Senate staffers say the agency tortured prisoners in ways that went beyond what the Bush-era DOJ approved, according to an Al-Jazeera America report. ● The Senate report on CIA torture is still being suppressed. But details are leaking out, according to a report by Jason Leopold. Citing Intelligence Committee staffers, he writes that "at least one high-value detainee was subjected to torture techniques that went beyond those authorized by George W. Bush's Justice Department." In addition, "harsh measures authorized by the Department of Justice had been applied to at least one detainee before such legal authorization was received." The notion that Bush-era interrogations were lawful has always been highly dubious. This latest news plucks away even the fig leaf afforded by Bush Administration attorneys. Some say it would be unfair to prosecute anyone told that a tactic was permitted. Will they call for a criminal investigation of these incidents?

Russian Prime Minister Medvedev said in a meeting with President Vladimir Putin on Friday that in total Ukraine owes Russia $16 billion, local news agencies reported. ● Medvedev said that Ukraine owes Russia $11 billion because the treaty under which Russia provides Ukraine with cheap gas in return for the Sevastopol naval base was "subject to denunciation". In addition, he said that Ukraine owes Russia $3 billion for a recent loan in the form of Russian purchase of Eurobonds, and that around $2 billion is owed to Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled gas concern.

The West has so far refused to legitimize Crimea’s decision to secede from Ukraine. Yet Kosovo, which was a part of Serbia, also broke away from its parent country, but has been recognized by the US and most of the EU. But what makes one breakaway more justifiable than another, in the eyes of the world community?

PressTV: Russia slams new EU sanctions as ‘divorced from reality’

Heart-breaking pictures have emerged of the moment a giraffe said goodbye to a terminally ill zoo worker, who had spent most of his adult life cleaning the animal's enclosures. Maintenance worker Mario has terminal cancer and had asked to be taken into the giraffe enclosure at Rotterdam’s Diergaarde Blijdorp zoo. ● The 54-year-old was wheeled into the enclosure on his hospital bed. Within minutes, the giraffes approached him and began to nuzzle and kiss him. The Ambulance Wish Foundation, which transported Mario to the zoo, said Mario has little mobility and finds speaking very difficult. "However, his face spoke volumes", they said. "These animals recognised him, and felt that (things aren’t) going well with him,’ Kees Veldboer, the founder of the AWF told Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad. "(It was) a very special moment. You saw him beaming." Mario, who has a mental disability, was also given the chance to say goodbye to his colleagues at the zoo, where he has worked for almost 25 years.

"Pater Tenebrarum" ■ Valiant Knight of Government-Approved Information Rides to the Rescue. || Look who is warning us again about the great harm conspiracy theories are doing to the minds of impressionable citizens everywhere: Cass Sunstein has emerged at Bloomberg, to once again plead for 'correction' of the many conspiracy theories that are disseminated on that pesky new medium, the intertubes, seemingly without inhibition. Contrary to the infamous paper in which he described how to precisely combat the spreading of false information that lacks the government's seal of approval, he doesn't list his favored censorship and disinformation techniques outright this time, but it is certainly implied that 'something must be done'.

Kenny's Sideshow: Dangerous Ideas

Russian troops have surrounded a Ukrainian airbase in Crimea and issued an ultimatum to forces inside to surrender, the deputy commander of the base in Belbek, near Sevastopol, said on Saturday. ● The base, above which the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag was flying, is one of the few military facilities on Crimea still controlled by Ukraine after the annexation of the peninsula by Russian forces. "The Russian troops at our aerodrome gave us an hour to surrender or they will start storming. We are going nowhere, let's see what this storming is," Oleg Podovalov told Reuters. The ultimatum was due to expire at 0730 am ET, but there was no sign of the Russians moving in on the base. The Russian takeover of the Black Sea peninsula has been largely bloodless, though one Ukrainian serviceman was killed and two others wounded in a shooting in Simferopol earlier this week.

RIA Novosti: 2,000 out of 18,000 Ukrainian Troops to Leave Crimea

Report says Israel made systematic effort to ‘change the ethnic composition’ of East Jerusalem. ● A UN human rights investigator today accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” in pushing Palestinians out of East Jerusalem and cast doubt that the Israeli government could accept a Palestinian state in the current climate. He spoke against a backdrop of deadlocked peace talks and accelerating Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem which Palestinians say is dimming their hope of establishing a viable state on contiguous territory. Richard Falk, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, told a news conference that Israeli policies bore “unacceptable characteristics of colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing”. “Every increment of enlarging the settlements or every incident of house demolition is a way of worsening the situation confronting the Palestinian people and reducing what prospects they might have as the outcome of supposed peace negotiations.” Asked about his accusation of ethnic cleansing, Mr Falk said that more than 11,000 Palestinians had lost their right to live in Jerusalem since 1996 due to Israel imposing residency laws favouring Jews and revoking Palestinian residence permits. “The 11,000 is just the tip of the iceberg because many more are faced with possible challenges to their residency rights.” Orange employees help the DGSE create and develop new tools to collect and analyze data. Contrarily to PRISM, it’s not just an agreement between the government and big Internet companies, it’s an implicit “joint venture” that has been going on for around 30 years.

RT.com: 'Colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing': UN rapporteur on Palestine blasts Israel
PressTV: Israeli troops have killed four Palestinians in a nighttime attack in the occupied West Bank
Antiwar.com: Israeli Officials Confirm Progress on 2,269 More Settlement Homes

Orange has been cooperating allegedly illegally for years with France’s main intelligence agency (the DGSE). According to a newly found report by Edward Snowden and an investigation by Le Monde, the DGSE was given access to all of Orange’s data (not just metadata). Orange is the leading telecom company in France with more than 26 million clients. These clients have communicated with tens of millions of non-Orange clients. Nearly everyone in France is concerned by today’s revelation. No regulating agency has a say in this special relationship between France’s intelligence agencies and Orange. Data is shared with allies, such as the GCHQ in the U.K.