Has President Obama delivered on his pledges? Whose interests has he been protecting? Radio Sputnik is looking into the issue with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (US), Fredrik Erixon (EU) and Peter Koenig (Switzerland). So what exactly has President Obama achieved and how has he handled what still remains the biggest global economy – as of now? Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Former Assistant US Treasury Secretary says: He has achieved the agenda of the neoconservatives and the military security complex. He has demonized Russia and its President. He has broken up the economic and political relationships between Russia and Europe. He has secured the agenda of the Wall Street, by establishing through the Department of Justice that there would be no prosecution of the criminal gangsters that dislocated the American financial system and ripped off millions of people. He has achieved the agenda of the lawlessness of the US, having determined that the people who tortured detainees will not be prosecuted, even though torture is a felony under the US law and is also prohibited under the international law. ● He has achieved the agenda of the Israeli lobby by continuing the wars against the Muslims in the ME. And he’s done his best to achieve the agenda of agro business and Monsanto, by continuing to allow the production and sale of genetically modified organisms, without any studies proving their safety. And he has done his best to achieve the agenda of the extractive industries – oil, mining and timber. So, on the whole, from the standpoint of the six powerful private interest groups that rule the US, and indeed much of the world, Obama has been amazingly successful. Perhaps, the most successful of all presidents. AUDIO

A Palestinian official says Israel has allocated some USD 17 billion to Judaize East Jerusalem al-Quds in the occupied West Bank. ● The assistant secretary general for Palestine and authority on issues in the occupied territories for the Arab League, Mohammed Sabih, warned that al-Quds is in real danger and in the dire need of concerted international efforts to defend itself. Palestinian officials are warning that Israel demolishes Palestinian houses in Jerusalem al-Quds to force their owners to leave the city. On Monday, Israeli forces issued demolition orders for several Palestinian-owned homes as part of its settlement expansion projects there. According to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Tel Aviv has destroyed more than 360 structures in the West Bank so far this year as part of its settlement expansion plans. More than half a million Israelis live in illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem al-Quds, in 1967.

In what points to a US cyber-attack, North Korea completely lost its connections to the Internet for several hours on Monday after days of unusual instability, according to several Internet monitoring companies. The loss of access came just days after the FBI accused Pyongyang of hacking into Sony Pictures Entertainment and President Barack Obama declared that the US would carry out an unspecified “proportionate response” against North Korea at “a time and place of our choosing.”

In a move unprecedented in recent memory, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called Monday for a nearly week-long halt to demonstrations against police violence following the shooting of two New York City police officers. De Blasio’s statement comes amidst a broader drive in the media and political establishment to pin the blame for the officers’ deaths on ongoing protests against police violence, thereby painting them as “violent” and illegitimate. Earlier in the day, New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton told NBC News that the shooting was a “direct spinoff of this issue of these demonstrations.” Police nationwide have already begun using this attempt to link the shooting and protests against police violence as a means of intimidating opposition.

Bill Van Auken ■ Torture, police killings and the militarization of America
Juan Thompson ■ Don’t Stop the Protests Against Police Brutality — Black Lives Still Matter

Federal Court Gives “Early Christmas Present” to War Criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Others, Immunizing Them From Civil Inquiry Regarding Iraq War. ● Late Friday, a federal judge dismissed a civil claim filed against George W. Bush and other high-ranking officials regarding their conduct in planning and waging the Iraq War, and immunized them from further proceedings.

“This is an early Christmas present to former Bush Administration officials from the federal court,” Inder Comar of Comar Law said. Comar brought the claim on behalf of an Iraqi refugee and single mother, Sundus Shaker Saleh. “This was a serious attempt to hold US leaders accountable under laws set down at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. I am very disappointed at the outcome.”

The tribunal at Nuremberg, established in large part by the United States after World War II, declared international aggression the “supreme international crime” and convicted German leaders of waging illegal wars. The case alleged that George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz committed aggression in planning and waging the Iraq War. Specifically, the lawsuit claimed that high-ranking Bush officials used the fear of 9/11 to mislead the American public into supporting a war against Iraq, and that they issued knowingly false statements that Iraq was in league with Al-Qaeda and had weapons of mass destruction, when none of those things were true. “The decision guts Nuremberg,” Comar said. “Nuremberg said that domestic immunity was no defense to a claim of international aggression. This Court has said the opposite.”

Patrick Martin & David North ■ The New York Times calls for torture prosecutions || The editorial published Monday in the New York Times, headlined “Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses,” marks a new stage in the political crisis triggered by the publication of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture authorized by the Bush administration. The language of the editorial, beginning with the headline, is remarkably blunt in condemning the torture carried out in CIA secret prisons under the Bush administration. [...] In effect, the most influential newspaper in the United States has declared that the Bush administration was a criminal government.

