Obama to order pre-emptive strike if the U.S. detects "evidence" of a major digital attack

A secret legal review on the use of America’s growing arsenal of cyberweapons has concluded that President Obama has the broad power to order a pre-emptive strike if the United States detects credible evidence of a major digital attack looming from abroad, according to officials involved in the review. That decision is among several reached in recent months as the administration moves, in the next few weeks, to approve the nation’s first rules for how the military can defend, or retaliate, against a major cyberattack. New policies will also govern how the intelligence agencies can carry out searches of faraway computer networks for signs of potential attacks on the United States and, if the president approves, attack adversaries by injecting them with destructive code — even if there is no declared war. The rules will be highly classified, just as those governing drone strikes have been closely held. Mr. Obama is known to have approved the use of cyberweapons only once, early in his presidency, when he ordered an escalating series of cyberattacks against Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. The operation was code-named Olympic Games, and while it began inside the Pentagon under President George W. Bush, it was quickly taken over by the National Security Agency, the largest of the intelligence agencies, under the president’s authority to conduct covert action.

Pentagon officials say they expect that American troops would remain in Afghanistan after the US-backed mission ends in late 2014, despite international calls for withdrawal of foreign troops from the country. - US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Sunday that Washington would sustain a strategic partnership with Kabul, a “modest” number of US troops would stay in the war-ravaged country after the 2014 pullout deadline. "I've never heard anyone suggest -- no one has ever suggested zero to me. And I think that the ultimate number will be based on the mission and how deeply we want to be involved with their continued development, and also what they want. I mean, literally what the sovereign nation of Afghanistan wants," General Dempsey said.

Jason Ditz: Panetta: ‘Enduring Presence’ in Afghanistan

The grandson of the late African-American civil rights leader Malcolm X has been arrested by FBI agents on his way to Iran, Press TV reports. - Muslim civil activist Malcolm Shabazz was reportedly arrested before starting his scheduled visit to Tehran to attend a conference on Hollywoodism, sources outside the United States confirmed on Monday. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has refused to provide any information about his whereabouts. Tehran hosted the third Hollywoodism International Conference, on the sidelines of the 31st Fajr International Film Festival in the Iranian capital Tehran on Sunday. Many filmmakers, directors, actors, and movie critics as well as politicians and economists took part in the conference.

MehrNews.com: FBI arrests Malcolm X's grandson before he departs for Iran
Daily Caller: Malcolm X’s grandson on Iranian television: Slavery continues in America [04/17/2012]
[CBC Archives: Malcolm X on Front Page Challenge, 1965 - Video]

Former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, who is known as America’s deadliest sniper, has been shot dead at a Texas gun range, local media reported on Sunday.

Kyle, 38, the author of the bestselling memoir "American Sniper," detailing his 150-plus s, was shot in the back during a charity event in Glen Rose, on Saturday, the Texas Department of Public Safety said. Eyewitnesses said the attacker fired at Kyle and Chad Littlefield, 35, killing both before fleeing in a pickup truck. The 25-year-old suspect Eddie Ray Routh was arrested in Lancaster, Texas, five hours after a police chase. The motives for the attack remain unclear. Routh, a former Marine and Iraqi War veteran, was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, media said. Kyle, an outspoken advocate for war veterans, recorded in his book “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History” more than 150 sniper kills from 1999 to 2009. The book was released last year.

WFAA.com: Suspect arrested in murder killing of elite Navy SEAL sniper killer
Daily Mail: Meet deadliest sniper in US history, Chris Kyle the Navy SEAL who kills 255

It is no secret that the second amendment is currently under attack by a number of authoritarians in Washington DC. Several bills have been introduced in Congress that if passed into law would either dismantle or regulate away the ability of law abiding citizens to conduct transactions involving firearms, ammunition and assorted gun related accessories. These people want you to believe that gun related violence will disappear only if they are able to pass a few gun control laws. If this were true than Mexico which has some of the most restrictive gun laws on the planet would be one of the safest countries in the world. In reality, these restrictive gun laws have empowered Mexican drug cartels to commit countless murders because the average person is unable to defend themselves from people who operate outside of the law. We see the same trend in the United States where gun violence is a much larger problem in areas where there are gun restrictions.

