If it really happened everyone would want to talk about it. We are living in a state of total terror. Maybe we could look at the genuine Arab Spring revolts which were Tunisia and Egypt, where the people protested peacefully.

The woman who signed off on the destruction of evidence proving the CIA’s implementation of torture has been promoted within the agency. The undercover officer is now in charge of the CIA’s clandestine service – at least, temporarily.

Italy remains without a government four weeks after the country’s parliamentary elections. Last Friday, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano gave the head of the Democratic Party (PD), Pier Luigi Bersani, a mandate to form a government. Over the last two days, however, Bersani has been bluntly rejected by both potential partners in a government—the right-wing People of Freedom (PDL) of Silvio Berlusconi and the populist 5-Star Movement (M5S) of comedian Beppe Grillo. The basic dilemma Bersani confronts is that he is seeking to assemble a government to carry forward austerity policies demanded by the bank and the European Union (EU), although the Italian electorate repudiated such policies in the February 24-25 election.

Global democracy has neither advanced nor retreated substantially in the past year, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit's 2012 democracy index, which was published on March 20th. Among the findings of our latest index, now in its fifth edition, are that democratisation prospects in the Arab world remain highly uncertain; that democracy has regressed in much of eastern Europe; and that there is a crisis in popular confidence in politics in the West. In short: it is not easy to build a sturdy democracy, and even long-established democracies are vulnerable to corrosion if not nurtured and protected.

Navy medical staff at Guantanamo counted 28 of the 166 war-on-terror captives as Pentagon-defined "hunger strikers," the prison said Monday, reporting an increase over the weekend that included three men being treated at the prison hospital. A total of 10 of the hunger strikers were getting liquid nutrition, which under prison camp protocol is fed to a captive who's been shackled into a restraint chair and had a feeding tube snaked up his nose into his stomach. The three at the hospital were receiving tube feedings and intravenous drips, said Navy Capt. Robert Durand, the detention center spokesman who on Friday reported 26 hunger strikers, eight on tube feedings and two hospitalized.

Ben Fox: Force Feeding Prisoners Is Disgusting, Barbaric and Inhuman

Six children from Chicago are gonna remember this night as one of their most traumatizing experiences. The kids, aged 11 months to 13 years at the time, were rehearsing songs for the church choir with their grandmother Charlene Holly when eight armed officers burst through the door and started aiming guns at them, yelling “get on the ground!”. One of the cops even asked Charlene to show the 11 month old’s hands to them at gunpoint. When she asked for the reason of the raid, she was handed a warrant for Sedgwick M. Reavers, the tenant of the apartment one floor above the Hollys. The warrant clearly stated ‘The second floor apartment located at 10640 S. Prairie Ave.

Justin Raimondo: The Militarization of American Life

(Serious Episodes Outside Parliament)

Jim Grant: The importance of the Cyprus news is an idea. And that idea is that to the authorities, your money is not necessarily yours, if it is needed for the good of the state. So, in a pinch, what has been demonstrated in Cyprus is that there will be an event over the weekend, it seems over the weekend, there will be capital controls. There will be this Orwellian and truly chilling phrase, a stability contribution. A contribution, mind you. so I think that idea is now out, and it cannot easily be put back and people ought to take the measure of this.

Reggie Middleton: Economic Depression Is The New Success - As I stated in Mainstream Media Says Cyprus Salvaged By EU Deal, I Say Cyprus Is Sacrificed By Said Deal - Thrown Into Depression, locking up a country's liquidity for an unspecified amount of time, then removing up to 40% of a nations small/medium/large business liquidity (permanently, they're catching haircuts) as well as that of your wealthy depositors, is tantamount to economic genocide! How in the hell do you calculate "The danger of Cyprus' bankruptcy is definitively overcome and the tragic consequences for the economy and society are averted”? If anything, "The danger of Cyprus' bankruptcy... and the tragic consequences for the economy and society" are just getting started!

Stephen Lendman: Cyprus Postmortems - Cyprus reflects a watershed moment. Confiscating personal wealth becomes official government policy. Eurocrats and Cypriot officials bypassed parliament. Ordinary people had no say. Euro Group head Jeroen Dijsselbloem said extracting wealth from depositors becomes a model for other troubled economies. He left no doubt what he means. He wants grand theft made official policy.

