Everyday communications of Italians are also on the watch list of the US National Security Agency, a new report has revealed. While an Italian parliamentary committee seeks clarification of NSA activities, local security sources defend the snooping. ● Italy’s spy watchdog COPASIR has recently learned details of large-scale monitoring of Italians by the US intelligence agency NSA, according to a report published by Corriere della Sera. In order to confirm the snooping on Italians, the committee members had to go to the United States and meet with US intelligence agency directors, as well as with congressional committee chairs. A delegation of parliamentarians from the COPASIR confirmed their concerns regarding the extent of the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program during an official visit to the US three weeks ago, the media said. As part of the program, phone calls and computer communications of “millions of Italians” are reportedly being gathered. Moreover, Corriere della Sera added that the implications extended to “a monitoring network that started years ago and is still active,” of which the Italian government and spy agencies might have been well aware of.

Corriere della Sera: America Snoops on Italian Emails, Text Messages and Conversations
Corriere della Sera: «Siamo tutti ascoltati dal Grande orecchio»

Ronald Bailey: ”The NSA has turned the internet into a giant surveillance platform.” ■ The walls of surveillance secrecy were finally cracked by the June revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden. Snowden’s files conclusively show that the federal government has been operating a vast spying program that violates the Fourth Amendment rights of tens of millions of ordinary Americans. To justify this surveillance, the government offers tortured legal interpretations of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. ● Section 702 authorizes warrantless surveillance of the communications of foreigners outside of the United States. As Snowden’s documents reveal, the NSA has interpreted Section 702 as a backdoor loophole allowing the agency to retain and comb through the call data and emails of Americans whose communications are “about” a terror suspect or have been “inadvertently” intercepted by the NSA’s PRISM monitoring program. The even more egregious violations of our constitutional rights, Snowden revealed, occurred under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which the NSA has used to justify the dragnet collection and retention of the call metadata of essentially all Americans. (Metadata includes the numbers called and the location, date, time, and duration of each call.)

Talk by Ray McGovern, 27-year veteran of the CIA, on "The Real Agenda of the American Empire" recorded October 17, 2013 at the Common Good Cafe at University Temple United Methodist Church in Seattle.

Ray McGovern: Edward Snowden’s Brave Integrity

US officials responsible for the secret CIA drone campaign should stand trial, says Amnesty Intl. ● US officials responsible for the secret CIA drone campaign against suspected terrorists in Pakistan may have committed war crimes and should stand trial, a report by a leading human rights group warns. Amnesty International has highlighted the case of a grandmother who was killed while she was picking vegetables and other incidents which could have broken international laws designed to protect civilians. The report is issued in conjunction with an investigation by Human Rights Watch detailing missile attacks in Yemen which the group believes could contravene the laws of armed conflict, international human rights law and Barack Obama's own guidelines on drones.

The Dawn: US drone strikes may tantamount to war crimes: Amnesty

So much attention concerning the intelligence community lately has been focused on the NSA. There has been a bit of looking at the FBI as well, but for the most part the CIA has been left untouched -- even though when the Washington Post released details of the US's black budget (thanks to Ed Snowden), it surprised many people to discover that the CIA still has a significantly larger budget than the NSA. Late last week, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer had a fantastic article revealing some details of a still-classified report put together by the Senate Intelligence Committee which apparently rips the CIA to shreds over its torture program, both in how ineffective the program was, but also in how the CIA tried to avoid any real oversight from Congress.

Robert Stevens: The Fifth Estate: A dishonest film about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange ■ Director Bill Condon’s The Fifth Estate is the second major film this year dealing with the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. It is no improvement on the previous risible effort, Alex Gibney’s documentary, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks. Its failings are not primarily the fault of weaknesses in direction or poor performances. Rather it was commissioned and produced by DreamWorks, with a screenplay by Josh Singer, based on two very dubious books, both hostile to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the organisation itself. From this point on the project was unsalvageable as an essentially untruthful work based on politically suspect and prejudiced source material. Despite claims by the director and others involved that the film was not conceived as an attack on Assange and WikiLeaks, it is a tendentious work promoting a definite agenda. ● Assange has, for more than three years, been denied his basic democratic rights, forced to seek refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. His life and freedom remain threatened by immensely powerful enemies. He is the victim, the persecuted. This is simply glossed over. Condon has airbrushed the last three years out of his WikiLeaks story. Everything after Assange’s December 2010 detention in London is covered in less than five minutes, reduced to a few title cards, interspersed with the fictional Assange speaking from the Ecuadorian embassy. The Fifth Estate is a tawdry project, and everyone involved in it, artistically and financially, should be ashamed of themselves.

