The United States taps half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany in a typical month and has classed its biggest European ally as a target similar to China, according to secret U.S. documents quoted by a German newsmagazine. - The revelations of alleged U.S. surveillance programs based on documents taken by fugitive former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden have raised a political furor in the United States and abroad over the balance between privacy rights and national security. Exposing the latest details in a string of reputed spying programs, Der Spiegel quoted from an internal NSA document which it said its reporters had seen. The document Spiegel cited showed that the United States categorized Germany as a "third-class" partner and that surveillance there was stronger than in any other EU country, similar in extent to China, Iraq or Saudi-Arabia. "We can attack the signals of most foreign third-class partners, and we do it too," Der Spiegel quoted a passage in the NSA document as saying.

Der Spiegel: NSA spähte weitere europäische Botschaften aus
Danmarks Radio: EU threatens U.S. with dropping trade (Google Translate)
Der Spiegel: Spying 'Out of Control': EU Official Questions Trade Negotiations
The Guardian: Key US-EU trade pact under threat after more NSA spying allegations
Russia Today: EU demands ‘full clarification’ over NSA spying - warns of severe impact on relations
The Independent: Germany prepares to charge UK and US intelligence over fresh bugging allegations
Patrick Martin: Massive NSA spying on European Union, Germany

Zeit Online: Tell-all telephone - Green party politician Malte Spitz sued to have German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom hand over six months of his phone data that he then made available to ZEIT ONLINE. We combined this geolocation data with information relating to his life as a politician, such as Twitter feeds, blog entries and websites, all of which is all freely available on the internet. By pushing the play button, you will set off on a trip through Malte Spitz's life. The speed controller allows you to adjust how fast you travel, the pause button will let you stop at interesting points. In addition, a calendar at the bottom shows when he was in a particular location and can be used to jump to a specific time period. Each column corresponds to one day.

Under the Obama administration, horse slaughterhouses became legal again. - The next burger you bite into might be a horsemeat burger, thanks to the U.S. government approving horse slaughterhouses to produce meat for human consumption. Valley Meat Co in Roswell, New Mexico, is being green-lighted by the USDA, which will routinely send inspectors to make sure it is slaughtering horses and processing horse meat in a “clean” way. Additional horse meat plants are expected to be approved by the USDA in Missouri and Iowa.

Pop singer Jennifer Lopez [is obviously working for the US government]. She appeared in a special concert Saturday night for the dictator of Turkmenistan, who runs one of the world’s most brutal and oppressive regimes. “It was our pleasure!” she cheered from the stage. “And we wish you the very happiest birthday… Happy birthday to you — happy birthday, Mr. President.” - Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who last made waves in the western media for falling off his horse in front of a large crowd, has accumulated a sordid history since coming to power in 2006. Reporters Without Borders says that under his rule, Turkmenistan has become “one of the world’s most absolute and brutal dictatorships.” Human Rights Watch similarly classifies the country as “virtually closed to independent scrutiny,” where “human rights defenders and other activists face the constant threat of government reprisal.”

Michel Chossudovsky: "The War is Worth Waging" - Several trans-Afghan oil and gas pipeline projects have been contemplated including the planned $8.0 billion TAPI pipeline project (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India) of 1900 km., which would transport Turkmen natural gas across Afghanistan in what is described as a "crucial transit corridor". Military escalation under the extended Af-Pak war bears a relationship to TAPI. Turkmenistan possesses third largest natural gas reserves after Russia and Iran. Strategic control over the transport routes out of Turkmenistan have been part of Washington's agenda since the collapse of the Soviet union in 1991.

Reporters Without Borders: 2013 World Press Freedom Index: Dashed hopes after spring - Although many criteria are considered, ranging from legislation to violence against journalists, democratic countries occupy the top of the index while dictatorial countries occupy the last three positions. Again it is the same three as last year – Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea.

As part of their escalating campaign against free speech, several international satellite providers, including Eutelsat and Intelsat, have stopped the broadcast of a number of Iranian channels. Press TV is also among the targeted channels. Other channels include iFilm, which is purely an entertainment television network. Intelsat has ordered its service providers to pull the plug on Iranian channels. However, several providers are still broadcasting the Iranian channels. The campaign against Iranian channels is considered a violation of satellite rules, under which all nations have the right to use satellites, with the audience entitled to receive information from any source they desire.

PressTV: Ways to watch Press TV
PressTV: West not capable of silencing Iran voice

Look around and you can’t miss it. The world is on the brink… politically, economically, financially, monetarily, and militarily. Events are accelerating. Over the last decade trend forecaster Gerald Celente has been blaring the alarms. If you’ve been paying attention, then you’ve heard them. You know we’re going under. And this time they’re not going to be able to stop it.

The end result of this economic destruction for many Americans, as Celente noted in a previous interview, will be a one way ticket aboard the Auschwitz Express and global war. Forget about stock markets, bond prices and economic statistics being released by the government. Those don’t matter unless you’re actively trading or have your money in retirement accounts (in which case you might consider making an exit). What matters now is insulating yourself as best as possible from the coming destruction to Americans’ wealth and day-to-day lives. As Celente suggests, gold is an asset you want to be in possession of. Likewise, when our system of commerce comes to a standstill as a result of the collapse of the world’s reserve currency you need to own barterable physical assets and have them easily accessible. We will soon see what it truly means to live (and survive) in a depression. With nearly 50 million Americans on food stamps, 100 million on welfare, and no economic progress in sight, it won’t be long before the world as we have come to know it changes drastically. Expect riots, starvation and bloodshed. You can be 100% sure that the government is planning for exactly this scenario. The signs, as they were before the crash of 2008, are everywhere. It’s happening right now. Buckle up, folks.

