Just hours after a promise not to launch any more drone strikes against Pakistan for the duration of their peace talks with the Taliban, a US drone pounded a religious school in Hangu.

The attack killed eight people, including three teachers and five students. A number of others were wounded in the attack, and drones continued to loom overhead after the attack.

It’s noteworthy for a lot of reasons, and not just that it broke yet another promise. Hangu is not in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where US drone strikes have almost exclusively hit, but is in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwah (KP) Province. Hitting a proper province is much more controversial within Pakistan, and a major backlash is expected on a national level. But that may pale in comparison to the backlash on a provincial level, as the KP Province is ruled by Pakistani Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI), an anti-drone party ruled by Imran Khan which had threatened to blockade the NATO supply route through its province into occupied Afghanistan if the drone strikes didn’t end. They gave an initial deadline of November 20… the day of the latest attack, so it will likely be interpreted locally as timed explicitly to spite them.

The deadline had been moved back to November 23 but the attack is almost certain to spark an enormous response, and will oblige the PTI to at least attempt such a blockade to retain its credibility. It will also add to pressure on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has been facing growing criticism for his inability to stop the strikes, a key promise of his campaign.

France demanded Thursday that the United States and its allies show “firmness” in negotiating with Iran, injecting new uncertainty into the high-stakes talks to curb Iran’s nuclear program, which earlier had appeared to be on the verge of agreement. | Echoing his statement of two weeks ago, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a television interview that agreement with Iran “can only be possible based on firmness.” He said Iran had failed to accept an offer drafted by the United States, France and four other countries after France’s last intervention and added: “I hope they will accept it.” Two weeks ago, Fabius said in a radio interview that the agreement must be “serious and credible” and France would not play a “fool’s game.” His statement appeared to take a slice at the Obama administration, which had a key role in drafting the accord.

Kumaran Ira: In Israel, French President Hollande takes bellicose stance against Iran ■ Last week, Fabius called for aggressive US intervention in the Middle East, criticizing Washington’s foreign policy after it retreated from launching war against Syria and decided to negotiate with Iran. In a speech to mark the 40th anniversary of the formation of the French Policy Planning Staff, Fabius said: “The United States seems no longer to wish to become absorbed by crises that do not align with its new vision of its national interest.” He criticized Washington’s “non-response” in Syria—that is, the Obama administration’s decision to postpone war with Syria. Fabius said, “An American disengagement [from the Middle East], given the role of the United States, is a disengagement, period. This can leave major crises ‘up to themselves.’”

Xymphora: Étrange, indeed ■ It appears that the authorities picked a guy who complained about French Zionist neocolonialism, obtained his DNA from where his ratting 'friend', who had been watching him for 13 years, sheltered him, drugged him, and scattered his anarchist writings around (note the change in the story to back off the claim that the writings attempted to explain the attacks, and to remove the specific claim that the alleged shooter had spoken to the informant about the shootings - it is a common technique in conspiracies to release the original story with very specific claims of guilt, thus imprinting the idea in the minds of the public, and then quietly back off the specific claims so that nobody can challenge them later). I suspect that three separate French government agents were involved in the three separate attacks, none of them Abdelhakim Dekhar. Commentators have noticed that Abdelhakim Dekhar does not resemble the shooter in the slightest. And what is a leftie doing shooting up the offices of Libération? But he does have an evocative name. This essentially homeless and probably crazy patsy - but with a useful history and evocative name - managed to ditch all the clothing evidence which connected him to the various crimes for which he will be punished so that French Zio-colonialism may continue.

Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Wednesday that the United States and Afghanistan had finalized the wording of a bilateral security agreement that would allow for a lasting American troop presence through 2024 and set the stage for billions of dollars of international assistance to keep flowing to the government in Kabul. The deal, which will now be presented for approval by an Afghan grand council of elders starting on Thursday, came after days of brinkmanship by Afghan officials and two direct calls from Mr. Kerry to President Hamid Karzai, including one on Wednesday before the announcement. Just the day before, a senior aide to Mr. Karzai had said the Afghan leader would not approve an agreement unless President Obama sent a letter acknowledging American military mistakes during the 12-year war. But on Wednesday, Mr. Kerry emphatically insisted that a deal was reached with no American apology forthcoming. “President Karzai didn’t ask for an apology. There was no discussion of an apology,” Mr. Kerry said. “I mean, it’s just not even on the table.”