Antoine Lerougetel: Mass student protests in France against deportation of Roma schoolgirl ■ The mobilisation of thousands of high school pupils throughout France against the deportation of the 15-year-old Roma schoolgirl Leonarda Dibrani and her family to Kosovo has destabilised the government of Socialist Party (PS) President François Hollande. The brutality of the seizure of Leonarda—she was taken from a coach while on a school outing, against the protests of her teacher and in front of her schoolmates—has triggered broad popular disgust. While pursuing reactionary austerity policies, Hollande and his Interior Minister Manuel Valls have resorted even more openly to the racist policies of the National Front, scapegoating immigrants for the social crisis. Social anger over this policy has now exploded. The wave of outrage forced Hollande to address the public on television on Saturday. But rather than assuaging the anger of the students, he made things even worse. He defended the action of the authorities against Leonarda, not wanting to snub Valls. Then he made a “generous gesture” to the Roma girl, inviting her to come back to France—but only if she left her family behind.

Anthony Torres: French Interior Minister Manuel Valls proposes mass deportation of Roma ■ French Interior Minister Manuel Valls has once again turned on the Roma, demanding their expulsion to Eastern Europe. His comments, attacking the Roma ethnicity as a whole, illustrate the reactionary nature of the Socialist Party (PS), which is reacting to the unpopularity of its policies of austerity and war by fomenting racism and moving towards the positions of the neo-fascist National Front (FN). On September 24, Manuel Valls stated: “The Roma should go back to Romania or Bulgaria and stay there.” The following day, he confirmed his words asserting: “I have no correction to make, my words only shock those who are ignorant of the issue.” [10/01/13]

Vony Rambolamanana: Leonarda, une parmi tant d'autres ■ Rappelons tout d'abord que l'asile est strictement encadré juridiquement. La convention de Genève du 28 juillet 1951 permet à toute personne arrivant en France, même de façon irrégulière, d'obtenir un titre de séjour provisoire afin de demander l'asile. Leonarda a fait partie de ceux-là et la récente tragédie de Lampedusa illustre l'acuité de cette question. En 2012, 55 000 demandeurs d'asile sont arrivés en France, dont des familles avec enfants (dont 14 000 demandes concernaient des mineurs accompagnants), ou plus rarement des mineurs isolés. Toutefois, le droit se heurte à une très officieuse pression politique, à la fois l'œuvre d'associations de défenseur des demandeurs d'asile mais surtout du gouvernement en place qui rappelle fréquemment que la France n'est pas en mesure d'accueillir tout le monde.

A new report from a special U.N. investigator says drone strikes have killed far more civilians than U.S. officials have publicly acknowledged – at least 400 in Pakistan and as many as 58 in Yemen – and chides the U.S. for failing to aid the investigation by disclosing its own figures. U.N. Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson, who issued the "interim" report, said the U.S. had created "an almost insurmountable obstacle to transparency." "The Special Rapporteur does not accept that considerations of national security justify withholding statistical and basic methodological data of this kind," wrote Emmerson in the report, which is due to be presented to the U.N. General Assembly next Friday. Read the report on drone casualties here [.pdf].

US drone hits Kunar, four Afghans die - Video
US drone strikes supreme war crime: Kevin Barrett
US drone attacks are ‘least expensive’ way to wage war: Danny Schechter

■ Physician Dahlia Wasfi’s powerful speech featured in TheParadigmShift 2009 video. Our only apparent solution: the 99% demanding arrests of obvious US War Criminals (video has images of US war-murders) “We have an obligation to every last victim of this illegal aggression because all of this carnage has been done in our name. Since World War 2, 90% of the casualties of war are unarmed civilians, one-third of them children….”

