AFP Photo / Philippe Lopez

Instead of devoting coverage to surveillance information revealed by Edward Snowden, the mainstream US media has slandered him. This reaction highlights the inadequacies of the American news cycle, geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser told RT.

RT: It appears Snowden is still in Russia, although he is believed to be in an international transit zone. What do you think he will do next?

Eric Draitser: I think that’s impossible to say at the moment. We hear reports about Ecuador, though we’ve seen with the case of Julian Assange that that’s no guarantee. We’re still waiting to see. But what I think is most interesting is the reaction here in the United States. Your reports have talked about what we’re seeing internationally, maybe in governments or people around the world - but in the United States, we see a concerted propaganda campaign designed to demonize and destroy the image, if not the total character, of Edward Snowden. We see this happening from the right wing and also the left wing.  This is now becoming a real story inside the United States – the way in which the controlled media is attacking Snowden and serving the interests of the surveillance state and the partisanship behind President Obama.

RT: The US government wants Moscow to go in and arrest Snowden even though he’s in an international transit zone - a limbo area which is not officially on Russian territory. Do you think this is going to sour relations between the US and Russia?

ED: I think this is going to precipitate a fight out in the open, but remember that relations have been soured long ago. Remember that the United States has been positioning missiles throughout Eastern Europe and Asia for years. Washington has also placed missiles inside Turkey and elsewhere for the purpose of menacing Russia. The United States has engaged in cyber-attacks launched at its enemies in China and Iran, and it’s likely the Russians are involved in that too. So the relationship has been under the assault of the ruling class in the United States for quite a while – and the reason is because President Putin represents opposition. He represents a counter-veiling force to US hegemony. I think that the Snowden case is really simply a microcosm of that. Moreover, we see that Putin and the government in Russia represent the interests of international law, humanitarian concerns, and basic human decency – just like with Syria. The notion of extraditing Snowden to the United States is essentially delivering him into the hands of torturers, into the hands of criminals.

RT: You just talked about these counter-veiling forces rising. One of these forces is China. A lot of reports suggest that China may have helped Snowden leave the country and assisted him along the way. Is Beijing sending Washington a big message here?

ED: Absolutely. And I think the revelations from Snowden about the hacking of computers in Hong Kong is only the tip of the iceberg. We know that the cyber-attacks that have been launched by the United States, Israel, and their partners are only what we know publicly. There’s much more happening behind the scenes and the Chinese are angry about that. They’re also angry at attempts to demonize them as if they are somehow the ones conducting an illegal operation. This is purely a deflection away from the fact that the United States is the criminal violator of human rights, that the United States is the one engaged in illegal activity, and that the United States attempts to impose its will through so-called diplomacy on countries like China and Russia against their own interests and against the interests of international law. Ten years ago, this would have stood. Today, not so much.


The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Snowdon Supporters demonstrate before Obama visit to Berlin.(Photo from instagram.com/rt)

 The American Empire stands naked, called out by one man among a hundred thousand who knew its dirty secrets and systematic betrayal of the world's trust.

While international politics in the West has been leaping over each other to suck up to The Empire's New Clothes following September 11, 2001, the United States wasted no time in reinforcing the order of Pax Americana - that the US would establish peace in the world through superior firepower.

The world was turned into a simple black-and-white "You're with us, or you're against us." In the decade that followed, many countries that were inconvenient to Pax Americana were invaded, none of which had anything to do with the events on September 11.

The rattling of sabers were reminiscent of a high school bully: "if you don't accept that we can do whatever we want, we might be mean to you, so behave." Or, as US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed that sentence in just slightly more diplomatic language recently: "Hand over Snowden, or there may be consequences."

Most people in the United States aren't aware that their country is acting like their hated high school bully to most of the rest of the world. The few who do tend to take it with humor: bumper stickers have been seen satirizing this as "Be nice to America, or we'll bring democracy to your country", playing on the media spin that every war of aggression to maintain Pax Americana is about "bringing democracy" somewhere.

So when one man, Edward Snowden, reveals to the world that the Empire stands naked and that it really has been behaving like a bully, wiretapping everybody wholesale, there are shockwaves. But that's where the similarities with the folklore tale ends. Where the naked emperor cringed and realized the game was up, the naked Empire instead chooses to keep rewarding sucking up, pretending that nothing has been revealed at all, and to punish the whistleblower at all costs as a warning to others.

Politicians in the United States have been quick to call Snowden this, that and the other thing. No wonder. The surveillance hawks who couldn't care less of the human rights of the world would much rather talk about Edward Snowden as an individual than about the fact that the world's trust in the United States has been systematically betrayed wholesale.

