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As the latest installment of it’s ‘Vault 7’ series, WikiLeaks has just dropped a user manual describing a CIA project known as ‘Scribbles’ (a.k.a. the “Snowden Stopper”), a piece of software purportedly designed to allow the embedding of ‘web beacon’ tags into documents “likely to be stolen.” The web beacon tags are apparently able to collect information about an end user of a document and relay that information back to the beacon’s creator without being detected. Per WikiLeaks’ press release:

Today, April 28th 2017, WikiLeaks publishes the documentation and source code for CIA’s “Scribbles” project, a document-watermarking preprocessing system to embed “Web beacon”-style tags into documents that are likely to be copied by Insiders, Whistleblowers, Journalists or others. The released version (v1.0 RC1) is dated March, 1st 2016 and classified SECRET//ORCON/NOFORN until 2066. Scribbles is intended for off-line preprocessing of Microsoft Office documents. For reasons of operational security the user guide demands that “[t]he Scribbles executable, parameter files, receipts and log files should not be installed on a target machine, nor left in a location where it might be collected by an adversary.”

The ‘Scribbles’ User Guide explains how the tool generates a random watermark for each document, inserts that watermark into the document, saves all such processed documents in an output directory, and creates a log file which identifies the watermarks inserted into each document. Scribbles can watermark multiple documents in one batch and is designed to watermark several groups of documents.

Germany wants G20 leaders to agree to a concrete plan – one that includes affordable Internet access across the world by 2025, common technical standards and a focus on digital learning. Today, the G20 economies, like so many other economies around the world, are digital and interconnected. Digital services have opened up new avenues for sustainable economic growth. But, the digital economy will only continue to thrive and generate opportunities for citizens if the Internet is strong, secure, and trusted. Without this foundation, the global digital economy is at risk. Currently, there are 360 million people that take part in cross-border e-commerce. 28% of output in mature economies is digital. The Internet is set to contribute $6.6 trillion a year, or 7.1% of the total GDP in the G20 countries. And, by 2020, it’s estimated that more than 1 billion users will be added and there will be 30-50 billion additional connected devices. This level of interconnection will only boost the market. However, this cannot happen without a serious commitment by all parties to security and privacy. The truth is that economies can only function within a secure and trusted environment. Which brings us to encryption. Strong encryption is an essential piece to the future of the world’s economy and the Internet Society believes it should be the norm for all online transactions. It allows us to do our banking, conduct local and global business, run our power grids, operate, communications networks, and do almost everything else.

Encryption is a technical building block for securing infrastructure, communications and information. It should be made stronger and universal, not weaker. However, rather than being recognized as the way to secure our online transactions or our conversations, all too often the debate focuses on the use of encryption as a way to thwart law enforcement. To undermine the positive role of encryption in the name of security could have devastating consequences. Many great minds have already devoted considerable effort to resolving the conundrum posed by competing public policy objectives: providing security, safety and trust on the one hand, and law enforcement and legitimate policy goals on the other. But, it is time to stop kicking the encryption football up and down the field. Instead, we should recognize that encryption is key to the future digital economy and stop treating it as simply an obstacle to law enforcement. We need to deconstruct the issues faced by law enforcement and policy makers and agree together how we can achieve a trusted digital economy underpinned by encryption. This is the first time the G20 countries are holding a Ministerial on digital matters. It is also the first time that the G20 is inviting non-government stakeholders to contribute to these issues. This is a turning point that should not be missed. All views, including the technical perspective, must be at the table if we are to achieve progress on the G20’s ICT goals. If the G20 countries are serious about strengthening their economies and continuing to deliver economic and social prosperity to their citizens in future, there are three key principles they should endorse and implement immediately:

1. Encryption is an important technical foundation for trust in the digital economy and should be the norm. All users (whether government, business or individual) should use encryption to protect infrastructure, communications and the privacy and integrity of their data. Encryption technologies should be strengthened, not weakened. 2. The security of the digital economy is a shared responsibility that needs the expertise and experience of all stakeholders, across border and across disciplines. It is an urgent need that will require open, inclusive collaboration. 3. Users’ rights should be at the heart of any decisions related to the digital economy. They are both the customers and the contributors to the success of the digital economy. The Internet Society calls for ubiquitous encryption for the Internet. We strongly believe that this is the best foundation for trust in the digital economy, and we urge the G20 nations to stand behind encryption.

