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Here are the emails. An article written by Umar Cheema is also on the Web, will post link once I am on my laptop. http://cirp.pk/e-mail.htm (edit: although some names have been blacked out, you can still view them by taking mouse over the links! e.g. First email is by Hassan Noor.. to Mike Novell, tkrift (??), Amanullah Khan.. CC is Afnan Aleem) These basically proves that everyone in the Abbotabad commission (except Mr Ashraf Qazi), including a very senior judge and general, were working under the influence of Save The Children NGO Retired General Nadeem was directly working under them! Afridi was NOT tortured by ISI. He did give ISI some false statements which the ISI didn't dig deeper because it suited them! (Example he was working for CIA since 2008, not 2009 as ISI was led to believe) Edit: Here is the article: http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-Ne...s-Abbottabad-Commission-was-penetrated-by-CIA -- All these NGOs should be banned and thrashed! ISI should publically hang foreign agents! (Even if they are Generals)

The NGO has neither denied the email record and the contents it carried (when shown by The News for seeking version) nor offered specific comments but that: “Our assistance to the Abbottabad Commission and its members including Gen Nadeem was within the legal parameters and Abbottabad Commission mandate to find facts.” Nadeem was not available for comments, however, his close aide termed the allegations as utterly “rubbish and non-sense” when comments were sought after showing the email record A transcript of internal wrangling: Muhammad Hassan Noor Saadi, deputy country director of Save the Children, met Gen (R) Nadeem on November 20, 2012 that followed his email to four senior colleagues. The report was primarily compiled by ‘our friend’, his email reads, and was endorsed by the Chairman but one of the members, Ashraf Qazi, was not in agreement with them. He wrote a dissenting note criticising Chairman Justice (R) Javed Iqbal and Gen (R) Nadeem ‘for being soft on certain institutions (including Save the Children).’

Another member, Abbas Khan, was neither willing to sign the report in its current shape, discloses email record, nor wanted to put a dissenting note hence decided to prolong his stay in the US where he went on the ‘pretext of medical ground’. More alarmingly, the NGO was granted access to the Commission’s report well before it was sent to the prime minister. Save the Children had uninterrupted access to the four drafts prepared in June 2012 by the members including the chairman, email record available with The News indicates. All favours granted to Save the Children on behalf of the Commission were in clear breach of public trust raising question marks about the integrity of the members. The chairman of the NGO, Save the Children, was contacted by The News. He initially agreed to meet but later stopped taking calls and did not respond to messages sent to him.Nadeem also felt confident, the email record shows, that he would be able to convince the panel with the answers given by the NGO and urge his colleagues to go by the facts presented by Save the Children instead of believing on the contents of Afridi’s statement. Gen (R) Nadeem also advised the NGO, an email of the country director reads, to fight the expulsion of our expatriate as otherwise the ISI would move quickly to close down the country programme before the Commission report comes out.

While Iraq’s premier ordered on Saturday more air support for security forces and allied tribesmen fighting jihadists, Washington plans to buy arms for Sunni tribal members  in the western province of Anbar including AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds. The United States planning to arm the Sunni tribesmen in Anbar comes after Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants killed 25 members of the anti-jihadist Albunimr tribe. The decision is to help bolster the battle against ISIS militants in the Sunni-stronghold province, Reuters reported Saturday citing a Pentagon document being prepared for the Congress.

After months of internal wrangling, the Senate Intelligence Committee is finally set to release its report on President George W. Bush-era CIA practices, which among other details will contain information about foreign countries that aided in the secret detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists. Several U.S. officials told us that the negotiations are nearly complete between the Central Intelligence Agency and the committee's Democratic staff, which prepared the classified 6,300-page report and its 600-page, soon-to-be-released declassified executive summary. Dianne Feinstein, the committee's chairman, is set to release the summary early next week. Her staff members had objected vigorously to hundreds of redactions the CIA had proposed in the executive summary. After an often-contentious process to resolve the disputes, managed by top White House officials, Feinstein was able to roll back the majority of the disputed CIA redactions.