Shadows are cast on the White House in the early morning in Washington.(Reuters / Larry Downing)

 Take Microsoft software as an important example. As part of the NSA unravelings, it was uncovered that Microsoft gives security holes to the National Security Agency for exploiting before it sends out security repair patches to its users and customers - essentially betraying the trust of every customer worldwide, and making sure that no government, corporation, or media outlet can ever trust Microsoft products again: for Microsoft gave the master key to every customers' operations to the NSA.

Without Snowden setting the ball rolling, we would not have known this, and we would continue to have been owned - in the hacker and literal sense of the word - by the United States. Now, we can at least see that any Microsoft-developed software, and probably any closed US-developed software, is a huge security risk that no nation outside the United States can afford to take.

Today, Snowden is said to be comfortable on the inside of Sheremetyevo Airport outside Moscow, pending new travel documents being issued by some friendly country. (You have to love the fact that he's enraging US bully hawks by planning his trip to China, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. The only thing missing would be a trip to Pyongyang with a stopover in Tehran - and we find ourselves rooting for the countries that shield him, those countries we have been told sternly are black-and-white evil.)

What's really interesting is how other people who have had their doubts about the United States have started to come forward. There are now rumors that those who have been doubting the Empire's ability to pay back its enormous debts are starting to raise their voices about it. No wonder: the United States has long been bankrupt, but people have been... pretending... otherwise to make sure that a crash to the world economy doesn't happen on their watch.

If the doubts in creditworthiness take hold, things can come crashing down quicker than you would expect. Compare with 1987, at what felt like the height of the Cold War - who would have guessed that the Soviet Union would be formally dissolved just four years later?

If history teaches us anything, it is that all empires come to an end. History books could theoretically point at Snowden's leak of conscience as the starting point of major, major changes to the geopolitical order. At least they ended a blind and naive trust in the United States' interest in doing good for anybody but itself.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

General James E. Cartwright.(Reuters / Hyungwon Kang)

 The four-star general who headed the reported cyber-attack by American and Israeli hackers on an Iranian nuclear site is under a DoJ investigation over leaking the details of the operation to the press, reports NBC News.

Retired Marine Gen. James ‘Hoss’ Cartwright, who was deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff between 2007 and 2011, was the one responsible for the ‘Olympic Games’, a massive attack on Iranian uranium enrichment facilities conducted under the Bush and the Obama administrations, the New York Times reported last July.

At the time the newspaper broke details of the top secret operation, including collaboration of Israeli hackers in development of the Stuxnet computer worm, which was used to infect Iranian computer networks and damage hundreds of centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility.

The leak caused outrage in the Congress, as some Republican politicians alleged that it was sanctioned high in the Obama administration to bolster his national security record ahead of the 2012 election campaign.

Legal sources told NBC News that the FBI investigating the leak zeroed on Cartwright, once the second-highest ranking officer in the Pentagon, as the source that provided the newspaper with the sensitive information. Agents identified the former general without resorting to a secret subpoena of the phone records of New York Times reporters, the report says.

Cartwright, 63, received a target letter informing him that he’s under the investigation, but so far the DoJ hasn’t made a final decision on whether to charge him, according to the sources.

Cartwright and his lawyer did not comment to NBC.

If indicted, Cartwright would join Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and six others charged under the 1917 Espionage Act by the Obama administration. The current US government has invoked the law more than all previous administrations combined.

Reuters / Michael Caronna

 Soon the FBI will be done building a database containing the photographs, fingerprints and other biometric data for millions of Americans, but the agency has been far from forthcoming with the details. A new lawsuit filed this week aims to change that.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights group based out of California, sued the United States Department of Justice this week for failing to comply with multiple Freedom of Information Act requests filed last year by the EFF.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation received no fewer than three FOIA requests from the EFF last year for details about its state-of-the-art Next Generation Identification program, or NGI, a system that will store personally-identifiable data for millions of Americans and foreign nationals to act as what the FBI has called a "bigger, faster and better" version of what law enforcement already uses. But while the bureau has indeed already been using fingerprint information to track down potential terrorists and troublemakers for years, the EFF’s main concern revolves around what sort of space-age face recognition abilities NGI will be able to employ.

The FBI previously acknowledged that NGI will “house multimodal biometrics records like palm prints and iris scans” in one master system, as well as facial imaging information and intelligence about scars, marks and tattoos. Eventually, the agency said, it hopes to incorporate technology to track down people using only their voice. For now, though, the EFF is interested in what the facial recognition infrastructure will be able to do, and is demanding the FBI fesses up.

“NGI will change almost everything about how the FBI treats photograph submissions,” the complaint filed this week reads. Citing government documents, the EFF says that the system will allow “the increased capacity to retain photographic images, additional opportunities for agencies to submit photographic images and additional search capabilities, including automated searches.”

