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(interview with a Swiss banker  done in Mosсow 30.05.2011)  Q: Can you tell us something about your involvement in the Swiss banking business?A: I have worked for Swiss banks for many years. I was designated as one of the top directors of one of the biggest Swiss banks. During my work I was involved in the payment, in the direct payment in cash to a person who killed the president of a foreign country. I was in the meeting where it was decided to give this cash money to the killer. This gave me dramatic headaches and troubled my conscience. It was not the only case that was really bad but it was the worst. It was a payment instruction on order of a foreign secret service written by hand giving the order to pay a certain amount to a person who killed the top leader of a foreign country. And it was not the only case. We received several such hand written letters coming from foreign secret services giving the order to payout cash from secret accounts to fund revolutions or for the killing of people. I can confirm what John Perkins has written in his book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". There really exists just a system and Swiss banks are involved in such cases.

The Imam of Lyon Grand Mosque, Kamel Kabtane, in eastern France revealed that he had received a letter containing death threats, pointing out that he would file a case against the sender. Imam Kabtane said that the death threat letter he received was written in four pages and included the words" personal "and" confidential" and it was sent to him at the mosque. He added that he received the day before at his home another threat letter from an unknown sender but apparently this death letter was also issued from the same person. In a copy of the death threat letter that was obtained by "Agence France Presse" the theater had written: a bomb will explode and you will not find a pig's head in front of the mosque but your head. The imam of the mosque said: we get about once a month threats from the same person but they did not include the same tone. The imam mentioned that he files a complaint every time to the Counter Terrorism Department of the police in Paris. The imam of the Grand Mosque showed his great concerns from the tone that was in the last threat letter he received.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has written a letter to members of the House telling them that voting for federal contractors to be more transparent about their political spending will negatively impact their legislative scorecard. "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce strongly supports legislative proposals to ensure that political spending -- or the lack thereof -- continues to play no role in federal contracting decisions," the Chamber's R. Bruce Josten wrote in the letter sent on Wednesday. "Therefore, the Chamber supports amendments that have been offered by Rep. Cole to several Fiscal Year 2012 appropriations bills considered by the full House, and any similar amendments should they be offered to the remaining FY 2012 appropriations bills," he wrote. Meanwhile, more than sixty members of the House signed a letter sent to the White House by Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA) which expressed strong support for a draft executive order which would require companies that get taxpayer dollars to disclose their political expenditures. Disclosure, the letter says, "will not politicize the procurement process -- it will improve it." "Political expenditures are already well-known to those that make them and to the officials who benefit," the letter states. "With disclosure, the public will have access to this information as well, allowing them to judge whether contracts were awarded based on merit. A meritorious procurement system is the only responsible use of taxpayer money, making this a deficit reduction effort as much as a campaign finance reform issue." Both the Chamber and House Republicans have argued that the proposed executive order -- first leaked in April -- is a plot by the Obama administration to silence political opponents. Supporters of the measure have said the executive order -- by bringing donations out into the open -- would actually discourage federal contracting officials from doing favors for contractors based on their donations to third-party political groups

Series of protests took place all over the world and didn't spare Pakistan - Muslim country. Muslims around the country came up with huge anger and disappointment against the making of anti-Islam film. In many other parts of the world, protests captured huge attention of the international media as U.S. embassies were burnt and stormed. For instance, Egypt, Syria, Yemen etc. Muslims gathered in a great number and raised their voice against the making of the film. In some parts of the world, U.S. flag had been burnt and replaced with a black flag having words written on it as "There is no God but God, and Mohammad is his messenger" A small budget movie named "innocence of the Muslims" was made by an individual of California and put over the internet. This movie didn't get any attention until the subtitles were poste din Arabic and sent to the Egyptian journalists. Movie made humiliates the sentiments of the Muslims as it tried to shun the image of beloved Prophet (peace and blessings upon him). Movie made touches the themes of paedophilia and homosexuality. In Pakistan, security measured were tightened by the local police and made sure no violence hit and destroy U.S. embassy. Recently, violence hit the security of the U.S. embassies in many Muslim countries. Many U.S. embassies such as in Egypt, Libya, Yemen were stormed by the protestors greatly. The brazen attack on the U.S embassy also killed an American; the angry souls were tickled by "video linked to Florida pastor Terry Jones, whose public burning of the Koran in 2010 led to deadly protests in Afghanistan. The film reportedly mocks the prophet Muhammad." as per the sources.