Among the most significant of Feinstein’s victories, the report will retain information on countries that aided the CIA program by hosting black sites or otherwise participating in the secret rendition of suspected terrorists. The countries will not be identified by name, but in other ways, such as code names like “Country A.” This falls short of Feinstein’s original desire, which was to name the countries explicitly, but represents a big victory for the committee nonetheless. In a victory for the CIA, Feinstein reluctantly agreed to allow the redactions of the pseudonyms of agency personnel mentioned in the report. The CIA maintained that any reference to individuals working under cover that offered clues to their identities could place them in harm’s way. “We need to understand the role that particular countries played across time. Even having pseudonyms for countries in the report is important for a full accounting,” said Raha Wala, senior counsel at Human Rights First, which advocated on behalf of the report’s declassification.

The CIA and some Republican senators had argued that even such masked identifications could be deciphered, leading to compromised relationships with those countries’ governments. In June 2013, the top intelligence official at the State Department, Philip Goldberg, wrote a classified letter to Congress warning against the disclosure of the names of countries who had participated in the program.

Approximately 1,000 paratroopers from the Army’s famed 82nd Airborne Division will deploy to Iraq early next year to help the Iraqi security forces take on the Islamic State, the Pentagon announced Friday. The soldiers from the 82nd’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., will begin to deploy in late January to train, advise and assist the ISF, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters. Their mission is part of the coalition effort to build up the Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga so that they can recapture territory from Islamic State militants.

The paratroopers are preparing for a nine-month deployment, according to a spokeswoman for the 82nd Airborne. Approximately 300 troops from other Army, Air Force and Marine Corps units will also deploy to provide “enabler” support in areas such as counterintelligence, logistics, and signals, Kirby said. Last month, President Barack Obama authorized an additional 1,500 troops to deploy to Iraq to participate in the train, advise and assist mission. The deployment of elements of the 82nd Airborne is part of that initiative. On Thursday, Lt. Gen. James Terry, the commander of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, told reporters that other countries in the coalition are expected to contribute to another 1,500-strong force for the capacity-building effort.

Terry said the training effort “takes some patience,” and it will take “a minimum of three years” to fully build the capabilities of Iraqi forces. U.S. troops already in Iraq are laying the groundwork for the training program. But on Tuesday, Kirby said it will be “several months” before the formal training effort gets under way. The plan is to train nine Iraqi army brigades and three peshmerga brigades at four training sites throughout Iraq. On Friday, Kirby declined to identify the location of the sites, saying that force protection measures are still being put in place. The additional advisers will be in Anbar province and areas north of Baghdad, according to Kirby. He said the training and advising will take place at bases and higher headquarters, not near the front lines of the fighting.

Buried amid details of “rectal rehydration” and waterboarding that dominated the headlines over last week’s Senate Intelligence Committee findings was an alarming detail: Both the committee’s summary report and its rebuttal by the CIA admit that a source whose claims were central to the July 2004 resumption of the torture program  — and, almost certainly, to authorizing the Internet dragnet collecting massive amounts of Americans’ email metadata — fabricated claims about an election year plot. Both the torture program and President Bush's warrantless wiretap program, Stellar Wind, were partly halted from March through June of 2004. That March, Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith prepared to withdraw Pentagon authorization for torture, amid growing concern following the publication of pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib, and a May 2004 CIA inspector general report criticizing a number of aspects of the Agency's interrogation program. On June 4, 2004, CIA Director George Tenet suspended the use of torture techniques.

During the same period, the DOJ lawyers who pushed to stop torture were also persuading President George W. Bush to halt aspects of Stellar Wind, a program that conducted warrantless wiretapping of Americans’ communications inside the U.S., on top of the Internet metadata. After a dramatic confrontation in the hospital room of Attorney General John Ashcroft on March 10, 2004, acting Attorney General Jim Comey and Goldsmith informed Bush there was no legal basis for parts of the program. Ultimately, Bush agreed to modify aspects of it, in part by halting the collection of Internet metadata. But even as Bush officials suspended that part of the program on March 26, they quickly set about finding legal cover for its resumption. One way they did so was by pointing to imminent threats — such as a planned election-season attack — in the United States.