AllGov: Troops Stay 10 More Years and Allowed to Raid Afghan Homes if Obama Apologizes

After watching this video, you'll never buy angora again. ● The undercover footage, shot by PETA Asia, found horrific routine cruelty to angora rabbits, whose long, soft fur is often used in sweaters and accessories. The investigator filmed workers who were violently ripping the fur from the animals' sensitive skin as they screamed at the top of their lungs in pain. After this terrifying and barbaric ordeal, which the rabbits endure every three months, many of them appeared to go into shock, lying motionless inside their tiny, filthy cages, with no solid flooring or bedding, and without the vital companionship of other rabbits. After two to five years, those who have survived are hung upside down, their throats are slit, and their bodies are sold. Rabbits who have their fur cut or sheared also suffer: During the cutting process, their front and back legs are tightly tethered—a terrifying experience for any prey animal—and the sharp cutting tools inevitably wound them as they struggle desperately to escape. Ninety percent of angora fur comes from China, where there are no penalties for abuse of animals on farms and no standards to regulate the treatment of the animals. When you buy a sweater, hat, or other product that contains angora, the angora fur most likely originated in China, even if the finished product was assembled elsewhere.

China’s central bank has said it no longer sees any benefit in increasing its $3.66 trillion foreign currency reserves – already the world’s largest. China will cap its purchases of US dollars in an effort to limit the depreciation of the yuan. ● “It’s no longer in China’s favor to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves,” Bloomberg quoted Yi Gang, a deputy governor at the central bank as saying Tuesday. Decreasing the influence of the dollar and other currencies is a step closer to reaching China’s 2015 goal to “float” its currency and according to the People’s Bank of China will help the everyday Chinese citizen. Between July and September 2013 China’s increased its foreign – currency holdings by $166 billion, boosting it to the world’s highest of $3.66 trillion. This is also more that the Gross domestic product of Germany – the Europe’s biggest economy, Bloomberg reports. This will “basically” end the interference of foreign currency in the Chinese market, and widen the yuan’s daily trading range.

The US Dollar Is Now Collapsing And It Will Eventually Lose The Reserve Status Of The World

Michael Krieger: Blogger “Mish” is Fined 8,000 Euros by France for Freedom of Speech ■ Well if this isn’t one of the more ridiculous things I have read in a while, I don’t know what is. Many of my readers are probably familiar with Mike “Mish” Shedlock, who writes a very popular economics/finance blog. He has a habit of doing what I like best, challenging propaganda, engaging in critical thought and a fearlessness when it comes to saying what he believes. It appears that such behavior is frowned upon by French banksters and their minions in government. Incredibly, Mish was fined 8,000 euros for quoting a French blogger’s analysis of Societe Generale’s leverage ratio. He was also summoned to appear in front of a tribunal in France. Expect more of this sort of thing as the status quo loses more and more credibility and struggles to censor alternative narratives of what is actually happening.

It was a packed courtroom on Tuesday for the hearing of Ernie Tertelgte, a Manhattan man who says he's being wrongly prosecuted for trying to feed himself. Tertelgte, 52 years old, was arrested on Monday and is accused of fishing without a license and then resisting arrest. He appeared before the judge via video from the Gallatin County Detention Center, and it was standing room only more than a dozen friends and family members filled the small courtroom.

Terteltge argued that the court did not have the authority to charge him, citing "natural law." He told the judge, "You are trying to create a fictitious, fraudulent action." He continued, "I am the living man, protected by natural law." He then yelled, "Do not tell me to shut up! I am the living, natural man, and my voice will be heard!" Terteltge then pointed at the flag and said, "That is the Jolly Roger, that thing you call the American flag with the golf fringe around it is the Jolly Roger, and you are acting as one of its privateers!"

