● In a courtroom at Fort Meade today, Judge Army. Col. Denise Lind delivered the sentence in the trial of Bradley Manning: 35 years in a military prison, less 1,294 days for time served at Quantico. The 25-year-old former intelligence analyst was convicted of charges related to sharing more than 700,000 secret government documents with Julian Assange and Wikileaks. The transparency organization published those documents online, and shared them with news organizations.
● Manning faced a maximum of up to 90 years in prison, and receives credit for 3.5 years already served in custody, some of which was in solitary confinement. Human rights advocates say solitary confinement is a form of torture. No minimum sentence applied; Judge Lind convicted him last month of most charges brought against him by the government, including 6 violations of the US Espionage Act of 1917.
● Alexa O'Brien, who has been covering the trial at Fort Meade nearly every day for the past 20 months, has created this detailed chart explaining how various charges were merged, leading to the sentence Manning received today.

LA Times: WikiLeaks trial: Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison
Reuters: U.S. soldier Manning gets 35-year prison sentence
Jason Ditz: Bradley Manning Sentenced to 35 Years in Prison

The latest scandal with the Guardian is an escalation against the freedom of the press that WikiLeaks predicted years ago, but it won't stop whistleblowers and journalists from fighting for freedom of speech, Wikileaks’ Kristinn Hrafnsson tells RT. ● It was revealed by Alan Rusbringer, editor of the Guardian, that the British government threatened them with legal action unless they handed back or destroyed material given to them by former NSA agent Edward Snowden. The revelation comes after David Miranda, Glen Greenwald’s partner, the Guardian journalist who published Snowden’s material, was detained and questioned for nine hours at London’s Heathrow airport under anti-terrorism laws. The British government has defended their actions saying that he had “sensitive, stolen data” in his possession.

Andrew Sullivan took this lesson from the detention:

■ “So any journalist passing through London’s Heathrow has now been warned: do not take any documents with you. Britain is now a police state when it comes to journalists, just like Russia is."

A better lesson might be that any journalist — or person carrying sensitive information on digital devices — should make sure their documents are locked down with encryption, so that someone with access to those devices doesn’t also have access to the information inside them. “We both now typically and automatically encrypt all documents and work we carry – not just for the NSA stories,” says Greenwald via email. “So everything he had – for his personal use and everything else – was heavily encrypted, and I’m not worried at all that they can break that.”

Belfast Telegraph: Clegg backed Heywood Guardian move

New Zealand has passed a hotly-disputed bill that radically expands the powers of its spying agency. The legislation was passed 61 votes to 59 in a move that was slammed by the opposition as a death knell for privacy rights in New Zealand. ● The new amendment bill gives the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) – New Zealand’s version of the NSA – powers to support the New Zealand police, Defense Force and the Security Intelligence Service. Opposition to the legislation has voiced concerns it will open the door to the NSA-style monitoring of New Zealand citizens in violation of their rights. A recent survey by Fairfax Media-Ipsos found that three quarters of New Zealand’s population is “concerned by the law.”

Wildly varying reports have emerged of recent chemical weapons use in Syria, with hundreds allegedly killed in the latest attack. This comes on the same day that the UN inspectors arrive in Damascus to investigate allegations of use of toxic arms. ● The casualty figures range from dozens to almost 1,200 deaths. Initially, Al-Arabiya posted news of 280 victims on Twitter. Later, the news outlet upgraded the figure up to 1,188 victims quoting the Free Syrian Army. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had a much lower figure, claiming dozens of people were killed, including children. News agencies such as Reuters and AP mostly put the numbers of victims at hundreds, but say that reports can't be independently verified. Meanwhile, an RT Arabic correspondent managed to contact some locals who say they haven't witnessed any “poisonous attack” in the area. However, they point out that gunfire can be heard. Syrian authorities issued a statement saying there is “no truth whatsoever” to reports of chemical weapons use near Damascus. The incident reportedly took place in Ghouta, on the green agricultural belt territory surrounding the Syrian capital.

Mike Rivero ● Does anyone really think that Assad is stupid enough to hit civilians (especially children) with chemical weapons just 5 blocks from where the UN chemical weapons inspection team was staying, knowing that such a chemical weapon attack would be all the justification the United States needed for a direct military invasion, to reverse Assad's near-victory over the hired mercenary army? Remember, leaked emails earlier in the year confirmed that the Obama administration authorized a plan to deploy chemical weapons against the Syrian people for the express purpose of framing Assad, and US-made chemical weapons were given to the hired mercenaries by Turkey.