The CIA in March 2004 received reporting from a source the torture report calls "Asset Y,” who said a known Al-Qaeda associate in Pakistan, Janat Gul — whom CIA at the time believed was a key facilitator — had set up a meeting between Asset Y and Al-Qaeda's finance chief, and was helping plan attacks inside the United States timed to coincide with the November 2004 elections. According to the report, CIA officers immediately expressed doubts about the veracity of the information they’d been given by Asset Y. A senior CIA officer called the report "vague" and "worthless in terms of actionable intelligence." He noted that Al Qaeda had already issued a statement “emphasizing a lack of desire to strike before the U.S. election” and suggested that since Al-Qaeda was aware that “threat reporting causes panic in Washington” and inevitably results in leaks, planting a false claim of an election season attack would be a good way for the network to test whether Asset Y was working for its enemies. Another officer, assigned to the group hunting Osama bin Laden, also expressed doubts. In its rebuttal to the Senate report, the CIA argues the agency was right to take seriously Asset Y’s reporting , in spite of those initial doubts. The CIA wrote numerous reports about the claim “even as we worked to resolve the inconsistencies.” Reports from detainee Hassan Ghul, who was captured in January 2004, supported the possibility that a cell of Al-Qaeda members in Pakistan’s tribal areas might be planning a plot of which he was unaware. And the CIA corroborated other parts of Asset Y's reporting.

The Israel Electric Corporation CEO Eli Glickman warned Israel's security chiefs in a letter sent Sunday that the company would have to limit electricity to territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority and the Jerusalem District Energy Company (JEDCO) – which buys electricity from Israel and sells it to various cities in the West Bank – because of a debt totalling NIS 1,700,843,315.

The letter noted that as of December 31, debt owed by the Palestinian Authority and the Jerusalem District Electricity Company amounted to more than NIS 1.7 billion, of which NIS 1,054,914,845 were from the JDECO, and NIS 645,928,470 from the PA.  

It appears that the Russians got tired of waiting.  I suggest that you all carefully parse the Statement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs I posted earlier today.  This is an interesting document because besides an explanation of the Russian decision to move it, it is also, potentially, a legal defense or an unprecedented Russian decision: to overtly violate the Ukrainian sovereignty.  Let me explain. First, the case of Crimea was also a "special case".  The Russian were legally present there and, in the Russian rationale, all the "Polite Armed Men in Green" did was to protect the local population to make it possible for the latter to freely express its will.  Only after that will was expressed did Russia agree to formally re-incorporate Crimea into Russia.  So from the legal Russian point of view, none of the Russian actions in Crimea included any form of  violation of Ukrainian sovereignty.  I know, most western analyst will not agree, but that is the official Russian stance.  And official stances are important because they form the basis for a legal argument.

Second, the aid which Russia has been sending to Novorussia has been exclusively covert.  Covert operations, no matter their magnitude, do not form the basis for a legal position.  The official position of Moscow has been that not only was there absolutely no military aid to Novorussia, but even when Ukie artillery shells landed inside Russia did the Kremlin authorize any retaliation, again in (official) deference to the Ukrainian national sovereignty. This time, however, there is no doubt at all that the Russians did deliberately and officially chose to ignore Kiev and move in.  Now, in fact, in reality, this is clearly the logically, politically and morally right thing to do.  But in legal terms, this clearly a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty.  From a legal point of view, the Ukies had the right to keep the Russian convoy at the border for another 10'000 years if they wanted and Russia had no legal right to simply move in.  What apparently happened this morning is that the Ukie officials did not even bother showing up, so the Kremlin just said "forget it!" and ordered the trucks in.

The US and their main agent in Kiev, Nalivaichenko, immediately and correctly understood the threat: not only did this convoy bring much needed humanitarian aid to Lugansk, it also provided a fantastic political and legal "cover" for future Russian actions inside Novorussia.  And by "actions" I don't necessarily mean military actions, although that is now clearly and officially possible.  I also mean legal actions such as recognizing Novorussia.  From their point of view, Obama, Poroshenko, Nalivaichenko are absolutely correct to be enraged, because I bet you that the timing, context and manner in which Russia moved into Novorussia will not result in further sanctions or political consequences.   Russia has now officially declared the Ukie national sovereignty as "over" and the EU will probably not do anything meaningful about it. That, by itself, is a nightmare for Uncle Sam. Furthermore, I expect the Russian to act with a great deal of restraint.  It would be stupid for them to say "okay, now that we violated the territorial integrity of the Ukraine and ignored its sovereignty we might as well bomb the junta forces and move our troops in".  I am quite confident that they will not do that.  Yet.  For the Russian side, the best thing to do now is to wait.  First, the convoy will really help.  Second, it will become a headache for the Ukies (bombing this convey would not look very good).  Third, this convoy will buy enough time for the situation to become far clearer.  What am I referring to here?

