affidavits from law enforcement officials which the government would not share with Ibrahim or her attorneys.

Americans Chained by Illusion | Brainwash Update - Abby Martin takes a look back at philosopher Plato's the 'Allegory of the Cave' and its application to today's society.

Eric Peters: On Us vs. Them
Paul Craig Roberts: A Culture of Delusion
Paul Craig Roberts: Agenda Prevails Over Truth
Paul Craig Roberts: The Osama bin Laden Myth
Paul Craig Roberts: The 11th Anniversary of 9/11

A fresh video has surfaced online apparently showing foreign-backed militants in Syria killing an unarmed civilian execution style. - The man is said to have been killed in late December for supporting the Syrian government. Press TV could not independently verify the authenticity of the video. This is not the first time civilians are killed over such accusations by the militants, who have been widely criticized for committing war crimes, such as the execution of prisoners. The so-called Free Syrian Army militants have also posted two troubling videos on the Net. They show the militant testing chemical weapons on lab rabbits and threatening to use chemical weapons to massacre Alawite Shias and supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

PressTV: Bloodbath awaits Syria if militants gain control: Historian - VIDEO

A US assassination drone attack has killed three people in Yemen’s al-Bayda’ province as Washington continues its terror operations overseas.

On Saturday, a US drone attacked a Land Cruiser in el-Manaseh village near the Radda district, The Associated Press reported. A Yemeni security official claimed the men killed in the attack, the fourth such strike this week, were al-Qaeda militants. Earlier this week, another US drone strike killed two militants in the same province. Elsewhere, seven others were killed in two other drone operations in the southeastern province of Hadramawt. Statistics gathered by the Long War Journal prior to the Saturday attack show that the United States "is known to have carried out 41 airstrikes" in Yemen in 2102, which is an average of around three to four strikes per month. The Journal says that since December 2009, the CIA and the US military's Joint Special Operations Command have conducted more than 54 air and missile strikes in Yemen. Washington claims the targets of the attacks are al-Qaeda militants, but local officials and witnesses maintain that civilians have been the main victims of the attacks over the past few years. The United States also carries out targeted killings through drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia.

John Glaser: US Drone Strike Kills Three in Yemen

Why are we not allowing our farmers to grow hemp? Well, we know the reasons – big oil, pharma, timber, and chemical companies do not want to lose their investment dollars; the military – using OUR dollars to fund wars, some of which have to do with…yes, you guessed it…OIL. - What would happen if in the next few years we, in the U.S., farmed hemp on a large scale? We would have no more dependence on foreign oil, we certainly wouldn’t need so much money spent on the military, we would have a clean, safe alternative, and every single factor in our lives when it comes to food, clothing, health, transportation, housing, etc. – it would all be thanks to HEMP. Our economy would start to heal. The government wouldn’t need to print new money, causing more debt (which, by the way, is NOT the answer to reviving a sucky economy).

To save wildlife, and tourism, Kenyans take up arms. 'In a growing number of communities here, people are so eager, even desperate, to protect their wildlife that civilians with no military experience are banding together and risking their lives to confront heavily armed poaching gangs'. - Julius Lokinyi was one of the most notorious poachers in this part of Kenya, accused of single-handedly killing as many as 100 elephants and selling the tusks by the side of the road in the dead of night, pumping vast amounts of ivory into a shadowy global underground trade. But after being hounded, shamed, browbeaten and finally persuaded by his elders, he recently made a remarkable transformation. Elephants, he has come to believe, are actually worth more alive than dead, because of the tourists they attract. So Mr. Lokinyi stopped poaching and joined a grass-roots squad of rangers — essentially a conservation militia — to protect the wildlife he once slaughtered.

Photo: Reuters/Victor Jara Foundation

Eight retired army officers were charged on Friday with the murder of a popular songwriter and theater director, Víctor Jara, who was tortured and killed days after the 1973 military coup in a stadium that had been turned into a detention center.

Chile’s Court of Appeal on Friday arrested seven retired servicemen over their suspected involvement in the 1973 killing of folk singer Victor Jara, one of the highest-profile victims of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, Latin American media reported on Friday. On September 12, 1973, after the military coup which overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, Jara, along with thousands of Chileans, was arrested and then held prisoner at the Estadio Chile. The 40-year-old singer was tortured for four days in the stadium that now bears his name. On September 15 he was machine-gunned, with 34 bullet wounds later found on his body. To date, Ret. Col. Mario Manríquez Bravo, the former chief of the Estadio Chile internment camp, is the only person convicted for the killing. Jara’s relatives earlier called for the masterminds and immediate perpetrators of the killing to be held to account.

El Mostrador: Justicia identifica al asesino de Víctor Jara y ordena su captura internacional
La Nación: Víctor Jara, un ícono de la música chilena, fue asesinado por la dictadura de Pinochet
Semana: Chile: acusan a exoficiales de muerte de Víctor Jara
Hispanically Speaking: Chile Indicts 8 Former Army Officers For Murder of Victor Jara
Deutsche Welle: Chile charges eight people in Victor Jara killing
BBC: Chile ex-army officers implicated in Victor Jara death - VIDEO
Socialist Worker: The dirty role of Kissinger and the CIA
The Guardian: Kissinger may face extradition to Chile
Third World Traveler: New Transcripts of Kissinger's Role in Chilean Coup