The Pentagon’s plan for seizing and occupying territory in east Syria is beginning to take shape. According to a Fox News exclusive: “The Islamic State has essentially moved its so-called capital in Syria… ISIS is now centered in Deir ez-Zur, roughly 90 miles southeast of Raqqa, the officials said.” (“ISIS moves its capital in Syria”, FOX News ) The move by ISIS corresponds to the secretive massing of US troops and military equipment on the Syria-Jordan border. It creates the perfect pretext for a ground invasion followed by a long-term military occupation in an area that Washington has sought to control for the last 18 months.  Here’s more on the topic from South Front: “The US military is reportedly concentrating troops and military equipment at the Syrian-Jordanian border. Local sources said that about 20 US Army armoured vehicles (including battle tanks and artillery pieces) carried on trucks were spotted in Al-Mafraq. US troops were allegedly accompanied with the Jordanian Army’s 3rd Division.

Trump is dirty, he’s fully compromised, but not in the way most of his critics assume. Both Trump and Bill Clinton were frequent fliers aboard the Lolita Express with Jeffery Epstein. Epstein is the billionaire pedophile who got busted running an elite child prostitution ring. Victims testified that Epstein had them sleep with rich and powerful men from around the world. They also said that he directed them to collect information on these men. He referred to this as “investing in people”.

f this deal: Prosecutors agreed not to bring far more serious federal charges against Epstein, and not to charge “potential co-conspirators”, including four named individuals. From the Guardian Trump’s name came up several times in this case, and in a separate criminal complaint which accused both Epstein and Trump of raping a minor.

The judge that let Epstein off with a slap on the wrist and protected the other predators was a man named Alexander Acosta. That would be the same Alexander Acosta that Trump nominated as Labor Secretary. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. Trump has tried to pretend that he hardly knew Epstein, but he made the following quote in an interview in 2002: “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” Trump in 2002

On Wednesday, the US airlifted hundreds of mainly-Kurdish fighters to an area behind ISIS lines where they were dropped near the town of al-Tabqa. The troops– who are part of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF– were accompanied by an undisclosed number of US Marines serving as advisors. Ostensibly, the deployment was intended to encircle ISIS positions and retake the area around the strategic Tabqa Dam. But the operation had the added effect of blocking the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) from advancing  along the main road towards Raqqa, the so called Capital of ISIS.  While the blocking move might have been coincidental, there’s a strong possibility that Washington is in the opening phase of a broader strategy to splinter the war-torn country and prevent the reemergence of a united secular Syria. According to Almasdar News: “The Coalition supported the offensive with air movement and logistical support, precision airstrikes, Apache helicopters in close air support, Marine artillery, and special operations advice and assistance to SDF leadership,” the US-led coalition said in a statement.” (AMN News) In a matter of weeks, Washington’s approach to the war in Syria has changed dramatically. While the US has reportedly ended its support for the Sunni militias that have torn the country apart and killed over 400,000 people, the US has increased its aid to the SDF that is making impressive territorial gains across the eastern corridor. The ultimate goal for the SDF fighters is an autonomous Kurdish homeland carved out of West Iraq and East Syria, while US objectives focus primarily on the breakup of the Syrian state, the removal of the elected government, the control over critical pipelines routes, and the redrawing of national borders to better serve the interests of the US and Israel.

The most recent adaptation of Yinon’s plan was articulated by Brookings Institute analyst Michael O’ Hanlon in a piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal titled “A Trump Strategy to End Syria’s Nightmare”.  In the article, O’ Hanlon states bluntly: “To achieve peace, Syria will need self-governance within a number of autonomous zones. One option is a confederal system by which the whole country is divided into such zones. A less desirable but minimally acceptable alternative could be several autonomous zones within an otherwise still-centralized state—similar to how Iraqi Kurdistan has functioned for a quarter-century…. Security in the Sunni Arab and Kurdish autonomous zones would be provided by local police and perhaps paramilitary forces raised, trained and equipped with the direct support of the international community. …(“A Trump Strategy to End Syria’s Nightmare”, Wall Street Journal) In an earlier piece, O’ Hanlon referred to his scheme as “Deconstructing Syria” a plan that “would produce autonomous zones that would never again have to face the prospect of rule by either Assad or ISIL.” Many of the details in O’ Hanlon’s piece are identical to those in Trump’s plan which was announced by Secretary of State Tillerson just last week. The Brookings strategy appears to be the script from which the administration is operating.