PressEurop: Merkel’s pawn considers Cypriot "haircuts" elsewhere
Daily Bail: Father Of The Euro: "Italy Is Next After Cyprus"
Cyprus Mail: Rush to quell panic over BoC
InvestmentWatch: Historic Events Are Unfolding In Europe

Though the deal still seems to be quite some way off, Israel has reportedly agreed in principle to pay tens of millions of dollars in compensation for the May 2010 attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, which led to the killings of nine aid workers. - Israel and Turkey are discussing the formation of a committee of both nations’ officials to come up with final terms for the deal, with the money to go in a “humanitarian fund” managed by Turkey’s government. Though Israel has been open to compensation for quite some time, the issue could become difficult since officials demand full immunity for Israeli commandos and the state for the killings, as well as not having to admit any wrongdoing.

An Evening With Gilad Atzmon, a short video by James Corbett. We spoke about Jewish power, Zionism, Palestine, the Lobby. Controlled opposition, history & concealment, Being & Time and more. James was very sharp and presented me with some serious questions. I hope to meet his again soon. The band was incredible: Eric Wiegmann on drums and Koichi Hara on bass. [Video]

The biggest emerging markets are uniting to tackle under-development and currency volatility with plans to set up institutions that encroach on the roles of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The leaders of the so-called BRICS nations -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- are set to approve the establishment of a new development bank during an annual summit that began today in the eastern South African city of Durban, officials from all five nations say. They will also discuss pooling foreign-currency reserves to ward off balance of payments or currency crises.

A Russian oligarch who has maintained high-level influence in Moscow since the close of the Cold War resigned his seat in Russian parliament Tuesday after the National Post revealed he held dual citizenship and had extensive assets in Canada. - Vitaly Malkin tried for almost 20 years to relocate to Canada, investing millions in Toronto, but had been turned away over alleged ties to organized crime. During his failed immigration process he told Canadian officials he had Israeli citizenship and extensive foreign investments. The Post revealed his past on March 5 and the news ignited a storm of controversy in Moscow because Russian law bars lawmakers from holding dual citizenship and owning undeclared foreign investments. Mr. Malkin, once listed as one of the world’s wealthiest men, held a seat in the Russian upper house since 2004.

Pepe Escobar: Ten years after Iraq was inflicted with 'Shock and Awe', the target is now Syria. It’s Marx all over again – history repeating itself as a double tragedy and double farce. Let’s start with that Stooge Central; the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), which is nothing but a US State Department/Qatar concoction. The head of the SNC, Moaz al-Khatib, resigned this past Sunday, blaming Qatar for trying to “control” it. Al-Khatib, crucially, was in favor of civilized negotiations with Damascus, as he told Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi. So he had to disagree with the new “interim Prime Minister” invented by Washington and Doha; one Ghasan Hitto, a Syrian-American IT business executive based in Texas who has not been to Syria for three decades. It’s the same old story.

Stephen Lendman: Washington Escalates War on Syria
Melkulangara Bhadrakumar: Obama Unleashes Dogs of War in Syria
Anshel Pfeffer: Jihadists, not Assad, Apparently Behind Reported Chemical Attack in Syria
Jordanian International Air Cargo, the secret airline that’s reportedly flooding Syria with weapons

A specialist school is under investigation after setting up a “controlled self harm” policy to allow a teenage pupil to cut herself with razor blades. - Teachers were told to give the female pupil access to sterilised Bic safety razor blades and to escort her to a bathroom where she could cut herself. They were ordered to wait outside the bathroom while the child was inside, checking on her every two minutes, before the wounds were dressed and cleaned by staff. The policy is understood to have been designed by the school in collaboration with the pupil’s mother. However, it was abandoned after five days after several members of staff protested and complained to the local authority. Unsted Park School in Godalming, Surrey, offers education to boys and girls aged between seven and 19 years who have Asperger's syndrome and higher-functioning autism. Principal Steve Dempsey and head teacher Laura Blair now face the possibility of being brought before a Teaching Agency hearing over allegations of unacceptable professional conduct.

Let the truth ring on Guantanamo Bay - The Obama Administration was on the defensive last week as an intensifying hunger strike among the detainees at Guantanamo Bay finally reached international attention. Notably, it’s put into stark relief the fact that nearly half of the prisoners there have been cleared for release, but the White House – which once promised to close the facility – has done virtually nothing to find them a way out. For those Americans who might be hearing this for the first time, these are startling circumstances that fly in the face of our constitutional, even western traditions – imprisoning men without charge, some for 11 years, with no hope of freedom. Like it or not, this puts us square in the same league as the regimes with whom we have fought for the last decade, spilling blood and treasure to "liberate" other people.

