Group items tagged

Hundreds of anti-Israeli demonstrators brought traffic to a standstill in London today after turning out in their droves to call for an end to military strikes on Gaza. Protesters crowded the streets outside the Israeli Embassy in Kensington High Street, west London, and some took it even further by standing on one of the city’s iconic double-decker buses. Waving placards which read ‘Gaza: End the Siege’ and ‘Freedom for Palestine’, demonstrators chanted and blocked the road as they protested against ‘Israeli aggression’ in the Middle East.

At least 17 people climbed on top of a London bus during the protest, with one holding a banner which read: ‘Judaism rejects the Zionist state and condemns its criminal siege and occupation’.Others lined the main road in Kensington High Street, preventing any vehicles from using the road for a short period.

However, despite the traffic jams and large crowds, police said the protest was largely peaceful as a whole.The demonstration came after the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which staged protests around the world today, called on people to ‘oppose Israeli aggression’. In a statement earlier this week, the group said: ‘This isn’t about rockets from Gaza. It’s about Israel fighting to maintain its control over Palestinian lives, and Palestinian land.

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton bought into the neocon/liberal-hawk agenda which spread the chaos of Iraq across Libya, Syria and now into Europe. How Clinton approached those challenges suggests that she would head down the same “regime change” path as President, Rick Sterling explains.

By Rick SterlingKey leaders from around the world are present at the United Nations this week to discuss critical issues; one of the most pressing is Syria. How did we get to this point with half the Syrian population (almost 12 million) displaced and under-populated but huge areas of Syria now controlled by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), Al Qaeda (Nusra) and other fanatical fundamentalist groups?Hillary Clinton’s 2014 book Hard Choices reveals important information about the first years of the Syrian conflict and how we got where we are today. Clinton’s account conveys the perception, priorities and bias at the top level of the Obama administration. The book describes policy differences within the administration and the common assumptions and goals which have led to the current disastrous situation.

Turkey threatens to deploy army to end unrest: Deputy PM says army could be called into action to restore order, as unions go on strike to protest police crackdown. Five Turkish trade unions begin nationwide demonstrations with one-day strike; Five trade unions are set to begin today a nationwide demonstration campaign and one-day strike following the harsh police intervention in Taksim the night of June 15, daily Hürriyet has reported. Turkey Protests: Government Targets Doctors Who Treated Injured Demonstrators: The Health Ministry had demanded a list of the names of all doctors who treated demonstrators from the Turkish Medical Association (TBB), the association said on Friday 14 June.

Istanbul (CNN) -- Trade unions claiming 240,000 members are throwing their weight behind anti-government demonstrations across Turkey. The KESK confederation of public sector workers was calling a two-day strike starting Tuesday to protest what it called the "fascism" of the governing party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has become one of the focal points of demonstrators' anger. They have united demonstrators from across the political spectrum against a common foe: security forces who unleashed tear gas and water cannon on them in response to what had been largely peaceful protests against Erdogan's government.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc on Tuesday apologized "for the police aggression against our citizens who were involved in the initial protests and acted with environmental concern," Turkey's semiofficial Anadolu news agency reported. But, Arinc said, "I don't think we owe an apology to those who caused destruction on the streets and who interfered with people's freedom." The Turkish Medical Association said that at least 3,195 people were injured in clashes Sunday and Monday. Of them, 26 were in serious or critical condition, it said. One protester, Mehmet Ayvalitas, died of his injuries, the association said. And the governor of Hatay in southeastern Turkey said that a 22-year-old man, Abdulah Comert, was killed with a firearm by unknown people during demonstrations late Monday, Anadolu reported.

The protests have spread to 67 of Turkey's 81 provinces, according to Anadolu.