In his presentation, Tillerson announced that US troops would not leave Iraq after the siege of Mosul was concluded which has led many to speculate that the same policy will be used in Syria. Here’s an excerpt from an article at the WSWS that explains this point: “US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared Washington’s intention to keep troops deployed more or less indefinitely in the territories now occupied by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in remarks delivered at the beginning of a two-day meeting of the US-organized anti-ISIS coalition in Washington. “The military power of the coalition will remain where this fraudulent caliphate has existed in order to set the conditions for a full recovery from the tyranny of ISIS,” he told an audience that included Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. He gave no indication of when, if ever, US troops could be withdrawn from a war zone extending across Iraq and Syria, where there has been fighting of greater or lesser intensity throughout the 14 years since the US first invaded Iraq.” (Tillerson pledges long-term US military role in Iraq and Syria, World Socialist web Site) US Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis reinforced Tillerson’s comments adding that the US plans a indefinite occupation of Iraq (and, possibly, Syria) stating that it was in America’s “national interest.”

On Wednesday a federal judge indefinitely extended a previously temporary restraining order against U.S. President Donald Trump’s so-called Muslim Ban executive order. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson turned his earlier temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction as part of an ongoing lawsuit against Trump’s executive order banning immigration from six majority-Muslim countries. The state of Hawaii launched the lawsuit claiming Trump’s revised executive order, issued March 6, perpetuates the same unconstitutional religious discrimination as the original executive order, which was overturned by a federal judge in January.

“The court will not crawl into a corner, pull the shutters closed, and pretend it has not seen what it has,” Watson wrote on Wednesday. While Trump’s lawyers claim the executive order does not discriminate based on religion, previous courts ruled against the order noting the president and his surrogates’ repeated public promises to impose “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Watson noted that his initial decision to grant the preliminary injunction was based on the likelihood that Hawaii would succeed in proving the revised executive order violated the U.S. Constitution’s provisions protecting religious freedom.

More than a month after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) requested information about US Customs and Border Protection's practice of searching cell phones at US borders and airports, he's still waiting for answers—but he's not waiting to introduce legislation to end the practice. "It's very concerning that [the Department of Homeland Security] hasn't managed to answer my questions about the number of digital searches at the border, five weeks after I requested that basic information," Wyden, a leading congressional advocate for civil liberties and privacy, told Mother Jones on Tuesday through a spokesman. "If CBP were to undertake a system of indiscriminate digital searches, that would distract CBP from its core mission, dragging time and attention away from catching the bad guys." Wyden's request to DHS and CBP came on the heels of a February 18 report from the Associated Press of a "fivefold increase" in electronic media searches in fiscal year 2016 over the previous year, from fewer than 5,000 to nearly 24,000. It also followed Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly's suggestion that visitors from a select group of countries, mainly Muslim, might be required to hand over passwords to their social media accounts as a condition of entry. (That comment came a week after President Donald Trump first unveiled his executive order⁠ banning travel from seven majority-Muslim countries.) The Knight First Amendment Institute, which advocates for freedom of speech, sued DHS on Monday for records relating to the seizure of electronic devices at border checkpoints. Wyden requested similar data on CBP device searches and demands for travelers' passwords. "There are well-established legal rules governing how law enforcement agencies may obtain data from social media companies and email providers," Wyden wrote in the February 20 letter to DHS and CBP. "By requesting a traveler's credentials and then directly accessing their data, CBP would be short-circuiting the vital checks and balances that exist in our current system." The senator wrote that the searches not only violate civil liberties but could reduce international business travel or force companies to outfit employees with "burner" laptops and mobile devices, "which some firms already use when employees visit nations like China."

