An independent federal privacy watchdog has concluded that the National Security Agency’s program to collect bulk phone call records has provided only “minimal” benefits in counterterrorism efforts, is illegal and should be shut down. The findings are laid out in a 238-page report, scheduled for release by Thursday and obtained by The New York Times, that represent the first major public statement by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which Congress made an independent agency in 2007 and only recently became fully operational.

The area around central Kiev descended into a warzone on Wednesday with protesters and police clashing against a backdrop of flames, burning tyres and snow. Heavily armoured officers met protesters throwing Molotov cocktails, and brandishing chains and guns. Three people have already died, according to emergency services, with more fatalities expected. Despite appeals for calm, police in riot gear confronted the anti-government protesters with force after Prime Minister Mykola Azarov continued to take a tough line, branding the protesters “terrorists”. Although President Viktor Yanukovich has held talks with opposition leaders, the violence, sparked when Ukraine ditched a trade deal with the European Union and turn to Russia for financial aid late last year, looks set to continue. ● SEE ALSO: Protest Video Shows Demonstrators Throwing Molotov Cocktails At Armoured Police | As violent clashes continue to scar downtown Kiev, videos have started to emerge on YouTube showing the full horror of the exchanges between police and protesters. The protests, which began two months ago after a planned trade deal between Ukraine and European Union was abandoned in favour of a pivot back towards Russia, have gained in intensity, with this latest (unverified) clip showing demonstrators attacking police with Molotov cocktails before the armoured agents of the state retaliate.

Wayne Madsen: USAID support for instability in Russia
Internet, T.V, and international T.V. have been shut off in Ukraine. Livestream is offline. Direct livestream link

Brandon Turbeville ■ In a recently released and conveniently timed report, complete with references to Nazi Germany and concentration camps, efforts to ramp up support for a “tough line” against Syria at the upcoming Geneva II conference and even possible military intervention, are once again moving into high gear. The report, compiled by three British war crime prosecutors and three “forensic experts” claims that it has demonstrable proof that the Assad government is guilty of torturing and killing over ten thousand people. The report (accessed here) claims to show evidence of physical torture, murder, and starvation. Of course, the Syrian government denies the veracity of the claims of the report and Western media outlets repeat the claims as incontrovertible proof.

Seymour M. Hersh: Whose sarin?
Stephen Lendman: Syria Peace Talks: DOA
Stephen Lendman: Malicious Syria Bashing: Part I, Part II
Alex Lantier: US advances trumped-up torture charges against Syria
Christof Lehmann: Top US and Saudi Officials Directly Responsible for Chemical Weapons Attack
Tony Cartalucci: US Feigns "Horror" Over Cooked-Up Report on Syrian War They Engineered

Craig Murray: Israel Grants Oil Rights in Syria to Murdoch and Rothschild
OilPrice.com: Cheney-Linked Company to Drill in Occupied Golan Heights

Gilad Atzmon: This morning I came across this short video (37sec)...the message is getting shorter and shorter, and this is probably the true meaning of the Quenelle...

Gilad Atzmon: Quenelle News ■ Earlier today, Roger Cukierman , the head of CRIF, an umbrella group for Jewish institutions in France, admitted that Anelka’s gesture “was not anti-Semitic” and that he should not be heavily punished. In a video interview, Cukierman said “it seems to me that this gesture (the quenelle) only has an anti-Semitic connotation once performed in front of a synagogue or a memorial to the Holocaust.” I guess that even the Board of Deputies of British Jews would agree that the football pitch is neither a synagogue nor is it a holocaust museum. Cukierman added that “when the quenelle is performed in a place which is not specifically Jewish it…doesn’t deserve sanctions.” Nicolas Anelka has called today on the Football Association to drop a charge against him over his ‘quenelle’ goal celebration and insists he is neither anti-Semitic or racist. Anelka questioned “what better expert” there could be than Roger Cukierman, the president of CRIF. Other Jewish pressure groups, however, have called for Anelka to be handed more than a five-game suspension due to his lack of an apology. Ultra Zionist Jonathan Arkush, vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: “What he did was sufficiently serious to justify a longer suspension than five matches. He has not indicated one bit of remorse or regret or apologised for his actions.” It seems as if we are left with no other option but to leave this dispute to the Jewish Lobby. We better let the CRIF, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and David Baddiel decide who is Kosher qualified to score a goal in the English league.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Iran's atomic drive "will be stopped", a day after an interim agreement bringing sanctions relief for Tehran took effect. ● "Iran's military nuclear programme must be stopped, and Iran's military nuclear programme will be stopped," Netanyahu said at a joint news conference with his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper, without saying how. Israel has long warned that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to the Jewish state, and has refused to rule out a military strike to prevent that from happening. Netanyahu fought a major diplomatic campaign against the so-called Geneva Agreement which was hammered out in November between world powers and Iran, and on Monday he said the agreement would not succeed in stopping Tehran.

Edgar Tamayo Arias, 46, an undocumented immigrant worker from Morelos, Mexico, imprisoned on death row for the last two decades, was killed late Wednesday night with a lethal injection in the death chamber of the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas, 70 miles north of Houston. ● The act of state murder was carried out with flagrant contempt for international law and basic rights after the US Supreme Court rejected Tamayo’s appeal. “The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Scalia and by him referred to the Court is denied,” the court said in a terse statement Wednesday night. Scheduled to take place at 6 p.m. Central Time, the high court’s cursory consideration of Tamayo’s fate delayed the killing for just three and a half hours.

France's controversial expulsions of Roma, which has drawn condemnation from the European Commission, hit a record high in 2013. A new report says nearly 20,000 were deported - double the number that were expelled in 2012. ● France expelled nearly 20,000 Roma people in 2013, which is not only a record, but more than double the number kicked out of the country the previous year. Despite President François Hollande’s criticisms of his predecessor’s policy towards the Roma, the number of expulsions has been climbing since he took office in 2012, French newspaper L’Express reported. About 9,400 were expelled in 2012 and 8,400 were forced out in 2011. “The expulsions are part of a policy of refusal,” of the Roma, “that has got worse since the left-leaning government took power,” the report says. “The authorities want only one thing: send the Roma back to their country of origin.” France has been repeatedly criticized by the European Commission for its aggressive removals of Roma people. That inlcuded a warning in September when the commission noted the Roma, like all European Union citizens, are free to go where they wish. Three years ago the Commission's Vice President Viviane Reding sent a similar threat to former president Nicolas Sarkozy insisting that Roma expulsions had to stop. Of a total of 400 Roma camps in France last year, authorities demolished 165 of them, pushing 19,380 people out in the process, according to figures collected by France's League of Human Rights and the European Roma Rights Centre.

AWIP: The Plight of the Roma: Europe's Unwanted People