“The proposed new system would also allow law enforcement ‘to collect and retain other images (such as those obtained from crime scene security cameras’ and from family and friends) and would allow submission of ‘civil photographs along with civil fingerprint submissions that were collected for noncriminal purposes,’” the EFF continues.

When all is said and done, the FBI will be able to use NGI to scan millions of entries in a single database to find someone based off of a single photograph, and the EFF fears that could send things down a slippery slope.

“Governmental use of face recognition — and the potential for misuse — raises many privacy concerns,” the EFF says in the lawsuit.

AFP Photo / Mandel Ngan

 Using statements already made by the FBI about the program, the EFF presents an argument about why they should be worried that’s hard to counter.

“The FBI has also stated in a public presentation given at a national biometrics conference that it wants to use its facial recognition system to 'identify unknown persons of interest from images' and 'identify subjects in public datasets,'” the complaint continues. “In the same presentation, the FBI included a graphic image that implied the Bureau wanted to use facial recognition to be able to track people from one political rally to another.”

Another digital watchdog group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, previously alleged that NGI system could be integrated with other surveillance technology in order to enable “real-time image-matching of live feeds from CCTV surveillance cameras.”

Obtaining information about how the FBI will manage and operate this information has been a priority for the EFF for over a year now, and the failure to comply with those FOIA requests has finally prompted the organization to ask a court to intervene.

"NGI will result in a massive expansion of government data collection for both criminal and noncriminal purposes," EFF Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch said in a statement this week. "Biometrics programs present critical threats to civil liberties and privacy. Face-recognition technology is among the most alarming new developments, because Americans cannot easily take precautions against the covert, remote and mass capture of their images."

The EFF is asking the court to enforce the FOIA requests sent last June and July, which could compel the FBI to disclose information about the face-recognition program and any plans to merge civilian and criminal records in a single database. They are also asking for the total number of face-recognition capable records currently in the database and an assessment of what number the agency expects to have when it rolls out the program in 2014.

"Before the federal government decides to expand its surveillance powers, there needs to be a public debate," Lynch said. "But there can be no public debate until the details of the program are presented to the public."

In a July 18, 2012 assessment, the FBI reported that the program was “on scope, on schedule, on cost and 60 percent deployed.” The program is being put together by contractors Lockheed Martin, who are expected to rake in $1 billion from the government by the time the NGI system is finally up and running.

The FBI previously admitted that they found 7,380 records that were "potentially responsive” to one of the EFF’s request, but has yet to deliver actual information pursuant to any of the three FOIA submissions filed, prompting the nonprofit to allege the FBI is “dragging its feet."

"FBI has not explained to the public how NGI or IAFIS's system design would ensure that civil submissions are not 'tainted' by criminal submissions or explained why it is necessary to combine the two types of data," the EFF wrote in the complaint.

U.S. Capitol building.(Reuters / Kevin Lamarque)

Seven million college students will see their student loan costs double on Monday, after a group of bipartisan lawmakers failed to agree on a plan to keep interest rates down.

The Senate adjourned for the July 4 recess on Thursday, but failed to keep interest rates on Stafford loans at the current 3.4 percent rate. The federally subsidized loans are set to expire on July 1, after which the interest rate cap will rise to 6.8 percent.

Congress’ Joint Economic Committee estimates that the average student will be paying $2,600 more starting July 1. On a $23,000 student loan repaid over 10 years, a student would be paying about $3,000 total interest.

“At one level it’s modest, but if you have an entry-level position or can’t find work, it starts to add up,” Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council of Education, told Fox News.

In order to keep interest rates down, lawmakers would have to extend the cap, set a new one, or find another way to keep rates low. A bipartisan group of senators introduced the “Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act”, which would have secured a 1.85 percent interest rate on undergraduate Stafford Loans, a 3.4 percent rate on graduate loans, and a 4.4 percent rate on PLUS loans that are issued to parents of students. But after paying little attention to the issue for the past 11 months, lawmakers failed to agree on this proposal and spent the past few weeks arguing about a solution.

“We’re tired of this being a political football,” Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said at a news conference with the co-sponsors of the bill. “This is a responsible program from the standpoint of the American taxpayer.”

Senate Democrats on Thursday advocated for a temporary one-year delay of the current Stafford loan rates, but Republicans opposed the idea, and the Senate adjourned for recess.

“Last year we kicked the can down the road and passed a one-year extension for only a small group of students… Why would we want to make the same mistake again and just kick the can down the road another year?” Burr told AP.

But Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) believes it would be best to extend current rates until Congress can come up with a better solution, to avoid the rise in interest rates.