Authorities in Cleveland, Ohio, are adding fuel to an already “combustible” atmosphere, some activists say, as the city readies extra jail space and courtrooms and shuts down a local university to house 1,700 riot police and their weapons in preparation for demonstrations at next week’s Republican Party convention. Democracy Now! reported Thursday that city officials “say some courts will be kept open almost 24 hours per day in case protesters are arrested en masse. Authorities have also opened up extra jail space to hold protesters.” The decision to shut down classes at Case Western Reserve University to house riot police drew ire from students and faculty,

Adding tension to the situation in Cleveland is the fact that several Black Lives Matter protests last week saw mass arrests and violent behavior from police, leading civil rights groups in Louisiana to sue the Baton Rouge police force for violating demonstrators’ First Amendment rights—not to mention the fatal police shootings of two black men in St. Pauland Baton Rouge a week prior. In Cleveland in particular, there is widespread distrust of the police department that fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice, and then lied about the circumstances of the killing to cover themselves. Police nationwide have also been on edge since a lone gunman ambushed a peaceful protest in Dallas, killing five officers. Moreover, it emerged on Thursday that officials from the FBI have been personally contacting civil rights activists associated with the Black Lives Matter movement to warn them that they shouldn’t show up at the convention, the Independent reports.

As Ohio has an “open carry” law allowing the open display of guns, observers expect many convention-goers to be armed. “Should violence break out during protests in Cleveland, open-carry activists bearing long-gun rifles may distract officers, frighten demonstrators, or inadvertently endanger themselves,” CityLab argued.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former director of policy planning in the US State Department (2009-2011), is President and CEO of the New America Foundation and Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

The solution to the crisis in Ukraine lies in part in Syria. It is time for US President Barack Obama to demonstrate that he can order the offensive use of force in circumstances other than secret drone attacks or covert operations. The result will change the strategic calculus not only in Damascus, but also in Moscow, not to mention Beijing and Tokyo.CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphMany argue that Obama’s climb-down from his threatened missile strikes against Syria last August emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to annex Crimea. But it is more likely that Putin acted for domestic reasons – to distract Russians’ attention from their country’s failing economy and to salve the humiliation of watching pro-European demonstrators oust the Ukrainian government he backed.CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphRegardless of Putin’s initial motivations, he is now operating in an environment in which he is quite certain of the parameters of play. He is weighing the value of further dismemberment of Ukraine, with some pieces either joining Russia or becoming Russian vassal states, against the pain of much stronger and more comprehensive economic sanctions. Western use of force, other than to send arms to a fairly hapless Ukrainian army, is not part of the equation.CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThat is a problem. In the case of Syria, the US, the world’s largest and most flexible military power, has chosen to negotiate with its hands tied behind its back for more than three years. This is no less of a mistake in the case of Russia, with a leader like Putin who measures himself and his fellow leaders in terms of crude machismo.

It is time to change Putin’s calculations, and Syria is the place to do it. Through a combination of mortars that shatter entire city quarters, starvation, hypothermia, and now barrel bombs that spray nails and shrapnel indiscriminately, President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have seized the advantage. Slowly but surely, the government is reclaiming rebel-held territory.CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraph“Realist” foreign policy analysts openly describe Assad as the lesser evil compared to the Al Qaeda-affiliated members of the opposition; others see an advantage in letting all sides fight it out, tying one another down for years. Moreover, the Syrian government does appear to be slowly giving up its chemical weapons, as it agreed last September to do.CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThe problem is that if Assad continues to believe that he can do anything to his people except kill them with chemicals, he will exterminate his opponents, slaughtering everyone he captures and punishing entire communities, just as his father, Hafez al-Assad, massacred the residents of Hama in 1982. He has demonstrated repeatedly that he is cut from the same ruthless cloth.CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphSince the beginning of the Syrian conflict, Assad has fanned fears of what Sunni opposition forces might do to the Alawites, Druze, Christians and other minorities if they won. But we need not speculate about Assad’s behavior. We have seen enough.

Muslim leaders of mosques in more than 30 cities nationwide are preparing for anti-Muslim marches planned for today.A Facebook group called Global Rally for Humanity has put out a call for anti-Muslim demonstrations "in every country at every Mosque." One spin-off group, organizing a rally in Dearborn, Mich., encouraged demonstrators to show up armed, noting that Michigan is "an open carry state." Earlier this week, the Council for Islamic-American Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights group, released a statement urging Muslim leaders around the country to take extra precautions ahead of the planned demonstrations.