When the judge noted that he had pleaded not guilty, Terteltge countered, "I never plead, animals plead, sounds like baaaa, oink oink." The back and forth exchange continued for a few more moments, and the hearing ended after both the judge and the defendant walked out.

A friend of Tertelgte's told us that he and the others came to court to enforce the Constitution. William Wolf said, "It's we the people that run this and rule this country, not we the courts, not we the government, and if the people don't start standing up for themselves and for each other, we are going to continue being subjects of this government." Justice Adams set Tertelgte's bond at $500 and his next court hearing is scheduled for January.

Cassius Methyl | In Tennessee, a Department of Enviorment and Conservation deputy director told some Maury County residents that unfounded complaints about thier water quality, may be considered an “act of terrorism,” sparking righteous outrage among citizens, who say the water is cloudy and odd tasting. ■ In Tennessee, a Department of Environment and Conservation deputy director told some Maury County residents that unfounded complaints about their water quality, may be considered an “act of terrorism.” One might ask, is concern with fluoride in the water supply, an ‘Unfounded Complaint’? Or how about being concerned with toxic substances such as PCB’s ending up in water, is that ‘Unfounded’? I would think not, considering that toxic PCB’s were found in nearby Alabama city, Anniston’s water supply. Either way, the right to free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution, and anyone who wishes to prosecute someone over that, even with a slick fear based disguise of a ‘terrorist attack’, should legally be removed from their office.

Six people have been killed in a US assassination drone attack that targeted Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region. ● The attack was carried out during the early hours of Thursday, when the unmanned aerial vehicle struck a seminary in Hangu District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. The United States carries out drone strikes in several countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Washington says it is targeting militants through its drone attacks. However, many of the victims turn out to be civilians. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, between 308 and 789 civilians have died in US killer drone attacks in Pakistan since 2008.

The CIA and FBI Hid Information from the Warren Commission - Preface: Some “conspiracy theories” are true, and some are false. Each must be judged on its own merits.

● A solid majority of Americans have always believed that John F. Kennedy’s assassination involved a conspiracy. But now that view is starting to be discussed by mainstream power players. Current Secretary of State John Kerry said recently: "To this day, I have serious doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I certainly have doubts that he was motivated by himself."
● Watergate reporter Bob Woodward long ago became a mainstream, establishment journalist. But Woodward – and long-time CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer – agree that the CIA and FBI refused to give information to the Warren Commission, and so that Commission was in the dark as to what might actually have happened.
● And CBS News reports: It has long been known that the Warren Commission, the blue ribbon panel of public officials appointed by former President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, was flawed in ways that led to generations of conspiracy theories about what happened on Nov. 22, 1963. A forthcoming book from former New York Times reporter Philip Shenon digs into exactly what the commission got wrong, both by intentional concealment, or, in Shenon’s view, extensive attempts by both the CIA and FBI to withhold just how much they knew about Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in the weeks and months before he killed the president.
● “In many ways, this book is an account of my discovery of how much of the truth about the Kennedy assassination has still not been told, and how much of the evidence about the president’s murder was covered up or destroyed – shredded, incinerated, or erased – before it could reach the commission,” Shenon writes in the prologue to A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination, which draws its title from the first sentence of the commission’s report. “Senior officials at both the CIA and the FBI hid information from the panel, apparently in hopes of concealing just how much they had known about Lee Harvey Oswald and the threat that he posed.” In fact – as the Washington Post reports – official investigators have long said there was a conspiracy and a cover up.

