Glenn Greenwald & Andrew Fishman ■ On August 1, NPR’s Morning Edition broadcast a story by NPR national security reporter Dina Temple-Raston touting explosive claims from what she called “a tech firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.” That firm, Recorded Future, worked together with “a cyber expert, Mario Vuksan, the CEO of ReversingLabs,” to produce a new report that purported to vindicate the repeated accusation from U.S. officials that “revelations from former NSA contract worker Edward Snowden harmed national security and allowed terrorists to develop their own countermeasures.” [...] With this report, Temple-Raston seriously misled NPR’s millions of listeners. To begin with, Recorded Future, the outfit that produced the government-affirming report, is anything but independent. To the contrary, it is funded by the CIA and U.S. intelligence community with millions of dollars. Back in 2010, it also filed forms to become a vendor for the NSA. (In response to questions from The Intercept, the company’s vice president Jason Hines refused to say whether it works for the NSA, telling us that we should go FOIA that information if we want to know. But according to public reports, Recorded Future “earns most of its revenue from selling to Wall Street quants and intelligence agencies.”) The connection between Recorded Future and the U.S. intelligence community is long known. Back in July, 2010, Wired‘s Noah Shachtman revealed that the company is backed by both “the investment arms of the CIA and Google.”

● The United States National Security Agency has had a rough year. It all began when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden infiltrated the agency’s systems and stole thousands upon thousands of confidential documents revealing many of the top-secret cyber surveillance programs the NSA has employed in recent years.
● The revelations began with PRISM but there have now been so many that it may be a good time for a quick recap. For those who are still interested in the ongoing NSA saga, Pro Publica has created a fantastic chart that collects all of the biggest NSA revelations so far and places them on big chart.
● As we can see, there has been a whole lot to absorb over the past 12 months or so. The chart is split up into four overlapping sections that separate foreign and domestic spying programs and events, as well as bulk programs and targeted programs.
● In addition to the graphic above, the Pro Publica put together a good list of all the programs noted above that includes links out to some of the best coverage of each revelation. To check it out, click through the link below in our source section. [H/T: PS]

Kremlin says aid caravan will be under aegis of Red Cross and will depart this week, as US and Kiev plan separate aid mission. ● Russia is sending a humanitarian convoy into Ukraine in cooperation with the Red Cross, the Kremlin has announced. Western leaders had previously warned Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, against using a humanitarian aid mission as a pretext for a military intervention in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. But Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the convoy would not include any armed personnel or soldiers. "It is being sent under the aegis of the Red Cross and with the agreement of Kiev," Peskov said, adding that the convoy would probably depart this week. In a telephone call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, on Monday night, Barack Obama promised to take an active part in an aid mission to the rebel-held city of Luhansk [???], where residents have been cut off from water and electricity amid shelling that has claimed civilian casualties.

Russian aid convoy 'will not be admitted into Ukraine'
Russian Humanitarian Convoy to Arrive at Ukrainian Border Wednesday
Russian humanitarian convoy departs to E. Ukraine - Video
Russia says sending 280 trucks with humanitarian aid to Ukraine
Red Cross lays down conditions for bringing aid to Ukraine
US voices "concern" over Russia’s humanitarian aid for south-east Ukraine
Ukraine’s Conflict: a History and Status-Report, for Ukraine, U.S., and the World

The toll of the war on Gaza’s children has been “catastrophic,” according to UN agencies. At least 450 have been killed, and those not having their physical bodies buried have found their innocence entombed. It is another casualty in the war—a war against all things daring to live and resist in Gaza. According to Chamseddine:child slaughtering “Israel has forced the children of Gaza to lay flowers atop headstones, and watch helplessly as coffins that are filled with not only their most beloved family members, teachers, neighbors, and friends but also their most treasured memories, lullabies, lessons learned and those that will never come, descend into the belly of the earth. Their lips will memorize and form prayers for the dead and the stars that defied the siege that flickered freely high above them will be snatched from their skies,” Increasingly it is being heard from Gazans that “Israel has stolen everything beautiful in our lives,” and Israel’s barbarity confirms this sentiment.

Louisa A. Lamb ■ The Psychological Trauma of Catastrophe: Gaza’s Children
As well as killing hundreds of Gaza's children, Israel has destroyed the lives of thousands more

The Israeli Defense Force just got caught red handed manufacturing fake evidence to prop up their Gaza narrative.

Simon Elliot, the leader of ISIS (aka IS), is a Mossad agent and he has been photographed with Mossad asset John McCain. ISIS (now called IS) was trained by the Americans and Israelis and is led by Israelis. The role of IS is to kill Moslems and weaken all of Israel's enemies. A Kurdish officer said of IS, "Everything they have is American - it is all the latest equipment with the big guns, the Humvees." Obama has used IS in both Syria and Libya and now he is using them in Iraq, as he does not like the current Iraqi government and he wants to please Israel.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin apologized Monday (Aug 12) to his Brazilian counterpart for a remark by a foreign ministry spokesman calling the Latin American powerhouse a "diplomatic dwarf." ● The comment in July was made by spokesman Yigal Palmor after Brazil criticized Israel's military campaign in Gaza as excessive and recalled its envoy in Tel Aviv. In a phone call Monday, Rivlin assured Brazil President Dilma Rousseff that Palmor's comments "do not correspond to the sentiments of the population" of Israel, Rousseff's office said in a statement. Rousseff had criticised Palmor's remarks, saying "Words, including the spokesman's, sometimes create a very bad climate. In this case, we have to be very careful."

JEWISH TERRORISM: Violent Jewish settler colonist committed a terrorist attack in a Salfit area village of Yasuf, setting a Palestinian’s vehicle alight and leaving Jewish-supremacist hate messages behind, like a dog “marking” its territory. Except it isn’t Jewish “Israeli” territory, it is within the State of Palestine, hence the vicious uncivilised behaviour. This is settler-colonist violence being called a “Price tag” terrorist attack though no mention is made of the reason for it. typically these terrorist attacks are revenge for something: some slight, some Palestinian not submitting enough to Jewish oppression within Palestine, or perhaps the illegal settler-colony being ruled by the “Israeli” court as being illegal. Whatever the reason, these terrorists are typically not even investigated much less held to account because the government of “Israel” approve, being Jewish supremacist themselves.

RT.com: IDF distributed Gaza destruction photos to motivate reservists - report

The blood of the thousands of Palestinians who have been killed by the so-called Israel Defence Forces since the beginning of the siege of Gaza, stains the hands of each and every politician who has done nothing to censure Israel for this cruel and illegal act of virtual imprisonment, or who has taken any kind of bribe to bolster his or her election-campaign coffers, in return for turning their backs on the quite obvious fact that Apartheid Israel has never had any intention other than to genocide the Palestinian people.

James Petras ■ Israeli Genocide and its Willing Accomplices