Skeleton found beneath Leicester car park confirmed as that of Richard III, as work begins on new tomb near excavation site

Not just the identity of the man in the car park with the twisted spine, but the appalling last moments and humiliating treatment of the naked body of Richard III in the hours after his death have been revealed at an extraordinary press conference at Leicester University. There were cheers when Richard Buckley, lead archaeologist on the hunt for the king's body, finally announced that the university team was convinced "beyond reasonable doubt" that it had found the last Plantagenet king, bent by scoliosis of the spine, and twisted further to fit into a hastily dug hole in Grey Friars church, which was slightly too small to hold his body. But by then it was clear the evidence was overwhelming, as the scientists who carried out the DNA tests, those who created the computer-imaging technology to peer on to and into the bones in raking detail, the genealogists who found a distant descendant with matching DNA, and the academics who scoured contemporary texts for accounts of the king's death and burial, outlined their findings. Work has started on designing a new tomb in the cathedral, only 100 yards from the excavation site, and Canon David Monteith said a solemn multifaith ceremony would be held to lay him into his new grave there, probably next year. Leicester's museums service is working on plans for a new visitor centre in an old school building overlooking the site.

Wikipedia: Richard III of England
The Search for King Richard III - The Genealogy - Video
University of Leicester: The search for Richard III - completed

Israel has dropped from 92nd place on the Reporters without Borders’ press freedom index in 2012 to 112th place in 2013 out of 179 countries. - The organization points out that Israel’s drop in rank is due to its performance during its last violent attack, dubbed ‘Operation Pillar of Cloud’, against the Gaza Strip in November 2012. During the attack, the IOF launched a deliberate assault on journalists and media buildings associated with Hamas, in addition to Israel’s continuous arrests of Palestinian reporters.

2013 World Press Freedom Index: Dashed hopes after spring - Journalists in Israel (112th, -20) enjoy real freedom of expression [for the Jews] despite the existence of military censorship but the country fell in the index because of the Israeli military’s targeting of journalists in the Palestinian Territories.

Israeli forces have abducted over 25 Palestinians, including several senior Hamas legislators, in the occupied West Bank.

The abduction occurred overnight Sunday in the cities of Nablus, Ramallah and al-Khalil (Hebron). Palestinian lawmaker Hatim Qafisha from al-Khalil and another legislator Ahmad Attoun from al-Quds (Jerusalem) were among the abductees. Palestinian human rights groups have condemned the abductions, saying the move is aimed at destabilizing the ongoing reconciliation efforts among Palestinian factions. Many of the inmates are under so-called administrative detention. The administrative detention, often implemented by the Israeli regime against the Palestinian population, is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge, allowing regime forces to make arrests without formal charges for up to six months. However, the detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time. Palestinian prisoners have been subject to human rights violations such as the use of torture during interrogations by Israeli prison authorities.

National Union for Syrian Students and the Syrian community in France held a symposium at the Syrian Cultural Center in Paris to display the fact of what is going on in Syria far from the misleading media campaign. - A film showcasing the crimes of the armed terrorist groups in Syria was screened during the symposium. Pro. Bassam Tahan illustrated the causes for targeting Syria by the West as it is the last secular Arab country which stands in the face of Islamic extremists and Wahhabis. He stressed that the West is seeking to destroy Syria to serve the Israeli interests in the region. For their parts, participants in the symposium condemned the unjustified violence committed by the Takfiri groups against the Syrian people. They also stressed the importance of the symposium that the French public opinion get acquainted with the fact of what is taking place in Syria, denouncing the French policy in dealing with the crisis in Syria.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, implicitly confirmed his country’s involvement in an airstrike on Syria last week, as President Assad of Syria accused Israel of trying to destabilise the region. Speaking to reporters in Germany, Mr Barak said: “I keep telling you frankly that ... when we say something we mean it. We say that we don’t think [Hezbollah should be allowed] to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon.”