21st Century Wire: Media hypes latest ‘chemical’ attack in Syria but evidence does not add up
SANA: Foreign and Expatriates Ministry: Allegations of Armed Forces using toxic gas false and untrue
SANA: Media source: Reports on chemical weapons use in Ghouta untrue
PressTV: Syrian army denies allegations of chemical weapons use against militants - VIDEO
The Guardian: Syria conflict: chemical weapons blamed as hundreds reported killed
Reuters: Activists say more than 200 killed in gas attack near Damascus
AP/Big Story: Syrian activists claim deadly 'toxic gas' attack
RIA Novosti: UK to Raise Syria Chemical Weapons Claim at UN

Army PFC Bradley Manning’s sentencing hearings concluded Monday as US government prosecutors and Manning’s defense presented closing arguments. Earlier this month, Manning was convicted on 19 criminal counts—including five violations of the Espionage Act—for making public information detailing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The government used the final pre-appellate phase of the trial to call for a 60-year prison term for the young whistleblower. Army Colonel Judge Denise Lind is expected to issue a sentence today. If you “betray your country, you do not deserve the mercy of a court of law,” said the government’s lead prosecutor, Army Captain Joe Morrow. Repeating the government refrain that Manning is a traitor, Morrow declared that Manning’s leak “wasn’t a greater good. It wasn’t a good at all. It was destructive,” and that the whistleblower serves as an example of “arrogance meet[ing] access to sensitive information.” Morrow emphasized that the sentence “must send a message to any soldier contemplating stealing classified information” to “ensure we never see an act like this again.”

■ In this video, British biologist Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's most innovative scientists, describes how science is being constricted by unexamined assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. These dogmas not only put arbitrary limits on the depth and scope of science, but may well be dangerous for the future of humanity. ■ According to these dogmas, all of reality is material or physical; the world is an inanimate machine; nature is purposeless; free will is an illusion; notions of higher orders of consciousness and absolute ("God") awareness exist only as ideas in human minds, which are themselves nothing but electrochemical processes imprisoned within our skulls. ■ So Dr. Sheldrake asks: should science be an ideology or belief system, or should it reclaim its birthright as an unbiased, open-ended method of inquiry? In his latest book, SCIENCE SET FREE, he argues that the materialist ideology is moribund; under its sway, increasingly expensive research is reaping diminishing returns while societies around the world are paying the price. In the skeptical spirit of true science, SCIENCE SET FREE turns ten fundamental dogmas of materialist science into exciting questions, and shows how all of them open up startling new possibilities for discovery. This book may well challenge your view of what is real and what is possible. ■ Dr. Rupert Sheldrake is the author of more than 80 scientific papers and ten books, and is best known for his groundbreaking theory of morphic resonance. (For his full biography and more information on his work, seehttp://www.sheldrake.org/homepage.html ). In this video, recorded in San Francisco on Sept. 7, 2012, Dr. Sheldrake speaks about his new book and answers audience questions at a presention sponsored by the California Institute of Integral Studies (http://ciis.org) and held at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in San Francisco.

YouTube has disabled Press TV's new account under pressure from the Israeli-American Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that ordered the video-sharing site to end the Iranian channel's live broadcast. ● "On August 20, YouTube's parent company Google deactivated Press TV's new account weeks after disabling the channel's official page," said Press TV Newsroom Director Hamid Reza Emadi. "YouTube broadcasts a variety of obscene images and provides a platform for terrorists to propagate their dangerous ideologies, but it cannot tolerate the broadcast of an alternative media channel from Iran," he said, adding that YouTube is doing what the ADL is ordering it to do. "ADL has contacted YouTube regarding concerns about Press TV," reads an article on ADL's official website, further noting that the station's "broadcast on Youtube comes at the a time when the United States, the European Union and others in the international community are seeking to isolate Iran."

Britain’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has condemned the BBC’s decision to censor a message of support for the Palestinians made during annual classical concerts at the Royal Albert Hall London. :: British violinist Nigel Kennedy told a cheering crowd at the end of a joint Proms performance with the Palestine Strings, a Palestinian group from the West Bank and Gaza, on August 8 that the concert showed how “giving equality and getting rid of apartheid gives a beautiful chance for things to happen”. The BBC has reportedly decided to remove Kennedy’s anti-Israeli statement from a recording of the Prom that is to be broadcast on BBC Four on Friday, August 23.

Occupied Palestine | فلسطين: @BBC to censor violinist Nigel Kennedy’s statement about Israeli apartheid from TV broadcast