Academi (ex-Blackwater), the world’s most powerful private army, reveals having been signed over, without indicating the name of the buyer, nor the amount for which it was bought. ■ According to SouthWeb.org, it’s the biotechnology multinational Monsanto who would be the happy acquirer. Created in 1901, Monsanto debuted as a saccharine producer, used by Coca-Cola. During World War II, it supplied uranium for the Manhattan project, then while the Vietnam war, a potent herbicide to defoliate the jungle. For now over thirty years, Monsanto has become the global leader for genetically modified organisms. With a revenue of over 13,5 billion dollars, it is the 206st US multinational. Academi was created by Erik Prince in 1997, under the name Blackwater Worldwide. The company, of which some managers are linked to Evangelic churches financed by the Pentagon, played a role, in Afghanistan in Iraq, comparable to that which played the Order of Malta, during the Nicaragua War. It is presided by Billy Joe (Red), McCombs (347th US fortune), John Aschcroft (former US Attorney general) and the admiral Bobby R. Inman (former NSA director and deputy director of the CIA). Academi, which works mainly pour the US government, participated in the Tripoli battle (Libya) and is currently recruiting combatants to do the Jihad in Syria.

VoltaireNet.org: Academi (ex-Blackwater) racheté par Monsanto
SouthWeb.org: Monsanto buys Blackwater the largest Mercenary Army in the World? - UPDATE

The phone, internet and email records of UK citizens not suspected of any wrongdoing have been analysed and stored by America's National Security Agency under a secret deal that was approved by British intelligence officials, according to documents from the whistleblower Edward Snowden. In the first explicit confirmation that UK citizens have been caught up in US mass surveillance programs, an NSA memo describes how in 2007 an agreement was reached that allowed the agency to "unmask" and hold on to personal data about Britons that had previously been off limits. The memo, published in a joint investigation by the Guardian and Britain's Channel 4 News, says the material is being put in databases where it can be made available to other members of the US intelligence and military community.

PressTV: US spying on Britons under secret deal with UK - Video
Russia Today: Transatlantic extradition: Dark underbelly of the ‘special relationship’ - Video

Teen's mom shares graphic images of alleged police brutality.
A Pennsylvania mother is planning to sue the Tullytown Police Department for allegedly torturing her 14-year-old son with a Taser while he was handcuffed, Raw Story reported. Marissa Sargeant revealed graphic images of her son bruised, cut and swollen after he was arrested by police for shoplifting at Walmart, along with another relative. While she acknowledges that what her son did was wrong, she does not think he should have been brutalized by police. "The picture speaks a thousand words," Sargeant told NBC10, after sharing several graphic photos that shows the extent of the attack on her son. Yet, the police give a different account of how events transpired. According to Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler, the Tullytown officers fired a Taser and hit the boy in the face after he escaped from their police car following his arrest. Heckler said that police yelled warnings at the teen and fired a stun gun to subdue him because they were “fearing for his safety,” NBC10 reported. Still, Sargeant isn’t buying it. She speculates that officers beat her son and then bullied him into slience: “That doesn’t sound right. There’s no way, if he was running from behind, that he would get hit with a taser in the front of his face,” she observed. The boy was taken directly to hospital for treatment. The boy’s family has hired an attorney who will file a complaint against the police department.

While many Americans have been led to believe the war in Afghanistan will soon be over, a draft of a key U.S.-Afghan security deal obtained by NBC News shows the United States is prepared to maintain military outposts in Afghanistan for many years to come, and pay to support hundreds of thousands of Afghan security forces. The wide-ranging document, still unsigned by the United States and Afghanistan, has the potential to commit thousands of American troops to Afghanistan and spend billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. The document outlines what appears to be the start of a new, open-ended military commitment in Afghanistan in the name of training and continuing to fight al-Qaeda. The war in Afghanistan doesn’t seem to be ending, but renewed under new, scaled-down U.S.-Afghan terms.