“Students across this country would rather have no deal than a bad deal,” Reed said. “We’re at the point where we have to do our best to extend the 3.4 percent interest rate while we work on a good deal, not just any deal.”

Sen. Tom Harkin, the chairman of the Senate education panel, said lawmakers would consider a retroactive fix on July 10.  The US government is already forecast to make a record $51 billion profit from the federal student loan program this year at current interest rates, which Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) described as “billions of dollars off the backs of our students.”

If lawmakers fail to make a retroactive deal that would undo the impending spike in interest rates, US college students may find themselves unable to afford taking out a federal loan. 

AFP Photo

 In the latest revelations of the NSA leaks scandal, new slides have emerged thoroughly explaining the targeting process of the US government top-secret PRISM program deployed to spy on communication data of targets operating abroad. The screenshots published by the Washington Post, detail how PRISM tasks are issued by analysts and describes the approval process of an individual requests. To begin with, an NSA analyst "tasks" PRISM to gather information about a surveillance target.  The system then temporarily freezes that request and automatically ask for an approval from a supervisor.  If the superior decides that the request possesses a "reasonable belief" of perceived threat, then PRISM goes to work.

NSA slide published by the Washington Post

In the surveillance process, NSA often obtains its live data from the FBI that retrieves matching information, using government equipment from companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

With the participation of those companies, PRISM – and therefore Washington intelligence workers – "incidentally" have access to the bulk of Americans’ email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype) chats, file transfers and social networking details.
For stored data, the FBI deploys its own databases that review the selects request, before it is forwarded to the NSA. 

NSA slide published by the Washington Post

The information is then analyzed and processed by a system that can interpret voice, text, video and "digital network information.” The FBI interceptions from private firms are also being channeled to more "customers" at the NSA, CIA or FBI. Each target is then assigned a PRISM case notation which reflects the availability of real-time surveillance as well as stored data. 

NSA slide published by the Washington Post

 Depending on the access to private firm’s information, the NSA begins to monitor  live notifications of the target’s mobile logs. On the April 5 slide some 117,675 users were targeted in PRISM database.

NSA slide published by the Washington Post

Saturday’s revelations expand the slides that were revealed earlier in June, revealing the existence of the PRISM program, which mines data from the nine leading US Internet companies. Earlier information also revealed the world’s electronic communications flow and Washington’s control over providers. The NSA venture does not require individual warrants. It is also court approved and is administered through federal judges who rule on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

AFP Photo / Spencer Platt

 Eight people were wounded, one critically, in a shooting at a Brooklyn, New York, house party. Four men and four women were taken to a hospital. Shots were heard at a party in a residential area around 1am local time on Sunday, a spokesman for the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information at the New York Police Department confirmed.

Intel plant, Arizona (Image from thedroidguy.com)

 A massive nitrogen leak at an Arizona Intel plant caused the hospitalization of at least 11 people, with a further 46 needing medical treatment on Saturday morning. The severity of the injuries of those hospitalized is yet to be confirmed.

“This is not over,” Tom Dwiggins, spokesman for the Chandler Fire Department, told local news teams standing outside the facility where the leak began.

Those who were taken for treatment reported breathing problems and skin and eye irritation. Fire authorities from Chandler, Sun Lakes and Phoenix who arrived at the scene stopped short of evacuating neighborhoods in the area.

Fire crews managed to find the source of the leak, which has now been secured, according to Dwiggins.

“After meeting with the command staff, we've stopped the leak and there's no concern for [residents in surrounding] neighborhoods,” Dwiggins said.

The incident is still being investigated as it remains unclear what caused the problems.

The Intel plant in Chandler was only built last year, when it was decided that the facility would span 285,000 square feet. Intel announced at the time that it was specifically looking for military veterans with relevant training to fill new jobs at the semiconductor manufacturing plant. It claims to be the largest employer in Chandler.

US chemical plants in America have fallen victim to a number of unfortunate accidents this year, the most serious being April’s Texas fertilizer plant explosion in which 15 people died, and over a hundred were hospitalized.

More recently, two chemical plant explosions in Louisiana were rocked by massive blasts, with 77 injured and one killed in the first, and at least one dead and some seven injured in an accident in the same state only two days later.

Reuters / Stringer

Human Rights Watch has slated Saudi Arabia for violating international human rights obligations after it jailed seven people for up to 10 years for ‘inciting protests’ via Facebook. The indicted denied charges and said they were tortured into confession.

The sentencing after a two-month long trial took place on June 24, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which it has obtained the court judgment, and revealed the procedure “violates international human rights principles.”