Jason Ditz: Three Hospitalized as Gitmo Hunger Strike Continues to Worsen
Stephen Lendman: Expanding Guantanamo
New York Times: More Join Hunger Strike at Guantánamo Prison

The Anonymous hacking group says it has hacked into the website of Israel‘s Mossad spy agency, gaining access to top-secret documents. - The Internet hacking group said on its twitter page that it gained access to the personal data of more than 30,000 Israeli officials, including military officials, politicians and Mossad agents, and that it will release the information gradually. Hacking group Anonymous has launched a series of cyber attacks against Israeli websites since November 2012 in retaliation for Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The Cypriot finance minister has ordered all the country's banks to remain closed until Thursday, the country's central bank announced. - Just hours before the announcement late Monday, the central bank said all but two country’s largest banks would open on Tuesday morning. The postponement could be a sign that the country's banks are even lower on cash than they believed at the end of last week. On Monday, Cyprus reached a $13 billion bailout deal with international lenders aimed at avoiding a potential financial collapse, but forcing the country’s second largest bank Cyprus Popular Bank Pcl (CPB) to be restructured, with people holding over €100,000 in their accounts facing substantial losses.

Stephen Lendman: Cyprus Update
Stephen Lendman: Grand Theft Cyprus: Part II
PressTV: Cyprus bailout deal tantamount to theft: Medvedev
IT'S OFFICIAL: Banks In Europe May Now Seize Deposits To Cover Their Gambling Losses

Emmanuel Lioudakis: “This is the start of the Road to Calvary” - Thousands of Cypriots woke up this morning and, instead of setting about their daily tasks, felt a huge vacuum. Their country, Cyprus, is no more. Abdicating to the dictates of the troika (IMF, EU and ECB), our island vanished off the map a few weeks before Easter, at the start of Lent. Disgust, shame and disappointment are some of the things I feel. What has become of our pride, our dignity, our strength in opposition? If we have found ourselves on the brink of the abyss, though, it is in large part because of our own sins. We are to blame for this debacle, because we abandoned the management of our affairs to the troika and the technocrats of the Eurogroup. The destruction of the banking system will lead to the disappearance of our state. People will lose their jobs, and their efforts to build a better life will come to nothing. Their pensions, scraped together over a lifetime, will be doomed to the same fate as their deposits – snatched by our European “friends”. With friends like them, who needs enemies?

Jordan Shilton & Chris Marsden: European Union imposes bank bailout on Cyprus - The Cypriot government and the European Union (EU) arrived at an agreement early yesterday morning to secure a bailout of Cypriot banks and avert state bankruptcy in Cyprus. The terms set by the bailout amount to the economic devastation of the island country in the interests of Europe’s financial elite. [...] The dictates of the EU and the criminal financial practices of Cyprus’s ruling elite alike have paved the way for massive attacks on working people. With unemployment at more than 14 percent, there will inevitably be thousands of job losses in banking, Cyprus’s main employer, and from restructured companies and privatised services.

While the Department of Homeland Security continues to ignore members of Congress demanding to know why the federal agency is engaged in an apparent arms build-up, the DHS has just announced it plans to purchase another 360,000 rounds of hollow point ammunition to add to the roughly 2 billion bullets already bought over the past year.

BeforeItsNews: Serbu Firearms Refuses to Sell .50 Cal Sniper Rifles to NYPD
Why Does The Department Of Homeland Security Need 450 Million Hollow Point Bullets? [03/31/12]
Stockpiling story breaks through media censorship and goes mainstream [03/14/13]
Susanne Posel: Emergence of Police State Expedites the Fascist Takeover of America

Russia says Western powers have attempted to take advantage of a United Nations probe into the recent use of chemical weapons by foreign-backed militants in Syria to topple President Bashar al-Assad. - Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in an online comment on Monday, “Attempts to delay the UN-led investigation of one of the most pressing issues into an element of additional pressure for changing the regime in the country [Syria] are unacceptable.” In a separate letter to the UN on the same day, the Russian ministry also accused the West of muscling UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon into broadening the field of investigation into the use of chemical arms in Syria.