David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. A 13-year veteran of The New York Times, David won the Pulitzer in 2001 for enterprise reporting that uncovered loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code. He has written several best-selling books, including Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill). His latest, The Fine Print: How Big Companies Abuse "Plain English" and Other Tricks to Rob You Blind, will be published in September.

WikiLeaks is again publishing a trove of documents, in this case classified U.S. State Department diplomatic cables. The whistle-blower website will gradually be releasing more than 250,000 of these documents in the coming months so that they can be analyzed and gain the attention they deserve. The cables are internal, written communications among U.S. embassies around the world and also to the U.S. State Department. WikiLeaks described the leak as "the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain [giving] an unprecedented insight into U.S. government foreign activities."

Bush Family Ties to the Nazis... UNBELIEVABLY WELL DOCUMENTED AND WRITTEN ARTICLE... featured prominantly on RawStory.com

There are many solutions various governments have written into policies in counter-terrorism efforts as terrorists continue to dig their heals into a moral high ground that has consumed lives in many parts of the world. Many who study religious terrorism understand that the battleground was not drawn by religions, but by the interpretation of those whose fever for fanaticism prevails. In response, this ferocity has called upon itself moderates and centrists who want to write an epitaph to such self-righteousness, who want to see the end of the bloodshed.

Last week, the UK LibDem party was thrown into scandal when two of its Lords proposed an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill that would allow for national web-censorship, particularly aimed at "web-lockers" like Google Docs and YouSendIt. Now a leaked document from the British Phonographic Institute suggests that the amendment was basically written by the record industry lobby and entered into law on their behalf by representatives of the "party of liberty." This weekend, LibDem members who attend the national convention in Birmingham will have the chance to vote on an emergency measure affirming the party's commitment to an open and just Internet, repudiating this disastrous measure. If you (or someone you know) is attending the convention, please support the "Save the Net" emergency measure and help rehabilitate the party's reputation on fundamental freedoms in the information society.

Proving once again that special interests can "buy" the "support" of politicians of any stripe! And they can do so regardless of the "best interests" of the "majority of the people", who those politicians are supposedly morally (by honor) and legally (by oath) bound to represent!

Over the past couple years, I've written numerous times about the serious left-right coalition that had emerged in Britain -- between the Tories and Liberal Democrats -- in opposition to the Labour Government's civil liberties abuses, many (thought not all) of which were justified by Terrorism. In June of 2008, David Davis, a leading Tory MP, resigned from Parliament in protest of the Government's efforts to expand its power of preventive detention to 42 days (and was then overwhelmingly re-elected on a general platform of opposing growing surveillance and detention authorities). Numerous leading figures from both the Right and Left defied their party's establishment to speak out in support of Davis and against the Government's growing powers. Back then, the Liberal Democrats' Leader, Nick Clegg, notably praised the right-wing Davis' resignation, and to show his support for Davis' positions, Clegg even refused to run a Lib Dem candidate for that seat because, as he put it, "some issues 'go beyond party politics'."

In 1966, General Motors, the most powerful corporation in the world, sent private investigators to dig up dirt on an obscure thirty-two year old public interest lawyer named Ralph Nader, who had written a book critical of one of their cars, the Corvair. The scandal that ensued after the smear campaign was revealed launched Ralph Nader into national prominence and established him as one of the most admired Americans and the leader of the modern Consumer Movement. Over the next thirty years and without ever holding public office, Nader built a legislative record that is the rival of any contemporary president. Many things we take for granted including seat belts, airbags, product labeling, no nukes, even the free ticket you get after being bumped from an overbooked flight are largely due to the efforts of Ralph Nader and his citizen groups. Yet today, when most people hear the name "Ralph Nader," they think of the man who gave the country George W. Bush. As a result, after sustaining his popularity and effectiveness over an unprecedented amount of time, he has become a pariah even among former friends and allies. How did this happen? Is he really to blame for George W. Bush? Who has stuck by him and who has abandoned him? Has our democracy become a consumer fraud? After being so right for so many years, how did he seem to go so wrong? With the help of exciting graphics, rare archival footage and over forty on-camera interviews conducted over the past two years, "An Unreasonable Man" traces the life and career of Ralph Nader, one of the most unique, important, and controversial political figures of the past half century.