PressTV: Israel aims to destabilize Syria with Jamraya strike: Assad - VIDEO
The Times: Israeli airstrike on Syrian convoy ‘may be first of many’
RIA Novosti: Turkish PM Calls Israel’s Syria Attack ‘State Terrorism’

Even after the US occupation, Iraq continues to witness external intervention on an enormous scale. Is this what is driving the country towards becoming a failed state? Is the Maliki government contributing to Iraq's fragmentation? And why is Iraq currently out of the media spotlight, despite all the things happening there? CrossTalking with Pepe Escobar, Sami Ramadani and Meir Javedanfar.

After eight days of protests that killed nearly 60 people, a video of one demonstrator stripped naked, dragged across the ground and beaten with truncheons by helmeted riot police has fired Egyptians to a new level of outrage. - Hamada Saber, 48, lay in a police hospital on Saturday, the morning after he was shown on television naked, covered in soot and thrashed by half a dozen policemen who had pulled him to an armored vehicle near the presidential palace. President Mohamed Mursi's office promised an investigation into the incident, which followed the deadliest wave of bloodshed of his seven-month rule. His opponents say it proves he has chosen to order a brutal crackdown like that carried out by Hosni Mubarak against the uprising that toppled him in 2011.

Indeed, Stephen Walt, the Harvard international relations professor who co-authored the “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”, issued a special thanks to the Senate Armed Services Committee that held the hearing on his foreignpolicy.com blog Friday, suggesting that controversial 2007 book should sell like hotcakes after what he called “the Hagel circus”. “I want to thank the Emergency Committee for Israel, Sheldon Adelson, and the Senate Armed Services Committee for providing such a compelling vindication of our views,” wrote Walt, who, among other things, has been accused of anti-Semitism for writing a book that criticised the allegedly excessive influence the Israel lobby wields over U.S. foreign policy and the public debate that surrounds it.

As evidence, Walt cited the number of mentions of Israel and its most powerful regional foe, Iran, received in the course of Hagel’s eight-hour ordeal – 166 and 144, respectively, according to a compilation by the Internet publication, Buzzfeed. By comparison, he noted, the epidemic of suicides among U.S. troops – a necessary concern for any incoming Pentagon chief – was addressed only twice. In fact, the degree to which Israel and the threat posed to it by Iran dominated the hearing was somewhat understated by Buzzfeed. The full transcript revealed that Israel was brought up no less than 178 times, followed closely by Iran with 171 mentions.

AWIP: Iran used 144 times in Hagel hearing, Israel 166 times

John Dines, an undercover police sergeant, as
he appeared in the early 1990s when he posed
as John Barker, a protester against capitalism...

Britain's largest police force stole the identities of an estimated 80 dead children and issued fake passports in their names for use by undercover police officers.

The Metropolitan police secretly authorised the practice for covert officers infiltrating protest groups without consulting or informing the children's parents. The details are revealed in an investigation by the Guardian, which has established how over three decades generations of police officers trawled through national birth and death records in search of suitable matches. Undercover officers created aliases based on the details of the dead children and were issued with accompanying identity records such as driving licences and national insurance numbers. Some of the police officers spent up to 10 years pretending to be people who had died. The Met said the practice was not "currently" authorised [?], but announced an investigation into "past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS [Special Demonstration Squad] officers".

Why has this remote, thinly populated region, with its freezing winters and expanses of wilderness, proved so successful? There was a time when most of its population would have unhesitatingly praised their government, which for most of the 20th century meant the social democrats in one of their various national guises. The government had provided the people with cradle-to-grave welfare services, rescuing them from the brutal life of their 19th-century forebears, and stepped in to save the capitalist economies from their periodic crises. [...] The combination of geography and history has provided Nordic governments with two powerful resources: trust in strangers and belief in individual rights.