■We have an obligation to every last victim of this illegal aggression because all of this carnage has been done in our name. Since World War 2, 90% of the casualties of war are unarmed civilians, one-third of them children. Our victims have done nothing to us. From Palestine to Afghanistan, to Iraq, to Somalia, to wherever our next target may be, their murders are not collateral damage, they are the nature of modern warfare. They don’t hate us because of our freedoms. They hate us because every day we are funding and committing crimes against humanity. The so-called “war on terror” is a cover for our military aggression to gain control of the resources of western Asia. This is sending the poor of this country to kill the poor of those Muslim countries. This is trading blood for oil. This is genocide. And to most of the world, we are the terrorists.
■ In these times, remaining silent on our responsibility to the world and its future is criminal. And in light of our complicity in the supreme crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan, and ongoing violations of the U.N. Charter in International Law, how dare any American criticize the actions of legitimate resistance to illegal occupation!
■ Our so-called enemies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, our other colonies around the world, and our inner cities here at home, are struggling against the oppressive hand of empire, demanding respect for their humanity. They are labeled insurgents or terrorists for resisting rape and pillage by the white establishment, but they are our brothers and sisters in the struggle for justice. The civilians at the other end of our weapons don’t have a choice, but American soldiers have choices. And while there may have been some doubt 5 years ago, today we know the truth. Our soldiers don’t sacrifice for duty-honor-country, they sacrifice for Kellogg Brown & Root.
■ They don’t fight for America. They’re not establishing democracy, they’re establishing the basis for an economic occupation to continue after the military occupation has ended.
■ Iraqi society today, thanks to American “help” is defined by house raids, death squads, check-points, detentions, curfews, blood in the streets, and constant violence. We must dare to speak out in support of the Iraqi people, who resist and endure the horrific existence we brought upon them through our bloodthirsty imperial crusade. We must dare to speak out in support of those American war-resisters, the real military heroes, who uphold their Oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, including those terrorist cells in Washington DC more commonly known as the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches.

Geoffrey Cowley/MSNBC: Environmental contamination ■ Between 2002 and 2005, U.S. forces shot off 6 billion bullets in Iraq (something like 300,000 for every person killed). They also dropped 2,000 to 4,000 tons of bombs on Iraqi cities, leaving behind a witch’s brew of contaminants and toxic metals, including the neurotoxins lead and mercury.

France has called for an explanation for the “unacceptable” and “shocking” reports of NSA spying on French citizens. Leaked documents revealed the spy agency records millions of phone calls and monitors politicians and high-profile business people. ● The US Ambassador to France Charles Rivkin was summoned by the French Foreign Ministry to account for the espionage allegations on Monday morning. "I have immediately summoned the US ambassador and he will be received this morning at the Quai d'Orsay [the French Foreign Ministry]," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told press. He added that “we must quickly assure that these practices aren't repeated.” In addition, citing the report on French publication Le Monde, Interior Minister Manuel Valls spoke out on national television against US spy practices. “The revelations on Le Monde are shocking and demand adequate explanations from the American authorities in the coming hours,” said Valls on television channel Europe 1. He went on to say that it is totally unacceptable for an allied country to spy on France.

Le Monde: Espionnage NSA : Laurent Fabius convoque l'ambassadeur américain
Le Monde: Espionnage de la NSA : tous les documents publiés par "Le Monde"
The Guardian: Snowden leaks: France summons US envoy over NSA surveillance claims
The Local: 70 million phone calls in France recorded in one month
France24: France summons US ambassador over 'spying'

JPMorgan agrees deal to settle probes into bad loans sold before the 2007 crisis, but criminal proceedings to continue. ● JPMorgan has agreed a provisional deal with the US government to pay $13bn to settle investigations into bad mortgage loans the bank sold to investors before the financial crisis. Under the agreement, the bank will pay $9bn in fines to the US government and $4bn for relief for struggling homeowners, sources told the AP news agency on Saturday. ● The tentative deal does not release the bank from criminal liability, a factor that had been a major sticking point in the discussions, the source said. If the agreement is finalised it would be the US government's highest-profile enforcement action related to the financial meltdown that plunged the economy into the deepest recession since the 1930s. ● As part of the deal, the Justice Department expects JPMorgan to co-operate with the continuing criminal probe of the bank's issuance of mortgage-backed securities between 2005 and 2007, the person said. When the housing bubble burst in 2007, bundles of mortgages sold as securities soured and the investors who bought them lost billions.

Bob Adelmann: JP Morgan Buying Its Way Out of Legal Troubles ■ Considering JPM's total assets of $2.5 trillion, annual revenues of $100 billion, and net earnings of $21 billion a year, the fine it has agreed to pay can be put into proper perspective: It’s “chump change,” as Michael Hiltzik put it, writing in the Los Angeles Times. The bank will be getting off easy if the Justice Department goes along with the deal. JPM, aware that the day of reckoning was near, had set aside $28 billion of shareholders’ capital in reserve, just in case. Even though the bank is hoping to get off at half of those projected losses, the agreement offered comes with strings: Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan's CEO (shown), not only wants the settlement to include all the other pending lawsuits (including the interest-rate manipulations known as Libor and the trading losses incurred by Bruno Iksil, better known in the trade as the “London Whale,” who cost the bank more than $6 billion when his excessively large trades went south), he wants all criminal investigations to go away as well.

