A wide-ranging United Nations report released Thursday strongly criticizes the United States for a host of human rights concerns — from jailing the homeless and sentencing juveniles to life sentences, to drone warfare and spying by the National Security Agency. While the U.N. praised some steps the U.S. government has taken, like curbing human trafficking and a 2009 ban on Central Intelligence Agency torture and secret detention, the report’s authors found the U.S. wanting on 25 human rights issues.

UK secret service has threatened to shut down Guardian daily for covering reports about revelations of American whistleblower Edward Snowden. Paul Johnson, Guardian deputy editor, said at the Radiodays Europe conference in the Irish capital, Dublin, that the daily was threatened for printing Snowden’s disclosures of mass espionage activities by the US.

“We were threatened that we would be closed down. We were accused of endangering national security and people’s lives. It left us in a very difficult position,” he said. Johnson also said that he had been informed by a senior civil servant that “prime minister, the deputy prime minister, the foreign secretary, the home secretary and the attorney general have got a problem with you.”

The Turkish government has blocked Youtube, only hours after the publication of leaked audio in which Foreign Minister Davotoglu, Intelligence Chief Fidan and Military Top Bras discuss war plans against Syria. The Foreign Ministry recognized the authenticity of the recording and called it a wretched attack. The conversation focuses on launching a false flag attack to create a pretext for an aggression against Syria. || Not more than one week after blocking Twitter because of leaked audio recordings which revealed the AKP’s and Prime Minister Erdogan’s involvement in corruption and other scandals, the Turkish government has now blocked Youtube, reports Aydinlik Daily. The decision to block Youtube came just hours after the release of yet another obtained audio recording. This time, of Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Davotoglu. In the recorded phone conversation, Davotoglu discussed plans to invade Syria with high-ranking military officers and security officials, including intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, reports Aydinlik Daily. The Turkish Foreign Office has reportedly confirmed the authenticity of the recording, although it stated that it had been partially manipulated. The Foreign Office described the leaked tape as a “wretched attack”.

RT.com: YouTube ban: How Turkish officials conspired to stage Syria attack to provoke war

Paul Joseph Watson: Media Buries Bombshell Admission of Turkish Government Planning False Flag Attack || Turkish government officials were caught red-handed in a leaked audio tape planning a false flag terror attack as a pretext to invade Syria, but the mainstream media completely buried the key aspect of the story and made it all about Prime Minister Erdogan blocking YouTube.

Here Is The YouTube "Start A False Flag War With Syria" Leaked Recording That Erdogan Wanted Banned (A full translation can be found here):

Ahmet Davutolu: “Prime Minister said that in current conjuncture, this attack (on Suleiman Shah Tomb) must be seen as an opportunity for us.”
Hakan Fidan: “I’ll send 4 men from Syria, if that’s what it takes. I’ll make up a cause of war by ordering a missile attack on Turkey; we can also prepare an attack on Suleiman Shah Tomb if necessary.”
Feridun Sinirliolu: “Our national security has become a common, cheap domestic policy outfit.”
Ya?ar Güler: “It’s a direct cause of war. I mean, what’re going to do is a direct cause of war.”

Feridun Sinirolu: There are some serious shifts in global and regional geopolitics. It now can spread to other places. You said it yourself today, and others agreed… We’re headed to a different game now. We should be able to see those. That ISIL and all that jazz, all those organizations are extremely open to manipulation. Having a region made up of organizations of similar nature will constitute a vital security risk for us. And when we first went into Northern Iraq, there was always the risk of PKK blowing up the place. If we thoroughly consider the risks and substantiate… As the general just said…
Yaar Güler: Sir, when you were inside a moment ago, we were discussing just that. Openly. I mean, armed forces are a “tool” necessary for you in every turn.
Ahmet Davutolu: Of course. I always tell the Prime Minister, in your absence, the same thing in academic jargon, you can’t stay in those lands without hard power. Without hard power, there can be no soft power.

To summarize: a recording confirming a NATO-member country planned a false-flag war with Syria (where have we seen that before?) and all the Prime Minister has to say is the leak was "immoral."

In sweeping rebuke of Moscow, the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly affirmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity and deemed the referendum that led to Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula illegal. ● The vote on the Ukraine-sponsored resolution was 100 countries in favour, 11 opposed and 58 abstentions. While Ukraine has a lot of sympathy among the 193 U.N. member states, Russia has a lot of clout. Both sides lobbied hard ahead of the vote, and diplomats had predicted a significant number of abstentions and a maximum 80 to 90 countries supporting the resolution. So the high number of “yes” votes, representing more than half the 193 U.N. member states, was a sign of international anger at Moscow’s slow-motion military invasion of Crimea.