Investment Watch: 36 Hard Questions About The U.S. Economy That The Mainstream Media Should Be Asking

Millions have taken to the streets across Egypt to demand the resignation of President Morsi on the first anniversary of his inauguration. But Morsi loyalists are staging counter-demonstrations, saying they will defend the leader with all means available.

Stephen Lendman: Mass Protests Rock Egypt - Washington engineered Hosni Mubarak's ouster. He fell from grace. He opposed Obama's regional agenda. It cost him dearly. He became more liability than asset. Mohammed Morsi replaced him. He's Washington's man in Egypt. Hard line rule continues. Morsi's its public face. Egypt's anti-democratic tradition persists. Junta power rules. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) runs things. Politicians serve them. Elections don't matter.

Johannes Stern: Mass protests erupt against US-backed Mursi regime in Egypt - As in 2011, the mass protests are driving by Egypt’s staggering social inequality—which has increased under the rule of the military junta and the Muslim Brotherhood—and the repressive character of the US-backed Egyptian state apparatus.

Al-Manar News: Anti-Mursi Campaign Collects 22 Million Signatures

NSA leaks will continue to be revealed, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has warned the US government, no matter what happens to Edward Snowden, who is stuck in diplomatic limbo in Russia as he is seeking asylum in Ecuador. - Assange warned that measures have been implemented to hinder any attempt by Washington to try and stop the publication of more classified material. “There is no stopping the publishing process at this stage,” he told ABC News program 'This Week,' from the confinement of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been holed up after Quito granted him political asylum. "Great care has been taken to make sure Mr Snowden cannot be pressured by any state to stop the publishing process," Assange added. He had also compared the fate of the 29-year-old Snowden to his own, calling the NSA whistleblower a “hero.” “He has told the people of the world and the United States that there is mass unlawful interception of their communications, far beyond anything that happened under Nixon,” Assange said of Snowden.

The NSA has a “brand new” technology that enables one billion cell phone calls to be redirected into its data hoards, according to the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, who told a Chicago conference that a new leak of Snowden's documents was ‘coming soon.’ - Calling it part of a “globalized system to destroy all privacy,” and the enduring creation of a climate of fear, Greenwald outlined the capabilities of the NSA to store every single call while having “the capability to listen to them at any time.” Greenwald was the first journalist to leak Snowden’s documents, having travelled to Hong Kong to review them prior to exposure. “What we're really talking about here is a globalized system that prevents any form of electronic communication from taking place without its being stored and monitored by the National Security Agency,” he said. While he underlined that the NSA are not necessarily listening in on the full billion calls, he pointed out their capability to do so and the lack of accountability with “virtually no safeguards” which the NSA were being held to. The Guardian journalist made hints that he was sitting on further details of the NSA’s billion-call backlog, which he’d keep under wraps until the documents full publication, which he said was “coming soon.” He additionally suggested future exposures to come from Snowden, while lauding the sheer risk the whistleblower took in revealing the NSA’s covert surveillance program.

[Reason TV] School’s out for summer and Nanny of the Month is taking the opportunity to salute the zealots within the otherwise laudable anti-bullying movement. They take a real problem–few things are more loathsome than picking on the vulnerable–and bungle the response, as has been done with most every “get tough!” effort from D.A.R.E., the failed anti-drug program, to all the idiotic iterations of the “zero tolerance” fad. ■ Do we really need to ban trash talking at high school sporting events? Do we really need attorney general investigations of foul-mouthed jocks? And for the love of whatever remnants of common sense remain in our schoolhouses and statehouses, do we really need to fight bullying with jail cells? ■ Not only did this month’s top nanny introduce a bill that would criminalize speech deemed to be bullying–up to a year in the clink!–she introduced a bill that, according to UCLA First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh, is not limited to speech about children (despite it being touted with the typical “for the children!” justifications). Volokh notes that the bill, if passed, could punish harsh speech directed at journalists, academics, celebrities, politicians, and the like, if the speech results in “substantial emotional distress.” ■ Presenting the Nanny of the Month for June 2013: New Mexico State Rep. Mary Helen Garcia!

Anti-U.S. protesters have burned posters of U.S. President Barack Obama in the South African city of Johannesburg ahead of his visit to the city on Saturday. - Protesters also burned miniature U.S. flags outside the University of Johannesburg Soweto campus, expressing their anger at the U.S. government’s foreign policy. Demonstrators expressed their opposition to Washington’s support for the Israeli regime, the killing of innocent civilians in U.S. drone strikes, and the continuing operation of the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay prison. Some protesters compared the Obama administration’s support for the Israeli regime to the apartheid in South Africa. Moreover, activists from the Free Palestine Organization of South Africa waved Palestinian flags and carried signs that urged Obama to “Stop Funding Israeli Apartheid.”