The seven men were arrested between September 23 and 26, 2011. They have been kept in the General Investigations Prison in the capital of Saudi’s Eastern Province, Damman for a year-and-a-half without being charged. They have been tried by Specialized Criminal Court, set up in 2008 to deal with terrorism-related cases. The trial began on April 29.

The charges against the seven vary. However, they all have been accused of joining Facebook pages aiming to “incite protests, illegal gathering, and breaking allegiance with the king” and “of assisting and encouraging these calls are corresponding with the Facebook pages’ followers and concealing them,” the HRW cited the court judgment.

They have been also convicted of violating Article 6 of the Anti-Cyber Crime Law, which bans producing, sending, or storing any material via an information network that “harms public order.”

“Breaking allegiance [with the king] comes by way of arms and it comes by way of protests, marches, and writing articles and publications … the behavior of the [second] course … is sometimes the more dangerous and more malicious method,” the presiding judge concluded in the judgment.

None of the seven was accused of directly participating in protests, nor of using or advocating violence.

Abd al-Hamid al-Amer has got harshest sentence – 10 years in prison for founding two Facebook groups in early 2011 which supported of a prominent Shia sheikh and religious leader Tawfiq al-Amer, arrested for publicly calling for a constitutional monarchy.

Prosecutors said that those pages were used to call for followers “to join the movements” and “gave them ideas and guidance on the important sites in which to protest and set the timing [of the protests].”

All seven accused have admitted they participated in Facebook pages titled “al-Ahsa March 4 Youth Movement” and “The Free Men of al-Ahsa”, but did not know that was unlawful. Therefore, they denied accusations of having intentions to break allegiance with the king or harm public order, but the prosecution produced signed confessions.

During the trial, the accused reported to the court that confessions were signed under torture by the intelligence officers, but the judge overruled the claim as “not acceptable,” due especially to “their inability to prove the allegations of coercion and torture.”

According to one of the seven convicts’ family members, the men had not lawyers as they could not afford them.  Under Saudi Arabia’s Criminal Procedure Law, unlike in many countries, there is no provision for a public defender for those who cannot afford a lawyer, HRW reported.

Moreover, as Saudi Arabia has no written penal code, prosecutors and judges tend to criminalize acts based on their own interpretation of Islamic law.

HRW insists the whole procedure lacks clearness and violates “international human rights principles, such as those that prohibit arbitrary arrest and guarantee fair trials.”

The men intend to appeal their sentences. 

The HRW has stressed that the trial also comes against Article 15 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which Saudi Arabia ratified in 2009.

“No crime and no penalty can be established without a prior provision of the law. In all circumstances, the law most favorable to the defendant shall be applied,” the article states. 

The HRW has called on the European Union’s High Representative Catherine Ashton and EU member states’ representatives, who are meeting with their Gulf region counterparts in Bahrain on June 30, to condemn the convictions and publicly “press Saudi Arabia to stop jailing human rights activists and peaceful dissidents.”

“Sending people off to years in prison for peaceful Facebook posts sends a strong message that there’s no safe way to speak out in Saudi Arabia, even on online social networks,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “If the EU doesn’t raise these cases with Saudi officials this weekend, its silence will look like craven compliance with the rights abuses of an authoritarian state.”

The latest conviction of the seven followed a wave of similar cases of convictions of peaceful dissidents and human rights activists in June, according to HRW.

US President Barack Obama walks with South-Africa minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane during an arrival ceremony at Waterkloof Air Base in Centurion, near Pretoria on June 28, 2013. (AFP Photo / Jim Watson)

 President Obama’s trip to Africa is little more than a public relations stunt to a continent desperate for his help, Lawrence K. Freeman, editor of Executive Intelligence Review magazine, told RT.

RT: What can we expect from Obama’s three-nation tour, do you think?

Lawrence Freeman: There’s not going to be much accomplished. The purpose of the trip is not to help the African people to develop these African nations. This is a very calculated, glorified public relations tour to three countries and most people in Africa are going to realize, and do realize already, that this country is doing nothing to help their continent. And what they do know is that the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi, led by Obama and NATO, has been a catastrophe for north and West Africa in supporting various elements that have now allowed the destabilization of many of these countries, especially with the arms and the flow of Tuaregs and terrorists coming out of Libya. So the South African people are not pleased or happy with President Obama and he’s going to offer absolutely nothing except maybe entice private sector companies to make a few investments. But this is really pathetic in terms of what Africa needs.

RT: To what extent is this more about China’s influence there?