"Folks are going to be less likely to travel freely to the US with the devices they need if they don't feel their sensitive business information is going to be safe at the border," Wyden said Tuesday, noting that CBP can copy the information it views on a device. "Then they can store that information and search it without a warrant." Wyden will soon introduce legislation to force law enforcement to obtain warrants before searching devices at the border. His bill would also prevent CBP from compelling travelers to reveal passwords to their accounts. A DHS spokesman said in a statement that "all travelers arriving to the US are subject to CBP inspection," which includes inspection of any electronic devices they may be carrying. Access to these devices, the spokesman said, helps CBP agents ascertain the identity and admissibility of people from other countries and "deter the entry of possible terrorists, terrorist weapons, controlled substances," and other prohibited items. "CBP electronic media searches," the spokesman said, "have resulted in arrests for child pornography, evidence helpful in combating terrorist activity, violations of export controls, convictions for intellectual property rights violations, and visa fraud discoveries." In a March 27 USA Today op-ed, Joseph B. Maher, DHS acting general counsel, compared device searches to searching luggage. "Just as Customs is charged with inspecting luggage, vehicles and cargo containers upon arrival to the USA, there are circumstances in this digital age when we must inspect an electronic device for violations of the law," Maher wrote.

But in a unanimous 2014 ruling, the Supreme Court found that police need warrants to search cell phones. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion that cell phones are "such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy." In response to a Justice Department argument that cell phones were akin to wallets, purses, and address books, Roberts wrote: "That is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon." The law, however, applies differently at the border because of the "border search doctrine," which has traditionally given law enforcement wider latitude under the Fourth Amendment to perform searches at borders and international airports. CBP says it keeps tight controls on its searches and is sensitive to personal privacy. Wyden isn't convinced. "Given Trump's worrying track record so far, and the ease with which CBP could change its guidelines, it's important we create common-sense statutory protections for Americans' liberty and security," he says.

Swedish prosecutors dropped the rape investigation into WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Friday, saying the investigation had not been able to proceed because of legal obstacles. “We are not making a statement about his guilt,” Swedish Chief Prosecutor Marianne Ny said. Assange, 45, has lived in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012 when he took refuge to avoid extradition to Sweden over the rape allegations. He feared Sweden would hand him over to the United States to face prosecution for information leaks as thousand of classified military and diplomatic documents were published by WikiLeaks. Ecuador’s government welcomed the decision by Sweden, but said it was long overdue.

Assange’s lawyer Per Samuelson said the drop of the investigation is a “total victory” for them.   “The preliminary investigation has been dropped and the detention order has been withdrawn, and from Sweden’s point of view this is now over,” Samuelson told Reuters. Ny added that the investigation could be reopened if Assange came to Sweden before the statute of limitations deadline for rape allegation in 2020. After a 7-year stand-off with Sweden, Assange may still not be able to leave the Ecuadorean embassy. British police said if Assange were to leave the embassy, it was still their obligation to arrest him. But the British government has not commented on whether the United States had made a request to extradite Assange. “Given that the European arrest warrant no longer holds, Ecuador will now be intensifying its diplomatic efforts with the U.K. so that Julian Assange can gain safe passage in order to enjoy his asylum in Ecuador,” said Long. “Westminster Magistrates’ Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange following him failing to surrender to the court on the 29 June 2012,” British police said. “The Metropolitan Police Service is obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the Embassy.” The United Nations has decried the unfair treatment of Assange, declaring that he was being arbitrarily detained and that his human rights were being violated. Professor Mads Andenas, chair of the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, also welcomed the decision to drop the investigation. “This is a victory for the rule of law,” said Andenas. “The warrant was contestable.”

Americans are dying at a shockingly high rate from preventable causes, found a first-of-its-kind global health study published late Thursday. The new research demonstrates that despite the fact that the U.S. has the largest economy in the world, healthcare for many of its residents is woefully inadequate. The U.S. was tied with Estonia and Montenegro, far below other wealthy nations such as Norway, Canada, and Australia, in the study’s ranking of 195 countries. “America’s ranking is an embarrassment, especially considering the U.S. spends more than $9,000 per person on health care annually, more than any other country,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, senior author of the study and director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. “Anyone with a stake in the current healthcare debate, including elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels, should take a look at where the U.S. is falling short.”