Of all the topics on which I've focused, I've likely written most about America's two-tiered justice system -- the way in which political and financial elites now enjoy virtually full-scale legal immunity for even the most egregious lawbreaking, while ordinary Americans, especially the poor and racial and ethnic minorities, are subjected to exactly the opposite treatment: the world's largest prison state and most merciless justice system. That full-scale destruction of the rule of law is also the topic of my forthcoming book. But The New York Times this morning has a long article so perfectly illustrating what I mean by "two-tiered justice system" -- and the way in which it obliterates the core covenant of the American Founding: equality before the law -- that it's impossible for me not to highlight it.

I've written before about the crisis of inequality in the United States and about the quasi-religious abhorrence of "wealth redistribution" that causes many Americans to oppose tax increases, even on the ultra rich. The conviction that taxation is intrinsically evil has achieved a sadomasochistic fervor in conservative circles-producing the Tea Party, their Republican zombies, and increasingly terrifying failures of governance. Happily, not all billionaires are content to hoard their money in silence. Earlier this week, Warren Buffett published an op-ed in the New York Times in which he criticized our current approach to raising revenue. As he has lamented many times before, he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary is. Many conservatives pretend not to find this embarrassing. Conservatives view taxation as a species of theft-and to raise taxes, on anyone for any reason, is simply to steal more. Conservatives also believe that people become rich by creating value for others. Once rich, they cannot help but create more value by investing their wealth and spawning new jobs in the process. We should not punish our best and brightest for their success, and stealing their money is a form of punishment. Of course, this is just an economic cartoon. We don't have perfectly efficient markets, and many wealthy people don't create much in the way of value for others. In fact, as our recent financial crisis has shown, it is possible for a few people to become extraordinarily rich by wrecking the global economy. Nevertheless, the basic argument often holds: Many people have amassed fortunes because they (or their parent's, parent's, parents) created value. Steve Jobs resurrected Apple Computer and has since produced one gorgeous product after another. It isn't an accident that millions of us are happy to give him our money. But even in the ideal case, where obvious value has been created, how much wealth can one person be allowed to keep? A trillion doll

A whopping 70,000 questions poured into Change.gov over the past week, in response to the Obama transition team's call for citizen queries to the President-Elect. After votes from about 100,000 people, the top ranked question asks Obama whether he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture and illegal surveillance by the U.S. government. I've been working with activist Bob Fertik to organize support for the question, and several progressive bloggers urged readers and Obama supporters to vote for it last week. Digby, who has written extensively about the Bush administration's abuse of the rule of law, recently reported on the progress:

Led by the Nobel Women's Initiative, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, along with seven other Nobel laureates, have written and sent President Obama a letter, urging him to reject the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. -- CW/RSN

A Libertarian rebuttal to the post two links down on my profile, written a little more intelligently than most, from somebody who I find myself liking a little - but still showing some of the glib blindness that drove me away from that movement. Eg. responding to the report of the selling of tainted meat by saying that one could prevent the problem by cooking the meat until it's medium (ie. greyish red, instead of grey outright, and only mostly tasteless). "See", she seems to be saying, "even without governmental regulation, you have a choice", not quite getting that it isn't a reasonable choice. Selling meat that doesn't have to be cooked to death to be safe is absolutely possible; my grocery does it with regularity and I cook it rare with regularity, without problems following. So is it reasonable that people in places where the merchants or those they buy from are not as ethical should have to maybe choose between enjoying their meals, or surviving them, just so that somebody else be slimy without undue interference? With how ever much charm, the author of this piece answers that question with a resounding "yes", and shows why Libertarianism is, as I've said, not about the promotion of personal freedom so much as it is about the promotion of personal irresponsibility.

One of my editors issued this challenge: "You may not use the words 'liberal' and 'conservative' in your writing for one week." I looked down at the sentence I'd just written: "She dropped her conservative bathing suit cover and, much to the delight of the male patrons (and a few of the females), she began to smooth warm baby oil liberally on her taunt, tan, seemingly-endless legs." Should I delete the line? No, he liked that kind of writing! No surprise there...

Planet Money has obtained a secret government report outlining what once looked like a potential crisis: The possibility that the U.S. government might pay off its entire debt. It sounds ridiculous today. But not so long ago, the prospect of a debt-free U.S. was seen as a real possibility with the potential to upset the global financial system. We recently obtained the report through a Freedom of Information Act Request. You can read the whole thing here. (It's a PDF.) The report is called "Life After Debt". It was written in the year 2000, when the U.S. was running a budget surplus, taking in more than it was spending every year. Economists were projecting that the entire national debt could be paid off by 2012.