Russia has announced plans to send a second aid convoy to rebel-held eastern Ukraine, where months of fighting have left many buildings in ruins.Russia unilaterally sent about 200 tractor-trailers across the border on Friday, a move characterised by the Kiev government as an invasion.Even though the white-tarpaulined vehicles returned to Russia on Saturday without incident, the announcement of another convoy is likely to raise fresh suspicions that Russia is supplying the rebels.Russia's unilateral dispatch of over 200 trucks into Ukraine on Friday was denounced by the Ukrainian government as an invasion and condemned by the US, the European Union and Nato.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Monday that Russia had notified the Ukrainian government that it was preparing to send a second convoy along the same route in the coming days.Lavrov also said the food, water and other goods delivered to the hard-hit rebel city of Luhansk by the first convoy were being distributed on Monday with the participation of the International Committee of the Red Cross.There was no immediate confirmation by the Red Cross.

End Torture, Shut Down the CIA! Written by Ron Paul Sunday July 27, 2014

Remember back in April, 2007, when then-CIA director George Tenet appeared on 60 Minutes, angrily telling the program host, “we don’t torture people”? Remember a few months later, in October, President George W. Bush saying, “this government does not torture people”? We knew then it was not true because we had already seen the photos of Iraqis tortured at Abu Ghraib prison four years earlier.   Still the US administration denied that torture was torture, preferring to call it “enhanced interrogation” and claiming that it had disrupted so many terrorist plots. Of course, we later found out that the CIA had not only lied about the torture of large numbers of people after 9/11, but it had vastly exaggerated any valuable information that came from such practices. However secret rendition of prisoners to other places was ongoing.

The US not only tortured people in its own custody, however. Last week the European Court of Human Rights found that the US government transferred individuals to secret detention centers in Poland (and likely elsewhere) where they were tortured away from public scrutiny. The government of Poland was ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to two victims for doing nothing to stop their torture on Polish soil.

U.S. President Barack Obama authorized sending surveillance aircraft, including drones, into Syrian airspace to gather intelligence on extremists ISIS militants, senior U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal. The Associated Press subsequently reported that the flights had already begun. The flights are a further acknowledgment that the group also known as Islamic State (IS) is a threat beyond Iraq, and the operations would inform any decision to conduct airstrikes near the ISIS haven of Raqqa in eastern Syria. Significantly, the missions will be carried out without coordination with or approval from the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Officials noted that regime "air-defense systems in eastern Syria won't pose a threat because sensors are either sparsely located or inoperable," WSJ reports.

The reconnaissance flight—which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in 2012—and its tragic consequences provided an important insight into the very tight working relationship between American and Turkish intelligence services in the fight against Kurdish separatists. Although the PKK is still considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, its image has been improved radically by its recent success in fighting ISIS in northern Iraq and Syria. PKK fighters—backed by U.S. airstrikes—are on the front lines against the jihadist movement there, and some in the West are now advocating arming the group and lifting its terrorist label. Documents from the archive of U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden that Der Spiegel and The Intercept have seen show just how deeply involved America has become in Turkey’s fight against the Kurds. For a time, the NSA even delivered its Turkish partners with the mobile phone location data of PKK leaders on an hourly basis. The U.S. government also provided the Turks with information about PKK money flows, and the whereabouts of some of its leaders living in exile abroad.

At the same time, the Snowden documents also show that Turkey is one of the United States’ leading targets for spying. Documents show that the political leadership in Washington, D.C., has tasked the NSA with divining Turkey’s “leadership intention,” as well as monitoring its operations in 18 other key areas. This means that Germany’s foreign intelligence service, which drew criticism in recent weeks after it was revealed it had been spying on Turkey, isn’t the only secret service interested in keeping tabs on the government in Ankara.