LF: Well there is this silly notion in the US that somehow China is our competitor in Africa. But in fact what China has done over the last recent period, five to ten years, is invest massively and construct all types of infrastructure projects throughout many African countries totaling tens of billions of dollars per year. So the US had to stop doing that 40 years ago. The US does not build infrastructure. The US does not provide government-backed investment in the kinds of projects that are necessary for the people of Africa. We’ve done nothing, for example, to develop water management in the African Sahel. We’ve done nothing to develop the Arab culture capability of these regions and therefore you have the spread of terrorism, the spread of insurgency because you have these alienated youth who see no future because their economies are dying. In fact Obama’s done less than George Bush and less than Bill Clinton even though he’s called the Son of Africa. So he has a record of failure and in fact he’s been supporting destabilization, such as the overthrow of Gaddafi, which has actually worsened conditions throughout Africa.

RT: In terms of visits, he had one brief visit to Ghana in 2009 and now this short visit. Why only that, why not more?

LF: He’s not really concerned. In 2009 he spent less than 24 hours and made one speech in Ghana. Here he’s visiting three countries - Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania - and avoiding going to other countries such as Nigeria, such as Mali, many other countries that are in the spotlight right now. He doesn’t have anything to offer them, the United States - the transatlantic community of Europe and the United States, the financial system, is collapsing. We see this throughout Europe and the United States, dying economically, politically, and culturally. We have no vision, we have no future. Obama cares nothing about the welfare of the South African people as he cares nothing about the welfare of the people of the United States. In fact he’s supporting a British policy of genocide throughout Africa by allowing destabilization and by allowing hunger and shortages of food and medicine to kill Africans in large numbers, and this is something that could be corrected and changed if we had a policy to do that.

Al-Qaeda linked al-shabab recruits walk down a street on March 5, 2012 in the Deniile district of Somalian capital, Mogadishu, following their graduation (AFP Photo / Mohamed Abdiwahab)

 Two top commanders of Somalia's Al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group have been killed by their own fighters, following power struggle inside the extremist organization.

One of the dead, Ibrahim Haji Jama Mead, also known as Al-Afghani, tops Washington’s wanted list of terrorists. Last June, the State Department placed a US$5 million bounty for information leading to his location.

The other, Abul Hamid Hashi Olhayi was also a top commander of the extremist group and one of the founders of the terrorist group.

"We have informed their widows of their deaths, as they must now wear the clothes of mourning," Shabab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab told AFP.

Al-Afghani’s sister confirmed the death but called it an execution while Shabab claimed that both men died in a battle.

"We deny reports that the men were killed after capture," Musab said. "The two men were killed in a shoot out after resisting arrest on court orders."

Al-Afghani - “The Afghan” - dubbed so for his activities in Afghanistan, held prominent positions in the Islamic extremist movement in Somalia occupying positions as first deputy leader of al-Shabab in charge of finance  and also as the head of al-Shabab's Kisimayo administration.

The man was believed to be representing Shabab’s hard-line faction that focuses on global jihad.  In the last few years, the insurgent movement has split into rival factions, based along clan lines and ideological differences.  It is believed that Al-Afghani challenged the command of top chief Ahmed Abdi Godane, also wanted by the US.

Security agents stand near the scene of a suicide bomb attack outside the United Nations compound in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, June 19, 2013 (Reuters / Feisal Omar)

A North Korean border guard post (AFP Photo)

North Korea has begun upgrading its artillery in frontline military units on the border with the South, deploying new guns able to engage targets deep within the neighboring state’s territory, South Korean media reports.

The North's military is replacing 107mm-caliber multiple rocket launchers with the improved 240mm guns, Yonhap news agency claims, referring to a government source. 

"We are detecting signs that the North is deploying the improved 240mm-caliber multiple rocket launchers, and the signs are showing up at some western and eastern front-line military units," Yonhap quoted the source as saying.

The unnamed official expressed concern that the new ordnance poses increased military threats to areas south of South Korea's capital region, near the border with the North.

There’s little data on the military equipment produces by North Korea, but according to Yonhap, the 240mm launcher has a range of 60km, while the improved version increases the range to 70km.

A Department of Defense report submitted to the US Congress on May 2 indicated that the North has a total of 5,100 multiple rocket launchers.

Pyongyang is believed to have deployed multiple rocket launchers with 107mm, 122mm and 240mm calibers on the border with the South.

Back in 2010, the North used it’s artillery to shell South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, killing two soldiers and two civilians.

The two Koreas technically remain ‘at war’ as the sides still haven’t signed a peace treaty after the Korean War ended in 1953.

Tensions mounted on the Korean Peninsula earlier this year after the North conducted new nuclear and missile tests.

Pyongyang threatened Seoul and the Washington with war and closed off the joint industrial zone in Kaesong, following a new round of international sanctions, but later expressed willingness to negotiate.