In recent weeks, Republican presidential candidates have added their own anti-Islam rhetoric to the public discourse. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson came under fire for saying he didn't believe a Muslim would be fit to serve as President. Weeks before, front-runner Donald Trump was criticized for refusing to correct a questioner who said President Obama was Muslim and "not even an American."This weekend's protests are far from the first round of violent demonstrations at Muslim religious and cultural facilities. In May, armed protesters surrounded a mosque in Phoenix.

Everyone has noticed the contradiction of those who recently characterized the Islamic Emirate as "freedom fighters" in Syria and who are indignant today faced with its abuses in Iraq. But if that speech is incoherent in itself, it makes perfect sense in the strategic plan: the same individuals were to be presented as allies yesterday and must be as enemies today, even if they are still on orders from Washington. Thierry Meyssan reveals below US policy through the particular case of Senator John McCain, conductor of the "Arab Spring" and longtime partner of Caliph Ibrahim.

ohn McCain is known as the leader of the Republicans and unhappy 2008 US presidential candidate. This is, we will see, only the real part of his biography, which serves as a cover to conduct covert actions on behalf of his government. When I was in Libya during the "Western"attack, I was able to view a report of the foreign intelligence services. It stated that, on February 4, 2011 in Cairo, NATO organized a meeting to launch the "Arab Spring" in Libya and Syria. According to this document, the meeting was chaired by John McCain. The report detailed the list of Libyan participants, whose delegation was led by the No. 2 man of the government of the day, Mahmoud Jibril, who abruptly switched sides at the entrance of the meeting to become the opposition leader in exile. I remember that, among the French delegates present, the report quoted Bernard-Henry Lévy, although officially he had never exercised functions within the French government. Many other personalities attended the symposium, including a large delegation of Syrians living abroad.

Emerging from the meeting, the mysterious Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook account called for demonstrations outside the People’s Council (National Assembly) in Damascus on February 11. Although this Facebook account at the time claimed to have more than 40,000 followers, only a dozen people responded to its call before the flashes of photographers and hundreds of police. The demonstration dispersed peacefully and clashes only began more than a month later in Deraa. [1] On February 16, 2011, a demonstration underway in Benghazi, in memory of members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya [2] massacred in 1996 in the Abu Selim prison, degenerated into shooting. The next day, a second event, this time in memory of those who died by attacking the Danish consulate during the Muhammad cartoons affair, also degenerated into shooting. At the same time, members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya ,coming from Egypt and coordinated by unidentified, hooded individuals, simultaneously attacked four military bases in four different cities. After three days of fighting and atrocities, the rebels launched the uprising of Cyrenaica against Tripolitania [3]; a terrorist attack that the western press falsely presented as a "democratic revolution" against "the regime" of Muammar el-Qaddafi.

In what was called “Britain’s biggest anti-nuclear weapons rally in a generation,” tens of thousands took to the streets of London on Saturday to protest the UK’s nuclear weapons system—Trident—and to call for global disarmament. According to the Guardian, “Campaigners gathered from across the world: some said they had traveled from Australia to protest against the renewal of Trident. Others had come from the west coast of Scotland where Britain’s nuclear deterrent submarines are based.”

Organized by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the demonstration comes ahead of a parliamentary decision on whether or not to replace Trident, the UK’s nuclear weapons system, comprised of four submarines carrying up to 40 nuclear warheads apiece. Such an endeavor would cost least £41bn, UK government officials have said.

Other political figures, including longtime anti-war activist and Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, also backed the demo. Speaking to the crowd on Saturday, Corbyn said the demonstration was “an expression of many people’s public opinion.”

ISTANBUL — Taksim Square was engulfed in chaos on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning as riot police using tear gas and water cannons forced thousands of protesters from the square, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey struggled to contain a political crisis that has threatened the nation’s economy and paralyzed the government.

For nearly two weeks, the prime minister has remained largely defiant, demanding that protesters leave the square, placing armed police officers on standby to sweep the area and insisting that the demonstrations were nothing like the Arab Spring protests that ousted entrenched leaders. But as homemade firebombs and tear gas wafted in the city center it seemed that Mr. Erdogan and his supporters had miscalculated the opposition’s tenacity and conviction.