U.S. secret agents have also provided support to the Turkish government in its battle against the Kurdish separatists with the PKK for years. One top-secret NSA document from January 2007, for example, states that the agency provided Turkey with geographic data and recordings of telephone conversations of PKK members that appear to have helped Turkish agents capture or kill the targets. “Geolocations data and voice cuts from Kurdistan Worker Party communications which were passed to Turkey by NSA yielded actionable intelligence that led to the demise or capture of dozens of PKK members in the past year,” the document says.

Turkey’s foreign minister is preparing to attend key talks involving the US and Arab countries willing to participate in a coalition against the self-proclaimed jihadist Islamic State (IS) group. Thursday’s gathering in Saudi Arabia, an attempt to organise efforts to tackle the IS in Iraq and Syria, is to take place two days after a visit by Chuck Hagel, the US defence secretary, to the Turkish capital, where he discussed Ankara’s commitment to the planned US-led coalition.

It also comes a day after a prime-time address US President Barack Obama delivered on Wednesday night ordering expanded air strikes against the group that has declared a "caliphate" in eastern Syria and northern Iraq. Turkey has been criticised by Western governments for turning a blind eye to the flow of fighters into Syria, indiscriminately keeping its borders open to armed groups fighting the Damascus regime, once a close ally of Ankara. Hordes of foreign fighters from Turkey, the US and Europe have joined the IS, according to analysts, diplomats and a senior IS member. The IS member recently spoke to The Washington Post in a Turkish border town, explaining how fighters used Turkish territory for hospital treatment, accommodation and securing supplies.

Turkey has over the summer been ramping up efforts to control its 850km Syrian border with stricter controls, and called for Western countries to stop the flow of potential fighters to the country. Fehim Tastekin, a veteran Turkish journalist who has extensively reported from the region, believes that despite stricter Turkish controls, IS fighters and weapons continue to cross the border - but to a lesser extent. "The planned American operation against the IS will push Turkey to implement an even stricter border regime as an ally," Tastekin said, adding that the Turkish-Syrian border was not as crucial before the arrival of the IS.

Washington, D.C., September 12, 2014 – During the spring and summer of 1969, officials at the Pentagon, the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the White House debated and discussed the problem of the emergence of a nuclear Israel. Believing that Israel was moving very close to a nuclear weapons capability or even possession of actual weapons, the Nixon administration debated whether to apply pressure to restrain the Israelis or even delay delivery of advanced Phantom jets whose sale had already been approved. Recently declassified documents produced in response to a mandatory declassification review request by the National Security Archive, and published today by the Archive in cooperation with the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, show that top officials at the Pentagon were especially supportive of applying pressure on Israel. On 14 July 1969, Deputy Secretary of Defense (and Hewlett-Packard co-founder) David Packard signed a truly arresting memorandum to Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, arguing that failure to exert such pressure "would involve us in a conspiracy with Israel which would leave matters dangerous to our security in their hands." In the end, Laird and Packard and others favoring pressure lost the debate. While National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger supported some of their ideas, he also believed that, at the minimum, it would be sufficient for U.S. interests if Israel kept their nuclear activities secret. As he put on his draft memo to President Nixon on or around July 19, "public knowledge is almost as dangerous as possession itself." Indeed, Nixon opposed pressure and was willing to tolerate Israeli nuclear weapons as long as they stayed secret.

Earlier this year (2014), in response to a mandatory declassification review appeal filed by the National Security Archive in July 2009, the Interagency Security Classification Appeal Panel (ISCAP) declassified additional documents and information that shed brighter light on this highly sensitive policy debate. NSSM 40 is now declassified and published for the first time as is the formal interagency response to it. The intelligence reports prepared during the NSSM process remain classified, however. These along with other documents in the ISCAP release (including records that were declassified in 2007 and material published in 2006) elucidate the complexity and the enormous sensitivity of the internal debate over how far to apply pressure and what exactly the U.S. should ask of Israel. The interagency response revealed unanimity in goals-Israel should sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and halt its weapons program-but exposed significant divisions over how far Israel should be pressed and whether Washington should use military sales-in particular, withholding the delivery of Phantom jets, as leverage. There were also differences in how various officials assessed and conceptualized Israel's nuclear status at that time, and what commitments could realistically be asked of Israel. It might well be that the split of opinion between Defense and State allowed President Nixon even more freedom in making his own decision.