AFP Photo / Jean-Francois Monier

 Monsanto’s unapproved GMO wheat, which made its way onto an Oregon field and is feared to have contaminated US wheat supplies, was stored at a US government-controlled facility until at least late 2011.

The confirmation that the controversial strain of wheat was stored at the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins, Colorado, comes as US Department of Agriculture (USDA) investigates how the unapproved wheat ended up in an Oregon field this spring.

The documents detailing shipments of the bioengineered wheat received by Reuters consist of correspondence between Monsanto and the Colorado facility. The site can store seeds for decades while retaining their viability, much longer than is possible with conventional storage.

Monsanto insists the contamination of the field was sabotage. The company suggested earlier that someone was able to secretly access bioengineered wheat, which had been made resistant to Roundup, a Monsanto-sold pesticide, and planted it in the Oregon field to damage Monsanto's work with biotech crops.

The USDA announcement of the discovered bioengineered wheat on an 80-acre farm in Oregon opened up a probe into the matter.

The plant was developed by Monsanto between 1998 and 2005, but was never approved or made into a commercial product.

The company has thus far failed to determine how the crop entered the environment, and insisted that all genetically-modified seeds stored at the high-tech Colorado facility were incinerated on January 5, 2012.

"At our direction, the seed was destroyed ... as it was old material and we had no plans for its future use," said Monsanto spokesman Thomas Helscher.

The seed storage at Fort Collins received 43 physical containers of Monsanto's wheat that contained more than 1,000 unique varieties, documents reveal.

Some of the wheat was also stored at Monsanto’s facilities in St. Louis, Missouri.

The USDA is currently trying to confirm that all Monsanto seeds were accounted for and destroyed as the company reports.

The agency is investigating how Monsanto’s GMO wheat was handled when transferred to Fort Collins in late 2004 and early 2005 after the contract for the storage of wheat was set in November 2004.

At the time Monsanto was in the process of shutting down work with the so-called ‘Roundup Ready’ wheat.

There is no indication that the GMO wheat made it to commercial supplies, but it cannot be held responsible for wheat sent elsewhere, USDA spokesman Ed Curlett said.

The contamination scandal has hurt US grain exports, as Japan and South Korea issued import restrictions in the wake of the discovery. US farmers have filed several lawsuits seeking damages from Monsanto.

There had been worldwide protests held against GMO-companies, primarily Monsanto, which is viewed globally as a champion of bioengineered foods.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa speaks during his programme 'Enlace Ciudadano', at the Refineria del Pacifico camp, in El Aromo, Manabi, 390 west of Quito, on June 29, 2013 (AFP Photo / Rodrigo Buendia)

Ecuador President Rafael Correa says Russia will decide the destination of former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, currently believed to be holed up at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. seeking safe passage to Ecuador after leaving Hong Kong.

"At this moment, the solution of Snowden's destination is in the hands of Russian authorities," Correa said in an interview with the private Oromar channel, according to AFP.

"We have not sought out this situation. Snowden is in contact with [WikiLeaks founder Julian] Assange, who recommended he seek asylum in Ecuador," Correa stated.

Meanwhile, President Putin's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday that Snowden's fate is not on the Kremlin's agenda.

He said that Vladimir Putin had already voiced his take on the issue on Tuesday, when he confirmed that Snowden was in Moscow indeed, as a transit passenger, and rejected the US demands for the leaker’s extradition.

“We can only extradite foreign citizens to such countries with which we have signed the appropriate international agreements on criminal extradition,” Putin said, adding that as Snowden had committed no crime on Russian soil, he is free to travel at will.

"Snowden is a free person. The sooner he chooses his final destination, the better it is for him and Russia," he stated.

"On top of this," Peskov went on, "the president pointed out that he is not tackling this issue and prefers appropriate services to deal with it. Therefore, this subject matter is not on the Kremlin agenda."

"Given that it's not our issue, I don't know what kind of further development of the events and which legal and other aspects of the subject matter could follow. I can neither say anything, nor explain or give an appraisal," Peskov added.

Washington wants the 30-year-old Snowden, who faces espionage charges, over his leaking of details about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) dragnet telephone and internet surveillance programs.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa speaks during his programme 'Enlace Ciudadano', at the Refineria del Pacifico camp, in El Aromo, Manabi, 390 west of Quito, on June 29, 2013 (AFP Photo / Rodrigo Buendia)

'Decision ours to make'

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been residing in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for over a year, said during a conference call with the media broadcast by RT that Snowden had been given special refugee documents by the Ecuadorian government which facilitated his travel to Russia. But the country's top Foreign Ministry official said on Wednesday that Ecuador has not granted Edward Snowden any refugee documents.