Progressives have long pointed out that the U.S. is one of the only wealthy nations not to provide some form of government-mandated healthcare, exacerbating inequality in healthcare outcomes. The study published in the Lancet created a Healthcare Access and Quality (HAQ) Index, “a summary measure based on 32 causes, that in the presence of high-quality healthcare, should not result in death,” the researchers wrote. “Using deaths that could be avoided as a measure of the quality of a health system is not new but what makes this study so important is its scope, drawing on the vast data resources assembled by the Global Burden of Disease team to go beyond earlier work in rich countries to cover the entire world in great detail, as well as the development of a means to assess what a country should be able to achieve,” said Professor Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who participated in the study. Causes examined by the study include tuberculosis, diarrhea-related diseases, lower and upper respiratory infections, leukemia, breast cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, measles, tetanus, appendicitis, epilepsy, diabetes, and others. “The United States measures well for diseases preventable by vaccines, such as diphtheria and measles, but it gets almost failing grades for nine other conditions that can lead to death,” reported the Washington Post. “These are lower respiratory infections, neonatal disorders, non-melanoma skin cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, ischemic heart disease, hypertensive heart disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and the adverse effects of medical treatment itself.” “What we have found about healthcare access and quality is disturbing,” said Dr. Murray. “Having a strong economy does not guarantee good healthcare. Having great medical technology doesn’t either. We know this because people are not getting the care that should be expected for diseases with established treatments.”

Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates decided to sever diplomatic ties with Qatar over Doha’s sponsorship of terrorism and implement a number of sanctions including the closing of land, sea and air routes, and the expulsion of Qatari citizens. The development is consistent with the new U.S. administration’s declared goal to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE accuse Qatar of undermining the stability of the region by supporting terrorism, including a number of terrorist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and affiliated group, the Taliban, and others. Authorities in these four countries have also given Qataris living in and visiting their countries two weeks to leave.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, has removed Qatar from the Saudi-led coalition that is fighting Iranian-backed Houthi fighters in neighboring Yemen. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also closed all of its borders “and urged all brotherly countries and companies to do the same.” That said, Saudi Arabia will still allow citizens from Qatar to enter the kingdom to perform the Hajj pilgrimage.

We would like to draw attention to reports, which are received regularly, of “unidentified” aircraft that have been seen providing support to local ISIS militants in various parts of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (IRA). In particular, this month, according to Jowzjan Province authorities, unmarked aircraft were spotted air-dropping consignments of weapons and other supplies to ISIS groups in at least three northern provinces of Afghanistan (Jowzjan, Faryab and Sar-e Pol). A representative of the Province of Gazni council in southern Afghanistan spoke publicly about the presence of unmarked helicopters in areas controlled by terrorists in the Waghaz and Khogyani districts. It is noteworthy that even amidst an anti-Russia campaign in some Afghan and Western media that aim to accuse Russia of supporting the Taliban, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and US Defence Intelligence Agency Chief Vincent Stewart said they had no evidence to corroborate these allegations. This begs the logical question that has to be put to the above NATO and US officials: what do they know about the identity of these so-called unidentified aircraft flying over Afghanistan, a country where a US and NATO military contingent has already been deployed for over 15 years and where the Afghan Air Force faces persistent shortages of fully functioning aircraft and skilled pilots?

The US-coalition Air Force has conducted airstrikes against ISIS positions in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, targeting a chemical depot for the terror group which resulted in the death of hundreds of militants as well as civilian, the Syrian Ministry of Defense said in an official statement. “Yesterday between 17:30 – 17:50 p.m., the so-called anti-ISIS coalition fighter jets struck an ISIS position in Hatla village to the east of Deir Ezzor. After the airstrike, a huge white cloud was formed –later on turned yellow – as a result of an explosion in a chemical depot. A hug fire broke out until 22:30 p.m. Hundreds have been killed – including civilians – as a result of breathing toxic materials,” the statement detailed. The official statement said this incident confirms beyond any doubt that “terror groups, particularly ISIS and Jabhet al-Nusra, already own chemical weapons, and have the ability to obtain, transport, store and use such chemical agents with the help of some regional countries. This also stresses the fact that those terror groups are coordinating with its sponsors to accuse the Syrian Arab Army of using chemical weapons.”

August 24, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - US policymakers have recently announced plans to hand over control of the Syrian city of Raqqa to former Islamic State (ISIS)-affiliated officials, Newsweek would report.

Throughout the process, the US has attempted to hinder joint Syrian-Russian security operations, including both proxy and direct attacks on Syrian and Russian forces. With few options remaining, it appears the US will all but literally use its military assets illegally occupying Syrian territory to provide shelter to remaining Islamic State fighters under the tenuous guise of them having renounced their ties to the terrorist organization.

