One of Nasa's experimental research craft has been spotted on an African runway amid claims it is being used to create high resolution 3D maps "to fight terrorism". Satellite images confirm the WB-57 aircraft was on an American military airstrip in eastern Africa a few weeks ago. However, officials have refused to reveal what it was doing there.

Ryan Gallagher ■ In March 2011, two weeks before the Western intervention in Libya, a secret message was delivered to the National Security Agency. An intelligence unit within the U.S. military’s Africa Command needed help to hack into Libya’s cellphone networks and monitor text messages. ■ For the NSA, the task was easy. The agency had already obtained technical information about the cellphone carriers’ internal systems by spying on documents sent among company employees, and these details would provide the perfect blueprint to help the military break into the networks. ■ The NSA’s assistance in the Libya operation, however, was not an isolated case. It was part of a much larger surveillance program—global in its scope and ramifications—targeted not just at hostile countries.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets across New York City and in other cities Wednesday evening after a Staten Island grand jury said it would not indict a white police officer in the death of a black man, a decision that prompted Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to announce the opening of a federal civil rights investigation. The grand jury declined to bring charges­ in the death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Staten Island man who died in July after a New York police officer placed him in an apparent chokehold during an arrest. The decision struck many protesters as a chilling and frustrating repetition of events in Ferguson, Mo., where a grand jury last month said it would not indict the white officer who killed Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old. The Brown case ignited waves of protests and a national debate over the treatment that African American men receive at the hands of law enforcement officers.

Raw Story: Cop who choked Eric Garner wasn’t indicted — but man who recorded the incident was
Wall Street Journal: New York City Police Officer Won’t Face Criminal Charges in Eric Garner Death
New York Times: Reaction to Eric Garner Grand Jury Decision
Miami Herald: Reaction to grand jury finding in chokehold death
ABC News: Eric Garner, NYPD Grand Jury Decision Sparks Demonstrations - VIDEO
Huffington Post: Grand Jury Declines To Indict NYPD Officer In Chokehold Death Of Eric Garner - VIDEO
WSWS: Hundreds of police killings go unreported
Stephen Lendman ■ Killer Cops

A 29-year-old correctional officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has been accused of raping a pregnant woman while she was in his custody, and then setting her free. ● A federal lawsuit has been launched, and the officer Jaris Hayden, has been so far released on $10,000 bail. In the legal documents obtained by the Huffington Post, it is said that the victim, known as JW, was arrested last October after police stopped her for an expired license plate, and she also gave the officers a false name. The victim claims Hayden frequently sexually harassed her before the rape. For instance, when taking her to Ferguson jail, he said, “You smell good” and “This will teach you a lesson.” JW was visibly pregnant at that time.

Huffington Post: Ferguson Correctional Officer Jaris Hayden Raped Pregnant Woman, Lawsuit Alleges || J.W. said she was crying and kept asking to go home. That's when Hayden told her to follow him and led her to the City of Ferguson jail's boiler room, the suit alleges. There, Hayden unbuttoned his pants, allegedly telling the victim: "You gonna suck my d--k." J.W. said she complied out of fear before Hayden brought her further back in the boiler room, bent her over and "indicated that he was going to have intercourse with her," according to the suit. During the incident, J.W. managed to obtain some of Hayden's pubic hair, which DNA analysis confirmed to be the suspect's, the suit says. Hayden allegedly told J.W. to then "run and stay close to the building" so that she would not be captured on security cameras.

Vladimir Putin made his Annual Address to the Federal Assembly. As is tradition, the Address took place at the Kremlin’s St George Hall before an audience of more than 1,000 people. In his Address, the President set out his views on the situation in Ukraine and outlined Russia’s position with regard to events taking place there. In the foreign policy section of the Address, Mr Putin also spoke about international security issues and the integration processes taking place in the world.

RT.com: State of the Nation: President Putin addresses Federal Assembly LIVE UPDATES
NBC News: Vladimir Putin: Russia Will Build Ties With Non-Western Countries

Kiev’s decision to create a Ministry of Information is a clear threat to media freedom in Ukraine, said OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic. The government’s plans have also sparked a wave of fury from journalists. ● “Ukraine’s initiative to create a Ministry of Information is a clear threat to media freedom, this is not the way to counter propaganda,” said Dunja Mijatovic on her Twitter account on Wednesday. Mijatovic also tweeted a link to an article called “Ukraine just created its own version of Orwell's 'Ministry of Truth’” citing the classic dystopian novel 1984. “In democracy, a ministry of information can never be an answer for anything related to media, free expression and safety of journos,” she wrote. The media watchdog of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe added that she will bring up the issue at the meeting with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin in Basel on Thursday. The creation of a new so-called Ministry of Information Policy was approved by Ukraine’s Parliament on Tuesday. The parliament appointed Yury Stets - head of the Information Security Department of the National Guard of Ukraine, close ally of President Petro Poroshenko and former chief producer of the TV “Channel 5” owned by Poroshenko - to head the ministry.

Discussing Bibi, Tzipi and Yair || Gilad Atzmon: Yesterday I was invited by Press TV to participate in their daily program, ‘The Debate.’ In the last few years I have occasionally participated on the show. Usually I am confronted with banal Hasbara mouthpieces. I tend to demolish their arguments within the first round of questions. ● Yesterday, I was asked to debate professor Geoffrey Alderman – an avid Zionist academic. To my great surprise Alderman and I agreed on pretty much everything: we had similar views on Israeli politics, the nature of the Jewish State, Netanyahu's Politics, Netanyahu’s engineered crisis, Jewish Lobby Domination in the West and other topics. Fascinating exchange but hardly a debate. ● For the last decade I have been chased by Jewish ‘anti’ Zionists who wrote Jewish petitions against me and tried every Talmudic trick to silence my criticism of Jewish power and Jewish ID politics. I have also been harassed by some Trotskyites and even a list of 20 Palestinians who called for my ‘disavowal.’ These attempts to stop me achieved the opposite – if anything, they proved my point regarding Jewish dissent being a corrosive controlled opposition apparatus. ● In all this time, not a single one of my Jewish anti Zionist or Trotskyite detractors have had the guts to debate me. But somehow, rabid Zionists and hard-core Hasbara agents are made from different materials. They must have have a modicum of dignity and confidence in their system. ● My conclusion may upset some. As a thinker and an artist stimulated by challenge and titillated by intellectual provocation, I prefer to deal with hard core Zionists and Israeli Right wing ideologues rather than with the so-called ‘anti’ and their culture of deceit. At least with Zionists, I know exactly what I am up against.

Gilad Atzmon ■ The Palestinians Have Managed to Topple Another Israeli Government