On Monday, he offered to talk on Wednesday — but then sent the police back to clear out the protesters. By Wednesday morning, the operation had succeeded, but anger over Mr. Erdogan’s handling of the protests had not abated. The Associated Press reported from Ankara that thousands of black-robed lawyers left courthouses around the country on Wednesday to protest the behavior of the police. And a group of protesters that had been invited to meet with Mr. Erdogan did not include representatives of Taksim Solidarity, an umbrella organization, which said in a statement reported by the Zaman newspaper that while “police violence” continued around Gezi Park, such meetings would produce nothing. The outcome of that meeting, which began late in the afternoon, was not immediately clear.

The 29-year-old former NSA contractor and source of the Guardian's NSA files coverage will – with the help of Glenn Greenwald – take your questions today on why he revealed the NSA's top-secret surveillance of US citizens, the international storm that has ensued, and the uncertain future he now faces. Ask him anything.

I did not reveal any US operations against legitimate military targets. I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous. These nakedly, aggressively criminal acts are wrong no matter the target. Not only that, when NSA makes a technical mistake during an exploitation operation, critical systems crash. Congress hasn't declared war on the countries - the majority of them are our allies - but without asking for public permission, NSA is running network operations against them that affect millions of innocent people. And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we're not even fighting? So we can potentially reveal a potential terrorist with the potential to kill fewer Americans than our own Police? No, the public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the "consent of the governed" is meaningless.

I was debriefed by Glenn and his peers over a number of days, and not all of those conversations were recorded. The statement I made about earnings was that $200,000 was my "career high" salary. I had to take pay cuts in the course of pursuing specific work. Booz was not the most I've been paid.

"Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence … from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurances and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable … the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that's good." ~ George Washington

I am an American. As such, none of my rights depend on a showing of need. I am a free man who has the right to define and pursue my happiness in any peaceful way I see fit. The government does not grant me rights. I was born free. The legitimate role of government is to act as my agent to protect my rights; which exist independent of government. Americans do not beg the government for rights nor are they required to demonstrate a "need" for rights.

Government never has a more tempting opportunity to increase its size, power and scope, and to curtail the liberties of free people, than during or immediately after a crisis. Indeed, crisis is so tempting an opportunity for government that governments invent crisis whenever possible. This is why "emergency acts" and "wars" on anyone and anything are so popular for governments. Nothing entices people to stop thinking, act impulsively, and to relinquish liberties so easily as a "crisis" or a "tragedy" or an "emergency." We need to be smarter if liberty is to survive.

New details have surfaced regarding the surveillance protocols used by Bank of America to keep tabs on social activists. Last year, Anonymous hacktivists published 14 gigabytes of private emails and spreadsheets which revealed that Bank of America was monitoring social media and other online services used by activists for basic communication. This time however, information about the bank’s recent surveillance activities were obtained legally through a public records request by a single petitioner. The newly published documents reveal a coordinated effort by Bank of America, the Washington State Patrol (WSP), and federal counterterrorism agencies, to monitor activists as they prepared for a public demonstration in Olympia, Wash. Over 230 people originally signed up to attend the “Million Mask March” event, which was organized by the Anonymous movement and took place on November 5, 2013. Although an official report by the WSP described the event as a “peaceful protest” being organized by activists who had made “no threats of violence,” those involved were still monitored by the department before the event took place. Information gathered about the potential protesters was then shared with Bank of America. Furthermore, Bank of America solicited information about activists from various federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to Andrew Charles Hendricks, an activist who originally acquired the documents, the emails included the home address of a demonstration organizer. Hendricks claims he redacted the address before publishing the documents online. The relationship between Bank of America and the WSP, as well as their long-term investment in surveillance, is highlighted by an email sent on September 23, 2013. Kim Triplett-Kolerich, an intelligence analyst for Bank of America requested that WSP share any intelligence gathered on activists taking part in the Million Mask March with the bank. She began the email by identifying herself as a former officer and provided her former rank. “From time to time I will see items that I believe will be of use to my friends at WSP—especially during session,” she told the officer. “May Day I will pick your brain for intel and I will give you a lot also,” she wrote.