PressTV: Confirmed: US shipping weapons to Syria; Al Nusra's 'mystery' sponsors revealed
Jason Ditz: CIA Oversees ‘Sharp’ Increase in Arms to Syrian Rebels
PressTV: Israel Preparing For Syria Intervention
11Alive.com: Officials: US training Syrians forces in Jordan
Activist Post: Tunisian Terrorists Are Now Confirmed Members of Syrian Death Squads

Absurd demands were put forth by US Secretary of State John Kerry, regarding Iraqi airspace and alleged aircraft passing through it with arms and cash supposedly destined for the Syrian government. The Washington Post reported in its article, "Kerry: Iraq helping Syria’s Assad by allowing arms flow," that: Iraq is helping to shore up the besieged regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by allowing Iranian arms and fighters to cross into Syria from Iraq, Secretary of State John F. Kerry charged Sunday.

The Bundeswehr (German armed forces) have killed several “insurgents” in Afghanistan with the use of a US drone. The drone was deployed on November 11, 2010 in the Chahar Dara district. At that time, “four suspected anti-government troops were killed” as part of air support for ground troops, the news weekly Der Spiegel has reported in its latest edition. The case has been kept secret by the German defence ministry for almost two and a half years. The ministry only felt compelled to admit the incident because of a parliamentary question asked by Social Democratic Party (SPD) deputy Hans-Peter Bartels, and then only in a confidential statement. For the first time, it has been acknowledged by the government that drones have been deployed to kill Afghans at Germany’s behest. Until now, the public has only been aware that the Bundeswehr procured an armed drone for the first time in 2009, used at the time to destroy a weapons cache, but not deployed against people.

A cyberattack that sabotaged Iran’s uranium enrichment program was an “act of force” and was likely illegal, according to research commissioned by NATO’s cyberwarfare center. - “Acts that kill or injure persons or destroy or damage objects are unambiguously uses of force” and likely violate international law, according to the Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare, a study produced by international legal experts at the request of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence in Estonia. Acts of force are prohibited under the United Nations charter, except when done in self-defense, Michael Schmitt, professor of international law at the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island and lead author of the study, told the Washington Times.

Arjen Kamphuis: U.S.-Israeli Cyber-Sabotage of Iran: Throwing the First Cyber-Stone

■ Attending the elusive Bohemian Grove retreat should be a priority for former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, News Corp executive Andrew Knight allegedly writes in an email to US Gen. Colin Powell obtained by RT.
■ The mysterious computer hacker known only as Guccifer has once again supplied RT with a trove of presumed personal emails in which the private correspondence between some of the world’s most influential men is put under the looking glass. The hacker’s target is once again former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and this time the discourse dives into a topic rarely discussed: the annual summer retreat at California’s Bohemian Grove.
■ Guccifer has previously taken credit for hacking Gen. Powell’s Facebook, compromising what are believed to be sensitive emails sent to former-President George W. Bush and even uncovering emails about last year’s Benghazi, Libya terrorist attack allegedly sent to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In the latest leaked emails sent to RT, Guccifer showcases a number of emails reportedly sent to Colin Powell’s AOL account during the last few years.

Boris Berezovsky ‘was killed by the BRITISH secret service who feared he would return to Russia and spill state secrets’, claims Putin ally. - Fears in the West that the tycoon was planning to make peace with the president and end his 13-year UK exile may have led to him being assassinated, Kremlin insider Sergei Markov has said. After falling out with Putin in 2000, the 67-year-old fled to Britain where he was later given political asylum. But after losing a £3billion High Court battle with Roman Abramovich last year, Berezovsky is said to have ‘begged’ for Putin’s forgiveness in a letter and asked if could could return home. ‘It became clear that he was ready to give out all information to the Russian secret services on those Western secret services who are trying to work on throwing Putin down. So they got rid of him,’ Sergei Markov said today.

Researchers analysed 47 widely available brands, and discovered 10 were contaminated with minuscule amounts. - They are sold as being cleaner, healthier and purer than the water that spouts from the average French tap. Now, however, an investigation has discovered traces of pesticides and prescription drugs – including a medicine used to treat breast cancer – in almost one in five brands of bottled water on the shelves of France's supermarkets. While scientists say the contamination is minuscule and the water remains safe, consumer groups are warning of a "potential cocktail effect" for drinkers, and say the findings raise serious environmental concerns.