PressTV: Russia slams UN resolution on Crimea secession - Video

CS Monitor: Russia accuses West of 'shameless blackmail' in UN vote on Ukraine || Russia hit out in a blistering statement today against a UN resolution that declared invalid Crimea's referendum to secede from Ukraine. Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Western states used the "the full force of the unspent potential of the cold war-era propaganda machine" to push through the vote, which passed Thursday. "It is well-known what kind of shameless pressure, up to the point of political blackmail and economic threats, was brought to bear on a number of [UN] member states so they would vote 'yes'," the statement said, according to Reuters. "This counterproductive initiative only complicates efforts to resolve the domestic political crisis in Ukraine."

Dr. Roberts: “That government (in Ukraine) is conducting extraordinary propaganda against Russia, claiming that Russian troops are massed on the border and are going to invade Ukraine. So they are creating this image which helps foment war. Here’s the great danger in all of this....“What does this do to Putin? Putin has been very low key. He’s been very diplomatic. He sits there and watches this and he says:

“What are these Americans up to? Here they bring a direct strategic threat to Russia, right here in my backyard. They are trying to put Ukraine in Nato so they can put missile bases on the Russian border with Ukraine. They tried to grab Russia’s only warm-water naval base, the port we’ve had since Catherine the Great in the 18th century. Why are they doing this? Why these amazing provocations against Russia?”

... So that’s what the idiots in Washington have brought about. They’ve convinced a nuclear power that can wipe the United States off the face of the Earth, and certainly Europe, that they cannot be trusted. They’ve made it impossible for the Russian government to work with them. They are demonizing Russia, trying to isolate it, trying to punish it for doing nothing -- except not collapsing before American aggression. And so what can he (Putin) do? Prepare for war. This is extremely dangerous. Any government that is so reckless as Washington is, to create this impression in the government of a strategic nuclear power, any government that would do this is insane. This is a form of recklessness and irresponsibility on the part of the Obama regime and its European puppets that is insane. The whole world is at stake.” To listen CLICK HERE.

With Russia effectively elbowed out of the way, for now, the international bankers are already moving in and dictating the terms for Ukraine’s ‘bailout’. Just as they did in Iraq and Greece. ● Once again history is repeating itself. Having undergone regime change in all but name and been ‘freed’ from its ties to Russia, Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday voted in favour of laws to comply with new austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund. In return the Ukraine will get a $14-18 billion bailout package. Or, to be more precise a loan with strings attached. However, the Ukrainian parliament didn’t swallow the IMF measures without a struggle.

xymphora: 80 || "Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Wednesday the price the country would pay for Russian gas, which accounts for over half of Ukrainian gas imports, would soar by almost 80 percent from April 1 as the seizure of Crimea had rendered a cheaper gas deal obsolete." Also: "On Thursday, the International Monetary Fund threw a financial lifeline, agreeing to stump up $14-18 billion as part of a two-year bailout package in exchange for tough economic reforms." ● I don't know how they can call it a 'financial lifeline' with a straight face. It represents a number, some multiple of which will be extracted from Ukraine. The paltry American billion, so hard fought in Congress, is a loan guarantee, which means it will be used to pay off some financial institution which claims to be owed money by Ukraine. Real Ukrainians won't benefit from any of this, and in fact it just represents the beginning of massive economic plunder by the banksters. The 'tough economic reforms' means austerity, a war on poor and middle class Ukrainians (see Greece for a hint of the future). Of course, Ukrainian gold is now safely out of the hands of Ukrainians...

Yahoo: US Lawmakers rush to pass bill to aid [loot] Ukraine
Jason Ditz: IMF Agrees to $27 Billion Ukraine Bailout
Michel Chossudovsky: IMF “Shock Treatment” for Ukraine: Collapse of the Standard of Living

kenny's sideshow ■ When Obama mentioned the unequivocal respect of the 'Rule of Law' at the Nuclear Security Summit in the Hague, he must have been talking about the US in some alternate universe. Billions of taxpayer dollars spent to overthrow the government of Ukraine for political power purposes seems unlawful to me as do the many examples of illegal wars, occupations and destruction inflicted upon various parts of the world by the US, NATO and others.

Stephen Lendman: Obama Sells Confrontation with Russia
Patrick Martin: Obama’s speech on Ukraine: Propaganda and lies [Sound starts at the 0:33 mark - censorship?]