A secret U.S. intelligence court let the National Security Agency collect an expanded amount of data about Americans' email even after finding that the agency systematically exceeded the limits of a smaller program, newly released documents show. ● The judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court recounted a litany of problems with the first, smaller program, including the NSA collecting more categories of information than had been approved by the court and sharing data more widely within the electronic eavesdropping agency than had been authorized. At issue are emails among U.S. citizens that the NSA scooped up in its pursuit of foreign intelligence. Though historically focused overseas, the agency intensified its domestic operations after the September 11, 2001, attacks in hopes of finding people in the country working with terrorists or spies. The programs let the NSA search for Americans who had electronic contact with people who were in turn linked to people hostile to the United States. At times, however, analysts queried the database with names that had not been found to be terrorists or foreign agents, the judge found. The NSA was allowed to share criminal evidence with law enforcement agencies, but in other cases it was supposed to obscure email addresses to protect the identities of U.S. citizens because of the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches. Instead, Judge John Bates wrote about the first bulk collection program, "NSA analysts made it a general practice to disseminate to other agencies intelligence reports containing U.S. person information," such as their email addresses. Bates' 117-page opinion was among nearly three dozen documents declassified and released on Monday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the wake of suits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Naftali Bennett: the face of an oppressed Jew?
Or the new face of ZioNazism?

● Robert Lenzner, the writer of the following really gives credence to accusations that most corporate media journalists are little better than intellectual whores. Not once in his article on Israel’s Economy and Commerce Minister, Naftali Bennett, does he seriously question his claim that Iran is only “6 weeks” away from producing a nuclear bomb.
● What’s more, Lenzner fails to mention that this “new rock star politician” is riding the crest of a wave of popularity in the Zionist state. Making him earlier this year “the second most powerful man” in Israel.
● Worse still, Lenzner fails to put his claim into perspective. For allegations that Iran is close to producing a nuclear bomb have been a stock in trade among Israeli politicians for decades now. As far back as 1992 Netanyahu was saying as much. While in 1995 the New York Times reported that “senior American and Israeli officials” claimed that Iran would be able to build a nuclear bomb in “five years“.
● The following year Shimon Peres was saying much the same thing with a similar timeline. Yet as we know now Iran still hasn’t developed a nuclear weapon.

● In the Kremlin today Russian President Vladimir Putin will receive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is to come to Moscow on a short working visit, the Russian president’s press-service reports. The meeting will take place according to an agreement reached earlier and the sides are expected to discuss topical issues of international politics and bilateral relations.
● Talks between the Russian president and the Israeli leader take place on a regular basis. At the beginning of November at Israel’s initiative there was a telephone conversation between Putin and Netanyahu during which they also discussed current international problems. Before that the sides talked on the phone in June this year paying special attention to the situation in Syria and around it.
● The previous meeting of the Russian president and Israeli prime minister took place in Sochi in May this year. When it was over Putin reported that the sides had come to an agreement to continue contacts with the aim of a peaceful settlement of the Syrian crisis. Putin stressed that he and Netanyahu shared the opinion that the continuation of an armed conflict in Syria is fraught with disastrous consequences both for Syria and the entire region.

VoR: Will Putin manage to persuade Netanyahu?
Russia Today: Netanyahu to Putin: Resolve Iran like you did Syria

Iran's foreign minister has censured Israel for its strenuous efforts to block a nuclear deal between Iran and the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany. "We have seen that statements coming out of Israel indicate that they are not interested in finding solutions [to the nuclear issue], they have been trying to push for problems,” Mohammad Javad Zarif said after meeting his Italian counterpart Emma Bonino in Rome on Tuesday. Zarif accused Israel of trying to sabotage the nuclear talks and of stoking tensions in the Middle East. “So we have reason to be suspicious of every move they make, because every move they make is about building tension and spreading mistrust,” he added.

PressTV: Obama asks senators to ignore Israel lobby against Iran - Video

The Israeli regime has carried out several airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip, but there have been no immediate reports of casualties. ● According to Palestinian sources, Israeli warplanes launched at least seven airstrikes in the north and south of the coastal enclave on Tuesday. They were the second such attacks in recent weeks. A spokesman for the Israeli army [falsely] claimed that the airstrikes were conducted in retaliation for one rocket that had been fired from Gaza into the occupied Palestinian territories earlier in the day. Last week, the Tel Aviv regime carried out two airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military frequently bombs the besieged Gaza Strip, claiming the attacks are being conducted for defensive purposes. However, disproportionate force is always used, in violation of international law, and civilians are often killed or injured. The 1.7 million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip are living in what is called the world's largest open-air prison as Israel retains full control of the airspace, territorial waters, and border crossings of the territory. Gaza has been blockaded by the Israeli regime since June 2007, a situation which has caused a decline in the standard of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.