The northern city of Idlib is another admittedly Al Qaeda-controlled city the US and its allies are still flooding with torrents of aid, supplies, weapons, and equipment. Idlib and Raqqa will form the remaining footholds of foreign-sponsored violence in Syria until Syria and its allies encircle and cut them off, making effective destabilization from either city difficult if not impossible. In an effort to blunt Syria's gaining momentum, US-ally and proxy Israel has recently threatened war with Iran if it does not remove its forces from neighboring Syria. Iran and Russia have played a key role in preserving the territorial integrity of Syria and allowing the government in Damascus to restore order to the nation's most populous centers.

Senate Republicans are reportedly banking on the testimony of a "secret informant" to deepen their investigation into Hillary Clinton's role in the 2010 sale of uranium assets to Russia, Reuters reported Thursday. The GOP's source — a former FBI informant and lobbyist for the U.S.-based unit of Rosatom, a Russian-owned nuclear power company — will appear before the upper chamber as part of the probe into the so-called Uranium One deal. Although the Senate committee did not reveal the witness' name, former lobbyist William D. Campbell identified himself to Reuters. "I have worked with the Justice Department undercover for several years, and documentation relating to Uranium One and political influence does exist and I have it," Campbell said. Campbell was once a "star witness" in an FBI case against a Rosatom, until his credibility and motivations as an informant were called into question by defense attorneys. President Trump has repeatedly claimed that Uranium One's sale was approved by Clinton's State Department in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation, and deal skeptics point to the fact that the Clinton Foundation received $145 million in donations from owners of Uranium One. In a statement to Reuters, Rosatom noted that the State Department is only one of nine government agencies that had to approve the sale.

Abstract Numerous polls demonstrate that U.S. public approval of President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has declined significantly since 1945. Many scholars and political figures argue that this decline constitutes compelling evidence of the emergence of a “nuclear taboo” or that the principle of noncombatant immunity has become a deeply held norm. An original survey experiment, recreating the situation that the United States faced in 1945 using a hypothetical U.S. war with Iran today, provides little support for the nuclear taboo thesis. In addition, it suggests that the U.S. public's support for the principle of noncombatant immunity is shallow and easily overcome by the pressures of war. When considering the use of nuclear weapons, the majority of Americans prioritize protecting U.S. troops and achieving American war aims, even when doing so would result in the deliberate killing of millions of foreign noncombatants. A number of individual-level traits—Republican Party identification, older age, and approval of the death penalty for convicted murderers—significantly increase support for using nuclear weapons against Iran. Women are no less willing (and, in some scenarios, more willing) than men to support nuclear weapons use. These findings highlight the limited extent to which the U.S. public has accepted the principles of just war doctrine and suggest that public opinion is unlikely to be a serious constraint on any president contemplating the use of nuclear weapons in the crucible of war. © 2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over corruption charges. The so-called ‘March of Shame’ attracted more than 10,000 people on Saturday, Ynet News reported. The protestors on Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard chanted "Shame, shame, shame," "Bibi Netanyahu to Maasiyahu Prison," and "We will not give in until you give up."

Smaller anti-Netanyahu protests were organized in other locations in Israel as well, including Nahariya, Hadera, Afula, Netanya, Rishon LeZion, Modi'in, Jerusalem and Be'er Sheva.

Netanyahu has been questioned in two cases, with poilce suspecting the PM of received lavish gifts from businessmen and negotiating a deal for more favorable coverage with a newspaper owner.

Venezuela’s Congress reports that the inflation rate has reached quadruple digits and that the inflation rate in 2017 will top some 2,000 percent. The opposition-controlled legislature reported that inflation reached quadruple digits with consumer prices rising by a whopping 1,369 percent between January and November 2017.

Congress began publishing its own data on inflation after the socialist party (PSUV) administration stopped releasing them. Venezuela’s central bank reported an inflation of 180 percent in 2015 and 240 percent in 2016 which so far had been the highest on record. The central bank and the administration of President Nicolas Maduro have since stopped providing detailed inflation figures. Congress reported that prices rose by 56.7 percent in November. The legislators also reported that they expect that 2017 inflation would top a whopping 2,000 percent. Monetary liquidity grew 14 percent in a single week of November, according to official data, its steepest rise since the central bank began keeping records in 1940. OPEC member Venezuela was struck by a severe economic crisis when oil prices slumped in 2014 leading to shortages of food and medicines, among others. The socialist party (PSUV) administration of President Nicolas Maduro is blaming the crisis on an alleged economic war against Venezuela, allegedly led by the United States, and allegedly in collaboration with members of the opposition.