It appears now that a long memorandum written by Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Warnke, a holdover from the Lyndon Johnson administration, to the new secretary of defense, Melvin Laird, was important element in the instigation of NSSM 40. Believing that it would be a danger to US interests if Israel acquired nuclear weapons, Warnke argued in his memo of 15 February 1969 that the United States must respond to the new Israeli nuclear reality and asked Laird to "consider another serious, concerted, and sustained effort to persuade Israel to halt its work on strategic missiles and nuclear weapons." Warnke believed that Washington must be ready to exert heavy pressure on Israel, starting with a presidential demarche. The view that it would be a danger to US security interests if Israel acquired nuclear weapons was at that time a largely non-partisan matter. Senior Democrats and Republicans within both the Johnson and Nixon administrations held that view, and both Laird and his deputy David Packard were responsive to Warnke's arguments that the US should apply pressure. To some extent, as Packard suggested in his July memorandum, even Kissinger seems at one time to have been part of that consensus, though his views were somewhat more subtle and variable. This nonpartisan consensus highlights how at the end independent-in fact, secretive and aloof-President Nixon was as he made his own decisions on the matter. Thus, he ruled against using the Phantoms as pressure and in doing so left the United States with no leverage whatsoever.

The European Union could significantly scale back sanctions and resume discussions with Russia on issues from visa-free travel, cooperation with the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union and the crisis in Libya, Syria and Iraq if Russia moves to end the crisis in eastern Ukraine, according to an EU discussion paper. While insisting the EU cannot return to "business as usual" with Moscow, the paper suggests the EU consider gradually normalizing many aspects of its ties with Russia in what would be a significant shift in relations.

The paper, which hasn't yet been sent to member states, was prepared by the EU's foreign-policy arm ahead of a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. No immediate decisions are expected from that meeting where the EU's medium-term approach to Russia is the main item on the agenda. EU energy chief Maros Sefcovic will visit Moscow on Wednesday for discussions with top officials from the government and the state gas company Gazprom.

with some signs that the situation in eastern Ukraine could stabilize--or at least not deteriorate--there have been growing calls to seek ways out of the stalemate. Within days of taking office, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 leaders meeting in Brisbane, Australia. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has said that she will visit Moscow in early 2015 and insisted dialogue must be maintained. The paper raises the question of whether the EU needs "a more proactive approach," including a series of possible trade-offs, to induce policy change from Russia. "Such a process would need to be selective and gradual, and commensurate with the degree to which Russia responds positively," the paper said.

Urban Guerrilla Warfare Careful planning and preparation; Kalashnikovs; rocket-propelled grenade launcher; balaclavas; sand-colored ammunition vest stuffed with spare magazines; army boots; piece of cake escape in a black Citroen and the icing on the lethal cake; faultless Paris-based logistical support to pull that off. A former top French military commander stresses the perfect application of “urban guerrilla technique”.

In a pending lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the “no fly” list, in which the government has asserted the state secrets privilege, a federal court signaled that it would consider requiring judicial approval of “no fly” determinations involving U.S. citizens. Judge Anthony J. Trenga, who presides over the case Gulet Mohamed v. Eric Holder in the Eastern District of Virginia, set a hearing on February 24 to allow the government to supplement its argument that the case must be dismissed on state secrets grounds. Judge Trenga has previously rejected government arguments that state secrets required dismissal of the case and concluded the case could proceed without the assertedly privileged documents. (Secrecy News, 10/31/14). In a February 2 order, he told the government to be prepared to explain “how the under seal documents as to which the state secrets privilege is claimed preclude adjudication of the procedural due process claims without their use and disclosure.”

Beyond that, however, Judge Trenga hinted at a possible remedy to the constitutional challenge before the court involving independent judicial review of “no fly” determinations. He asked the government to address “whether, and if so how, national security considerations make it impractical or otherwise undesirable to submit for ex parte, in camera judicial review and approval the placement of United States citizens on the No Fly List, either before a citizen’s placement on the No Fly List or within a specific time period after placement on the No Fly List.” The upcoming hearing will be closed and ex parte.

Ukrainian food prices are rising at a rate faster than in the ‘90s. But the Yatsenyuk government is still blaming the situation on the ignorance of the population and speculation by supermarket chains.

They used to blame currency exchangers, now they are blaming supermarket directors. However, you can’t feed the people with such tales.