Correa also said that he didn't authorize travel documents that the diplomats in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London issued to Snowden. He explained that London consul Fidel Narvaez gave the document to Snowden, "exceeding his authority in doing so."

"[Narvaez] will be punished," Correa promised. 

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (AFP Photo / Drew Angerer)

  On Saturday US Vice-President Joe Biden "cordially" asked Ecuador not to grant asylum to former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, according to Correa. He said his country will make a decision based on sovereignty.

Biden initiated the phone call, Correa said, mentioning that Biden's good manners were in sharp contrast to "those badly behaved and confused ones in the Senate who threaten our country," and who had promised to cut off Ecuador's trade benefits in response to Snowden's asylum request.

"He communicated a very courteous request from the United States that we reject the [asylum] request," Correa recalled.

In Correa’s weekly broadcast on state TV, the staunch critic of the US, said he vowed to respect Washington's opinion in evaluating Snowden's request, should the whistleblower arrive in Ecuador. However, his country cannot begin processing the request unless the National Security Agency leaker reaches Ecuador.

Correa explained that "when he [Snowden] comes to Ecuadoran soil, if in fact he ever does, and we have to process the request, the first people whose opinion we will seek is that of the United States."

"Just as we did in the Assange case with England [sic], we are going to listen to everyone but the decision would be ours as a sovereign nation," he added, according to AFP.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa speaks during his programme 'Enlace Ciudadano', at the Refineria del Pacifico camp, in El Aromo, Manabi, 390 west of Quito, on June 29, 2013 (AFP Photo / Rodrigo Buendia)

"The really grave thing is what Snowden has reported," AP quoted Correa as saying. "He will have to assume his responsibilities, but the grave thing is his reporting of the biggest massive spy operation in the history of humanity, inside and outside the United States."

Correa said that while he doesn't want "to harm his country" he is "not going to give up on the principles and the sovereignty" of Ecuador.

US Senator Robert Menendez, who heads the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, warned earlier this week that Ecuador’s stance in Snowden's case could hurt the country's international trade, which is highly dependent on exports to the US.

"Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior," the influential US lawmaker said.

European Parliament in the eastern French city of Strasbourg (AFP Photo)

 The president of the European parliament has demanded an explanation from US authorities over the latest revelation that EU diplomatic missions in Washington, New York and Brussels were under electronic surveillance from the NSA.

“I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of US authorities spying on EU offices,” said the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz. “If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations.”

“On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations," he added.

Meanwhile, Germany's justice minister also called for an immediate explanation from the United States saying the news that Washington bugged European Union offices was "reminiscent of the Cold War."

"It must ultimately be immediately and extensively explained by the American side whether media reports about completely disproportionate tapping measures by the US in the EU are accurate or not," Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in a statement.

Other EU diplomats also expressed shock concerning the latest batch of revelations in the NSA leak, reported by Der Spiegel magazine on Saturday.

"If these reports are true, it's disgusting,” Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told Der Spiegel.

"The United States would be better off monitoring its secret services rather than its allies,” Asselborn continued. “We must get a guarantee from the very highest level now that this stops immediately."

A spokesman for the Office of the US Director of National Intelligence had no comment on the Der Spiegel story, Reuters reported.

Der Spiegel, quoting from a September 2010 "top secret" US National Security Agency (NSA) document leaked by former CIA employee Edward Snowden, reported on Saturday the NSA was eavesdropping on the EU’s internal computer networks in Washington, as well as at the 28-member bloc UN office in New York.

The German magazine also reported that five years ago, the NSA also targeted telecommunications at the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, home to the European Council, where all EU member states have their offices.

Snowden, 30, fled the US for Hong Kong in May, just weeks before The Guardian and Washington Post published details he provided about a top-secret US government surveillance program that accumulated internet and telephone traffic both at home and abroad.

The whistleblower is presently in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, where it is believed he is attempting to gain political asylum in Ecuador.

Lode Vanoost, former deputy speaker of the Belgian parliament, believes that the main purpose of the US surveillance program was “economic spying” on the EU.

“At the moment, the EU is negotiating a new free trade agreement with the United States,” the former deputy speaker noted. “Well, [now the US can gather] what their opponent is already discussing internally of strategy. That is one of the possibilities.”

Vanoost also believes that part of the reason for the spying was due to the decline in US economic strength.

“On the economic level, [the US] is losing ground everywhere,” he said. “Look at what the BRIC countries are doing. The EU is having stronger ties with Russia, with Africa, with Latin America. And the US doesn’t seem to get its economic priorities imposed as it used to. So what I see is a big risk for economic spying.”

He added that there is “too much at stake” for there to be a total breakdown in US-EU bilateral relations, however, “behind closed doors there will be some very tough words” exchanged between EU and American officials.