Triplett-Kolerich concluded her email by boasting that the surveillance tactics used by Bank of America to monitor activists online was superior to that of the WSP. “I will most likely find it first as social media trolling is not what WSP does best. Bank of America has a team of 20 people and that’s all they do all day and then pass it to us around the country!!!” On October 24, an email was sent by a sergeant at the WSP’s Special Operations Division to an executive aide at the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office. The sergeant notified the office that a large number of arrests may take place during the Million Mask March, which could impact the jail. Attached to the letter was a message written by an Anonymous activist, and a link to its Facebook event page where the names of those planning to attend the march could be seen.

A German TV investigation disproves the West's claim that Yanukovych was responsible for killing of dozens of Ukrainian protestors, making this President Obama's WMD moment.

Now joining us is Michael Hudson. He is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His two newest books are The Bubble and Beyond and Finance Capitalism and Its Discontents.

The big news is all about the Ukraine. And it's about the events that happened in the shootings on February 20. Late last week, the German television program ARD Monitor, which is sort of their version of 60 Minutes here, had an investigative report of the shootings in Maidan, and what they found out is that contrary to what President Obama is saying, contrary to what the U.S. authorities are saying, that the shooting was done by the U.S.-backed Svoboda Party and the protesters themselves, the snipers and the bullets all came from the Hotel Ukrayina, which was the center of where the protests were going, and the snipers on the hotel were shooting not only at the demonstrators, but also were shooting at their own--at the police and the demonstrators to try to create chaos. They've spoken to the doctors, who said that all of the bullets and all of the wounded people came from the same set of guns. They've talked to reporters who were embedded with the demonstrators, the anti-Russian forces, and they all say yes. All the witnesses are in agreement: the shots came from the Hotel Ukrayina. The hotel was completely under the control of the protesters, and it was the government that did it.

A recent article written by this writer for Global Research posted last Saturday – “The Benghazi Scandal Is Obama’s Watergate But Worse” – was written in an effort to seek and uncover the truth. Accurate reporting on major world events is a challenge in today’s world where propaganda and disinformation are mainstream media norms and where virtually all major players in American politics simply lie through their teeth every time they open their mouths in constant effort to look good and cover up the truth. The American public knows this pathetic and sobering fact that deception has come to rule in the world of both politics and the media. People today neither believe their newscasters nor their political leaders. That is why examining the content of the tidal wave of assertions and opinions spewing forth from politicians and pundits in the aftermath of the latest Benghazi revelations must be taken with a grain of salt. Again, truth in today’s world is hard to come by. But as an investigative reporter, presenting a brief overview of recent comments and statements for any informed citizen to process and digest seems a worthwhile and important enterprise.

A timeline of recently unfolding events: On 10/12/12 exactly one month after the Benghazi incident, the legal conservative group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking documents related to the Benghazi attack on September 11th, 2012 that killed the US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Obama, who had campaigned on a promise of transparency in the criminal wake of the Bush regime, has proven to be anything but open and transparent. Having to sue the US government for access to the records, on April 18th, 2014, a full year and a half later, the Obama administration’s stonewalling ultimately failed and Judicial Watch successfully got hold of 41 State Department Benghazi related documents. Emails between high level White House officials discussing damage control strategies in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi assault were released last week. Jubilant Republicans are now calling one of those emails their “smoking gun,” believing it is so incriminating that it will do in their would-be opponent Hillary Clinton from potentially competing in the 2016 presidential election.

The newly declassified email written by Obama’s then Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes specifically directed then UN Ambassador Susan Rice in preparation for her Sunday morning talk show appearances on September 16th, 2012 to explain the administration’s take on what it knew of the Benghazi murders. Rhodes advised Rice to attribute the Benghazi uprising as “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy,” pushing talking points designed to bolster Obama’s presidential image as a cool-as-a-cucumber-under-fire kind of wise and benevolent leader and statesman. The major emphasis of the email instructed Rice to blame the bogus anti-Moslem video as inciting a spontaneous protest like in other countries in the region that apparently grew violently out of control, of course all the while knowing that that was a boldface lie. This crucial piece of evidence proves that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both knew that the video did not cause the attack but that they chose to willfully deceive the American public in order to protect their own political careers and hence was born the infamously never ending Benghazi cover-up. Obama and Hillary withheld this damning email evidence even from the House Oversight Committee led by Congressman Darrel Issa (R-CA) requesting all documents pertaining to Benghazi more than a year ago. With the presidential election less than two months away at the time of the attack, Obama and Hillary were determined at all cost to keep hidden from Americans the real truth of criminal Benghazi activity they were guilty of engaging in during the months leading up to the attack. Last Thursday an angry Issa subpoenaed current Secretary of State John Kerry to appear before the committee on May 21st to further explain why those critical State Department records recently given to Judicial Watch were not among the 3200 documents originally handed over to his committee well over a year ago.