The government’s “economy block” hastily summoned the director of the Ukrainian State Reserve Vladimir Zhukov. They demanded that he open the storehouses and fill the shelves with flour, sugar, canned meat, and buckwheat from its stores. In response the keeper of Motherland’s strategic stores revealed a terrible military secret to Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko: the storehouses are empty.

The Ukrainian economy is bleeding out and rapidly approaching insolvency. The national currency, the hryvnia, has depreciated 68 percent in the past 12 months. Reports from Kiev indicate an ongoing disagreement between the central bank, which has tightened controls on capital movement to suppress capital flight, and Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who reportedly opposed capital control measures. The central bank lifted restrictions on capital movements on Yatsenyuk’s orders, sparking a further free-fall of the hryvnia, making it the world’s worst performing currency, according to Bloomberg. Ukrainian bonds have become the worst performing among 58 nations on Bloomberg’s Emerging Market Sovereign Bond Index, having plunged by 25 percent this year. Ukraine is now in the throes of a hyper-inflationary crisis, kept afloat by IMF loans that require gauging structural adjustments and austerity measures. GDP figures have dropped 6.5 percent in the last year, while the unemployment rate has climbed to 9.3 percent in 2014. The minimum wage has hit an all-time low of $43 USD, considerably below the wage equivalents of Bangladesh, Lesotho or Chad. According to reports, residents are considerably panicked as they stock up on foodstuffs in preparation for further economic turbulence. While a lull in fighting has taken place in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, the ceasefire remains extremely fragile. The new authorities in Kiev would likely impose martial law across the country if further fighting breaks out between separatist militias and government forces, backed by quasi-fascist volunteer battalions.First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/03/02/a-year-after-euro-maidan-ukraine-coming-apart-at-the-seams/

President Obama is alleged to have stopped an Israeli military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets, according to reports to emerge from the Middle East at the weekendThe threat from the U.S. forced Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to abort a planned attack on Iraq, reported Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida.

According to the report, 'Netanyahu and his commanders agreed after four nights of deliberations to task the Israeli army's chief of staff, Benny Gantz, to prepare a qualitative operation against Iran's nuclear program. 

The Moscow Basmanny Court, on Sunday, sanctioned the detention of three additional suspects in the case of the murder of Russian politician Boris Nemtsov. Meanwhile, Daur Dadayev , a former Chechen officer pleaded guilty for his involvement. The developments prompt the President of the Russian Federation’s Republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, to launch a probe into the republics security services and a probe to identify what may have motivated Dadayev, whom he knew as a loyal officer, to get involved in the crime. The three additional suspects whose arrest was sanctioned by Moscow’s Basmanny Court are Khamzad Bakhayev, Tamerlan Eskerkhanov and Shagid Gubashev, reported the Russian Tass news agency.

The Court stated that it reached the conclusion to support the investigators’ request after having reviewed the materials presented to the court. Gubachev was arrested on March 7 while Eskerkhanov and Bakhayev were arrested on March 8. The three were charged under Articles 105 and 222 of the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code, involving the murder committed by a group of persons, in collusion, and for reasons of money, as well as with robbery, extortion and banditry and the illegal possession or transfer of weapons. The Court justifies their detention on the grounds that the suspects could flee and possibly attempt to destroy evidence.

Judge Natalya Mushnikova was quoted by Tass as saying that “Zaur Dadayev’s involvement has been confirmed by his confession”. The Court would not provide details about Dadayev’s alleged or confessed role in the murder of RPR-Psarnas party Co-Chair Boris Nemtsov during the night from February 27 to 28. Dadayev’s arrest and confession prompted the President of the Russian Federation’s Republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, to order an investigation into the Dadayev’s past. President Kadyrov stressed that he remembered Dadayev as a true Russian patriot. The Tass news agency quoted the Chechen Republic’s President as stating: “I have known Zaur as a true patriot of Russia. … Zaur was one of the bravest men in the regiment. … He displayed particular courage in an operation against a large group of terrorists near Benoi. He was awarded the Order of Courage, and medals For Bravery and For Services to the Chechen Republic. I am certain that he was sincerely dedicated to Russia and prepared to give his life for the Motherland. The real reasons and motives behind Dadayev’s dismissal from the Russian Interior Ministry troops are unclear to me.