Sir Tim Berners-Lee has lashed out at Western governments, calling them hypocritical for spying on the internet while reproaching other oppressive nations for doing the same; adding that the revelations may change the way people use computers. The British computer scientist, who invented the Web in 1989, accused the West of "insidious" online spying after whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked details of the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) dragnet telephone and internet surveillance programs, implicating US and UK in a wave of international criticism.

A former member of al-Qaeda has said the leader of al-Nusra Front, the primary terrorist group in Syria fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, is a CIA operative.
“I personally believe that the leader of the Nusra Army who declared his support for Ayman al-Zawahiri, is a CIA operative in the al-Nusra,” Sheikh Nabil Naiim, who led an al-Qaeda training camp in Egypt, made the revelation in a recent video testimony. Addressing the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra militants, Naiim said, “You are fighting the war in Syria on America’s behalf.” Naiim, who has renounced violence, also identified al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri as a U.S. double agent. Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, the head of the terrorist al-Nusra Front, pledged allegiance to al-Zawahiri on April 10. Naiim was a high profile militant in Egypt and is believed to have been involved in the assassination of former Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. He was released from prison after the regime of Hosni Mobarak collapsed in February 2011. He said the United States funded and supported al-Qaeda in Afghanistan for 18 years and that he was personally “fooled by an American plot.”

Al-Manar News: Al-Nusra Front Slaughters Christian Priest in Homs

Texas marked a grim milestone Wednesday evening. Death row inmate Kimberly McCarthy died at the Huntsville prison just after 6 p.m. after receiving a lethal injection of toxic chemicals. She became the 500th individual to be executed in the state since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, and the fifth woman to be executed in Texas since 1854, before the Civil War. McCarthy was pronounced dead at 6:37 p.m., local time, 20 minutes after Texas prison officials began administering a single lethal dose of pentobarbital. As the drug began to take effect, she took loud, raspy breaths for several seconds, then became silent. Her chest moved up and down for another minute before she stopped breathing.

■ A reliable source has revealed that Nelson Mandela’s life support machine was shut down and he has died in the hospital aged 94. According to the source, the iconic Mandela died last night while he was still in the hospital for the recurring lung infection that left him in critical condition for several days. ■ Rumors have flooded the newspapers and the internet with several sources reporting his death days earlier in a cruel attempt to fool the public and to upset the many people who have respect for this great humanitarian. The loss of the great man will be felt across the world. ■ Earlier today one of our writers, Laura Oneale, wrote an article questioning whether or not Nelson Mandela was still alive. He had been in the hospital 19 days for a recurring lung infection. As speculation surrounding his health continued to grow with many asking whether he was still alive or if, in fact, he had died. Until recently authorities would only confirm that he was on a life support system and remained in a critical condition.

HuffPo: Nelson Mandela Health Condition Very Critical [06/27/13, 08:14 AM ET EDT]

Land of Checkpoints and media censorship ("copyright")

Police State USA: Anaheim, CA, cops used shotguns to fire beanbag rounds toward men, women and children, and unleashed an attack dog on a woman with a stroller. Residents were upset an protesting a fatal officer-involved shooting that happened earlier in the day. Shocking footage from Anaheim shows police opening fire on women, children and babes in arms in a neighbourhood, after angry residents confronted them on the shooting of a man who fled from them earlier today. One woman, with child in arms, was nearly attacked by a German Shepherd when an officer released it into the crowd. Police are seen firing at close range into hordes of civilians, while women and children scream and duck. Police are reported to have attempted to purchase the videos taken by onlookers immediately following the incident. Newscasters appear shocked and horrified as the story is broadcast on the evening news. Americans are asking themselves, "What has our country become?" According to the YouTube description of the video, uploaded by TheSecretStore's channel: "The video images show police treating people as if they were in Alabama during the civil rights era. Cops shooting at women and children and releasing a K-9 dog that nearly attacked a mother holding her child."

Brig. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Pundak: If we hadn't done it, there would be a million more Arabs and there would be no Israel. - Brig. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Pundak is celebrating his hundredth birthday. Pundak was the commander of the 53rd Battalion of the Givati Brigade in the War of Independence and went on to supervise the establishment of the Armored Corps. He was also Ambassador in Tanzania and a founder of Arad. In an interview on IDF Radio, Pundak confirmed that forces under his command razed Arab villages in 1948. “My conscience is at ease with that, because if we hadn't done so, then there would be no state by now. There would be a million more Arabs,” he said.

Massive citizen informant networks were used throughout the Soviet Bloc in Eastern Europe to destroy perceived opposition to dictatorial rule, particularly in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary. The best example of an informant network in the communist world, of course, was in East Germany where the Ministry of State Security (or Stasi) controlled one informant for every 60 citizens. These informants were told that they were their country’s first line of defense against threats to national security. ■ The informant network of the Obama administration is similarly insidious, with federal employees required to keep close tabs on co-workers, and managers facing penalties, including criminal charges, for failing to report their suspicions. According to Marisa Taylor and Jonathan Landay, reporting in McClatchyDC.com on June 20, there are government documents that equate leaks with espionage. A Defense Department paper issued in 2012 exhorts its employees to “hammer this fact home…leaking is tantamount to aiding the enemies of the United States.”