While Trump's Twitter activity from yesterday continues to drive media and political outrage, especially in the UK, and with the focus of the frenzied coverage being that the president retweeted a far-right U.K. leader's "anti-Muslim videos", there is actually something much more interesting concerning the context to the “Muslim Destroys A Statue Of Virgin Mary” video. That particular video shared by the president is from 2013 and shows a Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander named Omar Gharba destroying a Virgin Mary statue as the group invaded a Syrian Christian town. In a geopolitical and deeply ironic twist demonstrating the absurdity and contradictions of US foreign policy, the radical Islamist commander was actually supported by the United States at the time as part of the FSA, which the media and US government deemed "moderate".  So a sitting US president shared a video which reveals a Syrian "rebel" fighter committing war crimes who was part of one of the very groups backed by the CIA as official US policy under the Obama administration. Of course it is likely that Trump himself is not fully aware of this, yet the astounding geopolitical irony in this should not be missed, even as public outrage is reduced to merely discussing "anti-Muslim bigotry" and whether or not Trump is being "presidential".

nd while multiple media outlets, for example NPR, continue to claim the videos are "unverified" and "have no context" or are of "murky origins" (as the Washington Post wrongly claims), this particular video especially was widely shared and discussed among the world's top Syria analysts and Middle East scholars at the time. The video was taken in 2013 and shows the Wahhabi cleric and FSA commander smashing the Christian statue in connection with the US-backed group's prior attack on Yakubiya in Idlib province. The book, The Islamic State: Combating The Caliphate Without Borders, authored by counter-terrorism experts Yonah and Dean Alexander, gives his full name as Omar Gharba al-Khojji and like vast numbers of FSA fighters he eventually jointed ISIS (some online sources alternately list his name as Omar Raghba).

akubiyah was a mostly Christian village principally comprised of Armenian Orthodox and Catholic churches which after being taken over by the FSA was subsequently held by ISIS. The local Christians saw no distinction between the invading FSA and ISIS fighters as it was primarily the US-backed FSA which began massacring Christians and looting churches. Even the US government funded Voice of America news had this to say based on an interview with a Christian survivor: Christian refugees described to VOA the execution of a half dozen of their co-religionists in the northwestern village of al-Yakubiye, in Idlib province, by Sunni Muslims aligned with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army. Rahel, a 45-year-old former teacher, said, “Al Nusra didn’t come to our village; the people who came were from villages close by, and they were Free Syrian Army.”   ...Nearly a third of Syria’s Christians, an estimated 600,000, have fled the country. Before the war, Christians accounted for about 10 percent of Syria’s population of 22 million. And The Daily Beast also confirmed at the time that "nearly all Christians have fled [Yakubiyah] after half a dozen were executed with their heads chopped off and about 20 more were kidnapped" by the US sponsored FSA. Furthermore, an October 2013 report in Arabic media confirmed that, Terrorists belonging to al-Nusra front broke into homes in Yakubiyah in Syria's Idlib province, killed a Chrisitan man and destroyed a Virgin Mary statue. Upon arrival at a house that had the statue of virgin Mary, Wahhabi cleric, Omar Gharba' carried the statue of the Virgin Mary after it was taken over by militants from the "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) and broke it by throwing it on the ground. He stated that he and his fellow Wahhabis won't tolerate any form of worship except strict Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia.   "God willing, Only God will be worshipped in the land of the Levant," the terrorist who destroyed the statue said, noting that "no other idol will be worshiped after these days . We won't accept but the religion of Allah and the Sunnah of our Prophet Mohammed bin Abdullah." In 2012 and 2013 Omar Gharba's name appeared somewhat frequently in Western news reports as he was interviewed on a few occasions and presented as a "moderate" rebel, for example by BBC Arabic in 2012. The below video is one such example of Omar Gharba insisting that he and his fellow FSA militants would be tolerant and respectful of Christians and other religious minorities should they inherit power by toppling the Assad government  - though he was subsequently outed as the destroyer of the Virgin Mary statue, as the edit of the video interview makes clear.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani says his nation is ready to support Palestinian forces in the Gaza Strip, days after the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.Soleimani, commander of the Al Quds force, made the offer in a phone call late Monday with leaders of groups in Gaza, according to the Revolutionary Guard Corps’ website, Sepah News, which didn’t give details of the assistance proffered. Other forces in the region are ready to defend the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Soleimani also told the Gaza faction leaders, without identifying them. The mosque is Islam’s third-holiest shrine and a frequent flashpoint for tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.Palestinians claim Jerusalem’s eastern sector, where the mosque stands, as the capital of a future state, and they oppose the U.S. move. Hamas has called for another uprising against Israel in response, though so far protests have been limited. Soleimani spoke a day after the head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, called on all “resistance” groups in the region to come up with a unified strategy to take back Jerusalem. Iran’s Quds force operates beyond the country’s borders and has fought Islamic State in Iraq and backed President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Iran also supports proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas that have warred with Israel.