Russia’s Investigative Committee is to investigate a Russian newspaper report alleging that a Ukrainian military jet shot down Malaysian Airlines passenger plane MH17 over the rebel-held eastern part of the country last summer. ● A witness, who chose to remain anonymous, told Komsomolskaya Pravda (KP) daily that a pilot of a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet was behind the MH17 flight downing on July 17. He claimed that the pilot used air-to-air missiles to shoot down the Malaysian Boeing, which he concludes was probably mistaken for a military plane. “About an hour before the catastrophe, three fighter jets took off [from Dnepropetrovsk]. One of the planes was an Su-25, which was equipped with these kind of [air-to-air] missiles,” the witness told KP in an interview, adding that he was on the airport grounds at the time. Once the surviving pilot got out of the plane, he looked “very frightened.” The Ukrainian pilot’s first words as he got out of the jet were: “Wrong plane,” the alleged witness claimed. Later in the evening that same pilot also reportedly stated: “The plane happened to be in the wrong place at a wrong time.”

Sputnik News: Ukrainian Combat Jet Returned Without Missiles After MH17 Crash: Reports

A second senior airline industry source has revealed his belief that there is some sort of conspiracy behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. As The Herald Sun reports, Emirates president and CEO Sir Tim Clark made world headlines in October when he revealed his doubts about the fate of the missing plane, which disappeared early in the morning of March 8 this year. Now a second senior airline industry source has voiced his doubts about the fate of the plane, with the even wilder claim that the Boeing 777 may have been shot down by US military personnel who were fearing a September 11-style attack on the US Navy base on Diego Garcia.

Paris Match: Le mystère du vol MH370 1/2 || «Tout le monde nous ment. Il y a une omerta dans cette affaire, il y a trop d’incohérences. Je ne fais plus confiance à personne. » Ghyslain Wattrelos ponctue sa dernière affirmation par un sourire, pour exprimer sa détermination intacte, puis reste longuement absorbé par ses pensées. Perdre, le même jour, sa femme et deux de ses enfants va bien au-delà du drame. C’est une atrocité à laquelle personne n’est préparé. Y survivre ­demande un effort colossal que cet homme mesure chaque jour, depuis neuf mois, tant il est difficile de maintenir de la cohérence devant une telle absurdité. La difficulté est d’autant plus grande lorsque les autorités en charge de faire la lumière sur cette tragédie s’esquivent, comme si l’anéantissement du vol MH370, à bord duquel 239 personnes ont disparu, n’était rien de plus que la réalisation d’une funeste probabilité dans un monde sécurisé.

Gilad Atzmon ■ After destroying Palestine and the Palestinian people for over a century, some progressive Jews seem to be bored. They decided to, once again, test German tolerance towards their ridiculous ideas. They are talking about Medinat Weimar, a new Jewish State in Germany. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. These Jews are clearly insane...

Update - I have learned a few hours ago that Medinat Weimar is actually a Jewish progressive ‘art’ project. It is supposed to present an alternative to Zionism. Those who follow this site know very well that I am not impressed with Jewish Left ‘art.’ Being an international artist myself, I see art as a search for beauty. As much as I try, I really cannot see how ‘Medinat Weimar’ is related to beauty or aesthetics. Also it may be important to mention that some early Zionists such Ahad Ha’am saw Zionism as an art project. Jewish left ‘art’ is actually a glimpse into Jewish progressive morbidity and Jewish culture in general. As we know, Israeli Jews are flooding Berlin at the moment (Olim Le Berlin). Medinat Weimar was actually a warning for the Germans.

Weimar Republic || Medinat Weimar - The Thirteen Principles || Medinat Weimar - Nein Danke! (English)

xymphora ■ GAO says FBI’s investigation of anthrax attacks was flawed":

"The FBI used flawed scientific methods to investigate the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people and sickened 17 others, federal auditors said Friday in a report sure to fuel skepticism over the FBI’s conclusion that Army biodefense researcher Bruce Ivins was the sole perpetrator."

Yes, having absolutely no evidence would 'be sure to fuel skepticism' over the frame-up of Ivins. Footnote:

"Ivins died in July 2008 of an apparently intentional Tylenol overdose as the Justice Department prepared to indict him."

Steven Hatfill was the first patsy the FBI picked, and when he fought back too successfully, they settled on Ivins, whose personal weaknesses made it too difficult for him to challenge the lies. As we've seen with the recent FBI blame on North Korea for the Sony hacking case, the FBI is nothing more than a lie factory.