Barry Grey: Blanket settlement with JPMorgan: A $13 billion cover-up ■ The $9 billion fine, the largest penalty ever imposed on a US corporation, is less than half the $21 billion profit JPMorgan recorded in 2012. The bank is pulling in enormous profits despite having set aside $28 billion since 2010 to cover legal costs. It is necessary to place the size of the fine in the context of the economic damage resulting from the bank's practices. Reportedly, $4 billion will go to settle a suit by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) charging JPMorgan with knowingly making false statements and omitting material facts in selling $33 billion in worthless mortgage bonds to the government-sponsored mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the height of the subprime mortgage bubble (2005-2007). That is about 2 percent of the $188 billion in taxpayer money the government has spent thus far to prop up the firms.

Pressure intensified on Syrian rebels on Monday to permit access to chemical weapons sites in areas under their control, as officials said the rapidly shifting lines in the civil war made it difficult for inspectors to reach some locations and called for all parties to ease the process of dismantling Syria’s toxic arms. A Western diplomat in the Arab world said that though the Syrian government was legally responsible for dismantling its chemical weapons under an international agreement, its opponents should also cooperate in the process, because several chemical weapons sites were close to confrontation lines or within rebel-held territory. “The international community also expects full cooperation from the opposition,” the diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a delicate issue.

US News: Rep. Alan Grayson: Syria Intelligence Manipulated
PressTV: Syria rebels may face military elimination: Analyst

The first case of a child being trafficked to Britain in order to have their organs harvested has been uncovered. ● The unnamed girl was brought to the UK from Somalia with the intention of removing her organs and selling them on to those desperate for a transplant. ● Child protection charities warned that the case was unlikely to be an isolated incident as traffickers were likely to have smuggled a group of children into the country. The case emerged in a government report which showed that the number of human trafficking victims in the UK has risen by more than 50 per cent last year and reached record levels. A total of 371 children were exploited, with the majority of them being used as slaves or sexually abused. They included 95 children from Vietnam, 67 from Nigeria and 25 from China. Others hailed from Romania and Bangladesh. The figures also detail how 20 British girls have been victims of human trafficking. It comes after a series of court cases in which British girls were raped and exploited by gangs of Asian men.

The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals, has published a report supporting the thesis that Yasser Arafat was poisoned with polonium-210. ● The president of the Palestinian Authority died in a French military hospital in November 2004 after falling ill at his headquarters in Ramallah. The study did not address the question of whether Arafat had been assassinated or how he had come into contact with polonium, but the presence of the radioactive isotope points irrefutably to Arafat’s murder. Given the difficulty of obtaining the isotope by anyone other than the nuclear powers and asking cui bono (who benefits?), the murder could only have been planned—if not carried out—by Israel or the United States.

Stanley Kurtz: Why should the privileged wish to become victims? ■ In his important new book, The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse: Save the Earth, Punish Human Beings, French intellectual gadfly Pascal Bruckner does the most thorough job yet of explaining the climate movement as a secular religion, an odd combination of deformed Christianity and reconstructed Marxism. ● Not only have the ideologically driven “studies” programs taken over a large share of the college curriculum, but many courses in conventional departments reflect the underlying assumptions of the various minority-studies concentrations. Today, classic liberal-arts courses have themselves been turned into tiny besieged islands, while the study of alleged oppression represents the leading approach at America’s colleges and universities. In this atmosphere, students cannot help wishing to see themselves as members of a persecuted group. Climate activism answers their existential challenges and gives them a sense of crusading purpose in a lonely secular world. The planet, as Bruckner would have it, is the new proletariat. Yet substitute “upper-middle-class” for “planet,” and the progression of victimhood is explained. Global warming allows the upper-middle-class to join the proletariat, cloaking erstwhile oppressors in the mantle of righteous victimhood.

