Thierry Meyssan ■ Publicly released excerpts of the report of the Senate Committee on the CIA’s secret torture program reveal a vast criminal organization. Thierry Meyssan has read for you the 525 pages of this document. He found evidence of what he has been saying for years. ● The declassified portion corresponds to only one-twelfth of the initial report. The report itself does not address the vast removal and sequestration system that the US Navy had put in place during the terms of President George W. Bush; a program that has led to worldwide kidnapping and sequestration of more than 80 000 people aboard 17 flat-bottomed boats stationed in international waters (these ships are: USS Bataan, USS Peleliu, USS Ashland, USNS Stockham, USNS Watson, USNS Watkins, USNS Sister, USNS Charlton, USNS Pomeroy, USNS Red Cloud, USNS Soderman, USNS Dahl MV PFC William B Baugh, Alex Bonnyman MV, MV Franklin J Phillips, MV Huage Louis J Jr, James Anderson Jr. MV). It is content to study 119 cases of human guinea pigs subjected to psychological experiments in Guantánamo and fifty secret prisons from 2002 to late 2009, a year after the election of Barack Obama. ● The extracts of the report do not indicate the criteria by which these human guinea pigs were chosen. They merely state that each prisoner denounced the following, while indicating that the confessions were not coerced but learned. In other words, the CIA sought to justify its choices by making denunciations post. In the initial report, the names of agents and contractors of the CIA involved have been replaced by pseudonyms. In addition, the declassified extracts were widely censored, mainly to clear the names of foreign accomplices of the CIA.

Photo: George Stinney Jr appears in an undated police booking photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Attorneys in South Carolina say they have found fresh evidence that warrants a new trial in the case of a 14-year-old black teenager put to death nearly 70 years ago for the murders of two white girls. George Stinney Jr. was the youngest person to be executed in the United States in the last century, and attorneys say the request for another trial so long after a defendant's death is the first of its kind in South Carolina.

George Stinney Jr. was only 14 when he was sentenced to death and executed for allegedly assaulting two white girls; on Wednesday, he was exonerated for the crime and his brothers and sisters relieved. "They took my brother away and I never saw my mother laugh again," Amie Ruffner, Stinney's sister, previously said. "I would love his name to be cleared." That wish was granted on Wednesday, after South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Carmen Mullins reviewed the case and decided to overturn the ruling due to the fact that Stinney was not adequately represented by his own attorney. Mullins also stated that the boy's confession was likely coerced by authorities and there were not enough witnesses or physical evidence to convict the 14-year-old. Stinney, 14, was charged with the murders of 11-year-old Betty June Binnicker and 7-year-old Mary Emma Thames. He was arrested after people in the town of Acolu said he had been picking flowers with the young girls. Stinney confessed to the crime but not until he was separated by his parents and put through an interrogation by police. Ultimately, he was found guilty of the murder after jurors deliberated for only 10 minutes.

UPI: George Stinney Jr., executed at 14, cleared of murder 70 years later
WTOC: George Stinney, 14-year-old convicted of '44 murder, exonerated

Jen Psaki, the US State Department spokesperson, uttered yet another gaffe when she declared that the Obama administration signed off on more economic sanctions against Russia, setting off alarm bells in Russia. The bill, which provides some US$350 million in military and non-military assistance to Ukraine, is expected to be signed “by the end of the week,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Tuesday. Perhaps Jen Psaki thought that was not expedient enough. “He signed it yesterday,” Psaki said during the briefing, interrupting RT’s Gayane Chichakyan who was asking a question about the military aid tucked away inside the controversial legislation, called the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014.

RT.com: ‘Can’t stuff this bear’ & other Putin Q&A quotes
Itar-Tass: Key topics of Vladimir Putin's tenth annual press conference

Eric Zuesse ■ Here are highlights from a one-hour-and-thirty-seven-minute video documenting the ethnic cleansing or attempted genocide against the residents in southeast Ukraine, the Ukrainian area that had voted overwhelmingly for the man whom Obama overthrew on February 22nd. If the voters in that region were to stay in the then-existing territory of Ukraine, no nationwide Ukrainian vote (such as for Ukraine’s President) would favor the pro-U.S, anti-Russian, Government, that Obama had installed in February of this year. Even if new leaders would be elected, the government would then go back to being predominantly pro-Russian, as it had been under Yanukovych. That’s why Obama wanted the residents there slaughtered until enough escaped to Russia so as to eliminate enough of them from the voter-rolls in Ukraine so as to enable Obama’s Ukrainian coup d’etat to succeed (i.e., be stable) on a long-term basis. So, that’s what was tried; and one chooses for carrying out such a purpose racist fascists — or nazis — whose particular hatred is focussed against ethnic Russians: against the people who lived in the pro-Yanukovych region of Ukraine, Ukraine’s southeast.