Macedonia has just neutralised an armed group whose sponsors had been under surveillance for at least eight months. By doing so, it has prevented a new attempt at a coup d’État, planned by Washington for the 17th of May. The aim was to spread the chaos already infecting Ukraine into Macedonia in order to stall the passage of a Russian gas pipeline to the European Union.

n the 9th of May, 2015, the Macedonian police launched a dawn operation to arrest an armed group which had infiltrated the country and which was suspected of preparing a number of attacks. The police evacuated the civilian population before launching the assault.

The suspects opened fire, which led to a bitter firefight, leaving 14 terrorists and 8 members of the police forces dead. 30 people were taken prisoner. There were a large number of wounded

Tens of thousands of Brazilians again flooded the streets of the country's biggest city to raise a collective cry against a longstanding lament — people are weighed down by high taxes and high prices but get low-quality public services and a system of government infected with corruption. That was the repeated message Tuesday night in Sao Paulo, where upward of 50,000 people massed in front of the city's main cathedral. While mostly peaceful, the demonstration followed the rhythm of protests that drew 240,000 people across Brazil the previous night, with small bands of radicals splitting off to fight with police and break into stores.

Mass protests have been mushrooming across Brazil since demonstrations called last week by a group angry over the high cost of a woeful public transport system and a recent 10-cent hike in bus and subway fares in Sao Paulo, Rio and elsewhere

The local governments in at least four cities have now agreed to reverse those hikes, and city and federal politicians have shown signs that the Sao Paulo fare could also be rolled back. It's not clear that will calm the country, though, because the protests have released a seething litany of discontent from Brazilians over life's struggles.

As readers of WhoWhatWhy know, our site has been one of the very few continuing to explore the fiery death two years ago of investigative journalist Michael Hastings, whose car left a straight segment of a Los Angeles street at a high speed, jumped the median, hit a tree, and blew up.Our original report described anomalies of the crash and surrounding events that suggest cutting-edge foul play—that an external hacker could have taken control of Hastings’s car in order to kill him. If this sounds too futuristic, a series of recent technical revelations has proven that “car hacking” is entirely possible. The latest just appeared this week.

Hackers, seeking to demonstrate the vulnerability of automobiles to remote attacks, were able to largely take over the Jeep Cherokee driven by a writer for the tech magazine Wired:Their code is an automaker’s nightmare: software that lets hackers send commands through the Jeep’s entertainment system to its dashboard functions, steering, brakes, and transmission, all from a laptop that may be across the country.They were able to make his car decelerate suddenly, causing the writer to “narrowly avert death” at the hands of a semi-trailer coming up behind him.In an earlier demonstration, they had been able to do similar things with other vehicles:In the summer of 2013, I drove a Ford Escape and a Toyota Prius around a South Bend, Indiana, parking lot while they sat in the backseat with their laptops, cackling as they disabled my brakes, honked the horn, jerked the seat belt, and commandeered the steering wheel.

All of this is increasingly drawing the attention—and action— of the authorities. U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Edward J. Markey (D-MA), members of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, introduced legislation Tuesday seeking to establish federal standards for security and privacy of drivers in today’s computer-laden cars.What we do not hear is any discussion about whether the risk has gone beyond the realm of possibility…to a reality.

We said it would be the UK's biggest demonstration for Gaza ever and it was. On Saturday 9 August, 150,000 marched from BBC Broadcasting House to Hyde Park, passing the US Embassy on the way. So many people turned up that when the front of the march reached Hyde Park, the back still had not left the BBC.