Pascal Bruckner: Apocalyptic Daze ■ As an asteroid hurtles toward Earth, terrified citizens pour into the streets of Brussels to stare at the mammoth object growing before their eyes. Soon, it will pass harmlessly by—but first, a strange old man, Professor Philippulus, dressed in a white sheet and wearing a long beard, appears, beating a gong and crying: “This is a punishment; repent, for the world is ending!” We smile at the silliness of this scene from the Tintin comic strip L’Étoile Mystérieuse, published in Belgium in 1941. Yet it is also familiar, since so many people in both Europe and the United States have recently convinced themselves that the End is nigh. This depressing conviction may seem surprising, given that the West continues to enjoy an unparalleled standard of living. But Professor Philippulus has nevertheless managed to achieve power in governments, the media, and high places generally. Constantly, he spreads fear: of progress, of science, of demographics, of global warming, of technology, of food. In five years or in ten years, temperatures will rise, Earth will be uninhabitable, natural disasters will multiply, the climate will bring us to war, and nuclear plants will explode. Man has committed the sin of pride; he has destroyed his habitat and ravaged the planet; he must atone.

Marlo Lewis: Balance is not bias ■ The Cook study does not really prove what it claims to prove. The authors examined 11,944 abstracts of climate papers published between 1991-2011. They found that nearly two-thirds of the abstracts expressed no opinion on the supposed “consensus” position. So their headline – 97% of scientists agree – is inaccurate and misleading. IN 1984-speak, they are claiming Silence is Affirmation. Is the 97% figure made up out of whole cloth? Not quite. It turns out that 97% of about one-third of the abstracts affirms or implies that humans are responsible for some portion of global warming since 1951. And guess what? Just about every prominent skeptic agrees with that as well. As an attempt to discredit contrarians, the Cook study is a bust. The key science question for climate researchers today is not whether greenhouse gas emissions warm the planet but whether state-of-the-art computer models are accurate enough to forecast climate change and inform policy decisions.

Just one day after President Barack Obama signed into law a bipartisan deal to end the government shutdown and avoid default, the US debt surged a record $328 billion, the first day the government was able to borrow money. ● Fasten your seatbelt, because the US debt rate is racing out of control and nobody seems to know where or when the spending will end: The US debt now equals $17.075 trillion, according to figures the Treasury Department posted online on Friday. The one-day increase of $328 billion to the US debt load smashed the previous record of $238 billion set two years ago. The huge leap toward what some economists fear will be eventual insolvency was blamed on the government replenishing its supply of "extraordinary measures," that is, the federal funds it borrowed from over the last five months in a desperate effort to avoid hitting the debt ceiling.

The budget brinkmanship has cost the world's largest economy billions of dollars - as well as the trust of investors around the globe. And it also sparked calls to de-americanize the world economy. For more, RT talks to Pepe Escobar, Asia Times Online roving correspondent.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hinted that the Tel Aviv regime has clandestine relations with Saudi Arabia and Persian Gulf littoral states. ● Netanyahu’s remarks in Knesset this week that Arab states have begun to realize that Israel is not their enemy reveal the clandestine relations, which have been recently fortified, Ynet reported. This secret network of relations includes countries which don’t have official diplomatic ties with the Israeli regime. The report added that the tension in the Middle East has brought the security and political interests of Israel and these states, which see the Tel Aviv regime as a steady and reliable ally, closer. It said that Israelis informed of these relations say that certain countries in the region, in the absence of the US, seek a reliable collaborator which they can work with even secretly."Common interests were created within regional instability," an Israeli source said.

Ynet News: Israel, Arab states work together to battle Iran's nuclear plan

● There have been several good films and videos about 9/11. But the new film by award-winning film-maker Massimo Mazzucco is in a class by itself. For those of us who have been working on 9/11 for a long time, this is the film we have been waiting for.

● Whereas there are excellent films treating the falsity of particular parts of the official account, such as the Twin Towers or WTC 7, Mazzucco has given us a comprehensive documentary treatment of 9/11, dealing with virtually all of the issues. There have, of course, been films that treated the fictional official story as true. And there are films that use fictional stories to portray people’s struggles after starting to suspect the official story to be false. But there is no fiction in Mazzucco’s film – except in the sense that it clearly and relentlessly exposes every part of the official account as fictional.

● Because of his intent at completeness, Mazzucco has given us a 5-hour film. It is so fascinating and fast-paced that many will want to watch it in one sitting. But this is not necessary, as the film, which fills 3 DVDs, consists of 7 parts, each of which is divided into many short chapters. These 7 parts treat Air Defence, The Hijackers, The Airplanes, The Pentagon, Flight 93, The Twin Towers, and Building 7. In each part, after presenting facts that contradict the official story, Mazzucco deals with the claims of the debunkers (meaning those who try to debunk the evidence provided by the 9/11 research community).