Years late to the party, mainstream media outlets like USA Today, Reuters, and Buzzfeed are just out with "breaking" and "exclusive" stories detailing how a vast arsenal of weapons sent to Syria by the CIA in cooperation with US allies fuelled the rapid growth of ISIS. Buzzfeed's story entitled, Blowback: ISIS Got A Powerful Missile The CIA Secretly Bought In Bulgaria, begins by referencing "a new report on how ISIS built its arsenal highlights how the US purchased munitions, intended for Syrian rebels, that ended up in the hands of the terrorist group." The original study that Buzzfeed and other media are referencing comes from a UK-based independent weapons research organization called Conflict Armament Research (CAR) which has had a team of weapons and munitions experts on the ground in the Middle East for years examining arms and equipment recovered from ISIS and other terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. Using serial numbers, crate shipping markings, and all available forensics data, the CAR experts began finding that as early as 2013 to 2014 much of the Islamic State's advanced weapons systems as well as small arms were clearly sourced to the United States and the West. “Supplies of materiel into the Syrian conflict from foreign parties - notably the United States and Saudi Arabia - have indirectly allowed IS to obtain substantial quantities of anti-armor ammunition,” states the CAR report. “These weapons include anti-tank guided weapons and several varieties of rocket with tandem warheads, which are designed to defeat modern reactive armor.”

The study further reveals that in one notable instance, a weapons shipment of advanced missile systems switched hands from US intelligence to "moderate" Syrian groups to ISIS in only a two month time period. Though the report is now evoking shock and confusion among pundits, the same weapons research group has actually published similar findings and conclusions going years back into the Syrian conflict.  For example, a previous 2014 Conflict Armament Research report found that Balkan origin anti-tank rockets recovered from ISIS fighters appeared identical to those shipped in 2013 to Syrian rebel forces as part of a CIA program. And CAR's damning publications presenting such inconvenient empirical data have been consistent for years, yet were largely ignored and suppressed by analysts and mainstream media who were too busy cheerleading US support for Syrian "rebels" cast as romantic revolutionaries in their struggle to topple Assad and his secular nationalist government. Of course, it's an old story if you've been reading Zero Hedge or the profusion of independent outlets that have long reported the truth about the covert "dirty war" in Syria since nearly the beginning. 

Even though it's now suddenly acceptable and fashionable to admit - as does one recent BBC headline ("The Jihadis You Pay For") - that the US and Saudi covert program in Syria fuelled the rise of ISIS and various other al-Qaeda linked terror groups, it must be remembered that only a short time ago the mainstream media openly mocked analysts and writers who dared make the connection between the West's massive covert Syrian rebel aid programs and the al-Qaeda insurgents who so clearly benefited. When news of the 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency report  broke, which described what it called a "Salafist principality" or "an Islamic State" as a strategic asset or buffer in Syria that could be used by the Western coalition "in order to isolate the Syrian regime", American media outlets dismissed what was labelled a "conspiracy theory" at the time in spite of the hard evidence of a US military intelligence report being made available. The Daily Beast for example mocked what it called "The ISIS Conspiracy Theory that Ate the Web" - describing those analyzing the Pentagon intelligence document as far-right and far-left loons. This occurred even as the document was taken very seriously and analyzed in-depth by some of the world's foremost Middle East experts and investigative journalists in foreign outlets like the London Review of Books, The Guardian, Der Spiegal , as well as RT and Al Jazeera.