Eric Zuesse ■ “We’re Close to the Precipice. Will the Public Remain Silent?” || For America’s elite, the Cold War never ended, because it was never really about communism versus capitalism — not for them. They are fascists, and they want global dominance. All they really care about is dominating the world, destroying enemies, which means anyone who refuses to be controlled by them. Aristocracy hasn’t changed since, well, long before the Bible began. Domination is the big thing, for the aristocracy. Russia threatens the vaunted global control by America’s aristocracy, their dominance over all other aristocracies, because Russia is the second-most-powerful military nation. Russia is the only nation that can say no to U.S. aristocrats and (maybe) get away with it. That’s what this conflict is all about. It’s why they ratcheted up the “enemy” figure for Russia from 6% to 22% in just the past seven years.

The Netherlands, in the throes of an immigration crisis, has accused the UN of publishing ‘one-sided information’ after its senior officials accused the government of “trying to score political points” by “forcing” failed asylum seekers into homelessness. ● "The Netherlands endeavors to prevent foreign nationals without lawful residence ending up on the street," immigration minister Fred Teeven wrote to AFP. The uproar from UN officials came after the central government recently refused to release €15 million in funds for local authorities to provide accommodation and food for those asylum seekers, who have been deemed to lack genuine humanitarian reasons for staying in the Netherlands without a visa. “In these dark days before Christmas, it is appalling that the Dutch Government will not even commit less than 0.01 per cent of its yearly budget to help people living in absolute misery and poverty,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty, Mr. Philip Alston.

Mike Whitney ■ Here’s what’s happening: Washington has persuaded the Saudis to flood the market with oil to push down prices, decimate Russia’s economy, and reduce Moscow’s resistance to further NATO encirclement and the spreading of US military bases across Central Asia. The US-Saudi scheme has slashed oil prices by nearly a half since they hit their peak in June. The sharp decline in prices has burst the bubble in high-yield debt which has increased the turbulence in the credit markets while pushing global equities into a tailspin. Even so, the roiled markets and spreading contagion have not deterred Washington from pursuing its reckless plan, a plan which uses Riyadh’s stooge-regime to prosecute Washington’s global resource war.

William Engdahl ■ The Secret Stupid Saudi-US Deal on Syria
The details are emerging of a new secret and quite stupid Saudi-US deal on Syria and the so-called IS. It involves oil and gas control of the entire region and the weakening of Russia and Iran by Saudi Arabian flooding the world market with cheap oil. Details were concluded in the September meeting by US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Saudi King... the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has been flooding the market with deep discounted oil, triggering a price war within OPEC… The Saudis are targeting sales to Asia for the discounts and in particular, its major Asian customer, China.

xymphora Alternative fairly tale ■ "The Oil Coup" This is likely completely backwards. Kerry probably went to see King Abdullah to try to talk him out of this crazy scheme, part of the ongoing manic-depressive influence of Prince Bandar, but the Saudis, furious with the Americans over the failure to remove Assad and the negotiations with Iran, want to pressure the Americans to follow a more Zionist line. Noticing this is noticing American Empire vulnerability, so we can't go there. Of course, we could even travel a stage higher in questioning the idea that the Saudis, as we're constantly told the 'swing producer' (despite the fact that numerous new sources of hydrocarbons have come on line in the last 20 years), actually have that much power at all. The collapse of oil prices is actually due to a collapse in world demand for oil caused by the complete collapse of the world economy caused by the predations of the 1% and neoliberalism, but we're really not supposed to notice this, so we need an alternative fairy tale.

Itar-Tass: Putin says oil-market price conspiracy between Saudi Arabia and US not ruled out

Russia could fall back on its 150 billion yuan (HK$189.8 billion) currency swap agreement with China if the rouble continues to plunge. ● If the swap deal is activated for this purpose, it would mark the first time China is called upon to use its currency to bail out another currency in crisis. The deal was signed by the two central banks in October, when Premier Li Keqiang visited Russia. "Russia badly needs liquidity support and the swap line could be an ideal tool," said Bank of Communications chief economist Lian Ping. The swap allows the central banks to directly buy yuan and rouble in the two currencies, rather than via the US dollar. Two bankers close to the People's Bank of China said it was meant to reduce the role of the US dollar if China and Russia need to help each other overcome a liquidity squeeze. China has currency swap deals with more than 20 monetary authorities around the world. Swaps are generally used to settle trade. "The yuan-rouble swap deal was not just a financial matter," said Wang Feng, chairman of Shanghai-based private equity group Yinshu Capital. "It has political implications as it is a sign of mutual trust."