● The Introduction, reflecting the film’s title, deals with 12 uncanny parallels between Pearl Harbor and September 11.

● The film can educate people who know nothing about 9/11 (beyond the official story), those with a moderate amount of knowledge about the various problems with the official story, and even by experts. (I myself learned many things.)

● Mazzucco points out that his film covers 12 years of public debate about 9/11. People who have been promoting 9/11 truth for many of these years will see that their labors have been well-rewarded: There is now a high-quality, carefully-documented film that dramatically shows the official story about 9/11 to be a fabrication through and through. This is truly the film we have been waiting for. The film is freely available to the world at:

The film-maker’s own website, complete with detailed index: September 11 - The New Pearl Harbor

The NSA (National Security Agency) has been extensively involved in the US government's targeted killing program, collaborating closely with the CIA in the use of drone strikes abroad, The Washington Post reports after a review of documents provided by former NSA employee Edward Snowden ● Hassan Ghul was a known al-Qaeda operative in Iraq who was captured in 2004 and turned over information regarding bin Laden’s courier network. He was transferred to a secret CIA prison before being released to Pakistan in 2006. Ghul was killed six years later in the country’s tribal belt, eliminated by a drone strike that the US has never publicly acknowledged. The NSA used signals intelligence (SIGINT) methods to catch Ghul by secretly monitoring laptops and obtaining audio files and other messages. The agency is also thought to have levied similar efforts on other drone targets. The NSA was withholding many details about the drone-strike missions at the request of US intelligence officials, and other ongoing operations, The Washington Post reports, citing the documents provided by Edward Snowden. The documents make clear that the CIA-operated drone campaign relies heavily on the NSA's ability to vacuum up enormous quantities of e-mail, phone calls and other fragments of signals intelligence, or SIGINT, according to the newspaper.

Washington Post: Documents reveal NSA’s extensive involvement in targeted killing program
Business Insider: The NSA Has A Much Bigger Role In Drone Strikes Than We've Realized
Russia Today: Latest Snowden leak details NSA’s involvement in lethal drone strikes

How Many Constitutional Freedoms Have We Lost? - This post explains the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights – the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution – and provides a scorecard on the extent of the loss of each right. (This is an updated version of an essay we wrote in February. Unfortunately, a lot of information has come out since then.)

President Barack Obama early on Thursday signed legislation that ends a US government shutdown and raises the US debt ceiling, the White House said. ● The US Congress has passed a bill to reopen the government and raise the federal debt limit, with hours to spare before the nation risked default. The Democratic-controlled Senate's bipartisan compromise won approval by 81 votes to 18. The deal was then passed by 285-144 in the House of Representatives, whose Republican leadership begrudgingly agreed to support the measure. It came hours before the deadline to raise the $16.7tn (£10.5tn) limit.

Reuters: U.S. Congress ends default threat, Obama signs debt bill
Russia Today: US avoids default as Congress passes deal to end shutdown
Raw Story: China downgrades U.S. credit rating and accuses lawmakers of holding world hostage
Zero Hedge: Complete House Debt Ceiling Vote Roll Call
CNS News: 150 Straight Days: Treasury Says Debt Stood Still at $16,699,396,000,000

Is there door-to-door spying by Israelis in Utah? ● Some very strange activities are occurring in America. Take the latest activity that came across my radar this morning. Perhaps you have heard about it, but most likely you have not. In a recent article by Brent Hunsaker for ABC4, online, we find that: “Sales people working neighborhoods in Northern Utah County have been asking some odd questions that have nothing to do with making the sale. Folks are reporting that they’re asking about the new National Security Agency’s data center that is being built at Camp Williams.”

Salon.com: The Israeli “art student” mystery
Raw Story: Utah residents fear ‘Israeli art students’ prying into NSA data center

A new report says Israeli settlement construction on the Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank has increased by about 70 percent. ● Israeli organization Peace Now said on Thursday that the Tel Aviv regime began the construction of 1,708 new settler units in the West Bank between January and June of 2013, compared with 995 units during the same period in 2012. The organization also stated that the new illegal settlement activities were “drastic,” and that some 50 percent of the new construction projects were started in “isolated settlements.” Most of the settlement projects were carried out within the 1967 borders, the organization added.