Anti-Ground Zero Mosque campaigners Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer barred from entering Britain to speak at an EDL rally - Theresa May said activists' presence in the UK would 'not be conducive to the public good'. -
Two of the people behind a campaign against the building of the “Ground Zero Mosque” in New York have been barred from entering Britain to speak at an English Defence League rally in London this weekend, it has been announced. The Home Secretary Theresa May has told Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, both of the anti-Islamic group Stop Islamization of America, that their presence in the UK would “not be conducive to the public good”. The decision, which they cannot appeal, will stand for between three and five years. According to the Home Office, Mr Spencer and Ms Geller set up organisations “described as anti-Muslim hate groups” and, consequently, they have been told not to travel to Britain.

If you or someone you know has a child that has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), chances are the child is actually just fine. At least this is what the "father" of ADHD, Leon Eisenberg, would presumably say if he were still alive. On his death bed, this psychiatrist and autism pioneer admitted that ADHD is essentially a "fictitious disease," which means that millions of young children today are being needlessly prescribed severe mind-altering drugs that will set them up for a life of drug addiction and failure.

MIT scientist Richard Lindzen explains his doubts about the dangers of global warming.

Anthony Watts: The President’s Climate Action Plan – the good, the bad, and the ugly (with full documents) - I’m not impressed at all with the Obama plan. It lacks real vision, and seems written mainly to appease activist groups. While there are some glimmers of positive things in it, the lack of a real way forward (solar, biofuels, and wind aren’t it) combined with new restrictions can only mean higher energy prices in our future, most of it due to government meddling in the free market. Like most everything from this president, it is likely to be mostly lip service and tied up in legal battles for years. By that time Obama will no longer be President, and we’ll be left to wrestle with the consequences.

James Delingpole: Obama: driving a green dagger into the heart of the American dream - When it comes to pinpointing the nadir of the Obama administration, future historians are going to suffer a serious case of option paralysis. Was it Benghazi? The NSA? His use of the IRS to harass the Tea party? The various scandals involving his black ops department, the EPA? Obamacare? Personally, though, I think the one they will eventually plump for is Obama's Climate Action Plan of June 25 2013. The economy, after all, is everything. But that's just what President Obama has done with today's Climate Action Plan

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■ During the recent Group of Eight (G8) Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has had no hesitation in taking a tough line, criticized the West, and in particular the United States, for the decision to provide arms to Syrian rebels.
■ Putin asserted that the Syrian opposition had committed "appalling crimes". They were guilty of conducting terrorist attacks, and they had also killed their enemies and eviscerated them, eating their intestines in front of the public and cameras. This hardly conformed to the humanitarian values preached in Europe for hundreds of years, Putin observed – touching a raw nerve with the Americans in his audience.
■ The U.S.-supported opposition is an irrational and violent group which rejects any political settlement of the Syrian crisis. Therefore the U.S. plan to arm the rebels will result directly in the deaths of Syrian people.
■ The U.S. is the main instigator of the Syrian civil war. Over the past two years it has being been helping Syrian rebels through the supply of "non-lethal" material aid, while at the behest of the U.S., pro-American Arab monarchies and Turkey have been supporting the Syrian opposition in the civil war by providing money, weapons and bases.

Jurriaan Maessen: Henry Kissinger: Balkanized Syria Best Possible Outcome

Jeff Olson, the 40-year-old man who is being prosecuted for scrawling anti-megabank messages on sidewalks in water-soluble chalk last year now faces a 13-year jail sentence. A judge has barred his attorney from mentioning freedom of speech during trial. - According to the San Diego Reader, which reported on Tuesday that a judge had opted to prevent Olson’s attorney from ”mentioning the First Amendment, free speech, free expression, public forum, expressive conduct, or political speech during the trial,” Olson must now stand trial for on 13 counts of vandalism. In addition to possibly spending years in jail, Olson will also be held liable for fines of up to $13,000 over the anti-big-bank slogans that were left using washable children’s chalk on a sidewalk outside of three San Diego, California branches of Bank of America, the massive conglomerate that received $45 billion in interest-free loans from the US government in 2008-2009 in a bid to keep it solvent after bad bets went south. The Reader reports that Olson’s hearing had gone as poorly as his attorney might have expected, with Judge Howard Shore, who is presiding over the case, granting Deputy City Attorney Paige Hazard’s motion to prohibit attorney Tom Tosdal from mentioning the United States’ fundamental First Amendment rights. “The State’s Vandalism Statute does not mention First Amendment rights,” ruled Judge Shore on Tuesday. Upon exiting the courtroom Olson seemed to be in disbelief. “Oh my gosh,” he said. ”I can’t believe this is happening.”