Morris Smith: Our First Jewish President Lyndon Johnson? ■ A few months ago, the Associated Press reported that newly released tapes from US president Lyndon Johnson’s White House office showed LBJ’s “personal and often emotional connection to Israel.” The news agency pointed out that during the Johnson presidency (1963-1969), “the United States became Israel’s chief diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier.” But the news report does little to reveal the full historical extent of Johnson’s actions on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Most students of the Arab-Israeli conflict can identify Johnson as the president during the 1967 war. But few know about LBJ’s actions to rescue hundreds of endangered Jews during the Holocaust – actions that could have thrown him out of Congress and into jail. Indeed, the title of “Righteous Gentile” is certainly appropriate in the case of the Texan, whose centennial year is being commemorated this year. Appropriately enough, the annual Jerusalem Conference announced this week that it will honor Johnson.

Andre Damon & Barry Grey: US government lets JPMorgan off the hook for mortgage fraud: There has as yet been no criminal indictment of Dimon or any other leading JPMorgan official. ■ This is in keeping with the administration’s policy of shielding the Wall Street elite from prosecution for its criminal actions both before, during and after the financial crash of September 2008. Not a single top banker has been criminally charged, let alone convicted and jailed, despite detailed exposures of illegal actions made public two years ago by a special investigatory commission into the financial crisis and, in a separate report, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The settlement, hailed by the Obama administration and the media as a “breakthrough” in government policing of the banks, is nothing of the kind. The headline figure of $13 billion is deliberately deceptive. Only $9 billion of the total is in cash, the rest taking the form of relief to troubled homeowners, partly through reductions in mortgage principals and partly through the lowering of interest payments. It is likely that JPMorgan was already planning to offer much of this $4 billion in relief for business reasons.

BBC: JP Morgan in record $13bn settlement with US authorities

At least 23 people were killed and over 140 injured Tuesday in a suicide bomb attack targeting Iran’s embassy compound in Lebanon. Most of the dead were passersby in the predominantly Shiite southern Beirut neighborhood of Janah, where the embassy is situated. Iran confirmed the death of its embassy’s cultural attaché. An al-Qaeda affiliated group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigade, claimed responsibility for the attack in a tweet by its “spiritual mentor,” Sheikh Sirajeddine Zuraiqat. The Brigade has reportedly vowed to continue such attacks until Iran and Hezbollah, an Iranian-allied Lebanese Shiite militia, cease militarily supporting Syria’s government.

This video is about the Military Cancer attacking our country

Simon Jenkins: The bloody disaster of Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan is laid bare: Bombs and militia violence make clear the folly of Britain's wars – the removal of law and order from a nation is devastating ■ In each case – Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan – it was easy to see evil in the prevailing regime. These are bad guys that we need to go after, said the Americans. Yet the removal of law and order from a nation is devastating, however cruel that order may have been. Iraqis today repeat that, whatever the ills of Saddam Hussein, under his rule most ordinary citizens and their families could walk the streets at night without fear of murder or kidnap. Religious differences were tolerated. Iraq should have been an oil-rich modern state. Even the Kurds, scourged by Saddam in the past, enjoyed autonomy and relative peace. In each of these cases Britain and its allies, chiefly America, intervened to overthrow the army, disband government, dismantle the judiciary and leave militias to run riot. Little or no attempt was made to replace anarchy with a new order. "Nation building" was a fiasco. The British bombs that flattened government buildings in Kabul, Baghdad and Tripoli did not replace them, or those who worked in them. Those who dropped them congratulated themselves on their work and went home.