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Ultimately, one must ask the question why non of the G-4 has yet taken the initiative Is it a function of mistrust between cold-war and new-cold-war alliances? Or is it a conscious perpetuation of Yalta where the G-4 carved up the world into hegemonies, divided by Iron, Bamboo and Banana curtains?

Should it become necessary in the future having exhausted peaceful alternatives to turn to military force, we will have preserved and in some cases enhanced our capacity to act. And because we have proven our commitment to diplomacy first, the world will more likely join us. As for Israel itself, Clinton eagerly promised to shower it with a long, expensive, and dangerous list of gifts. Here’s just a part of what that country can expect from the second President Clinton: I will deepen America’s unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security, including our long standing tradition of guaranteeing Israel’s qualitative military edge. I’ll increase support for Israeli rocket and missile defenses and for intelligence sharing. I’ll sell Israel the most sophisticated fire aircraft ever developed. The F-35. We’ll work together to develop and implement better tunnel detection technology to prevent arms smuggling and kidnapping as well as the strongest possible missile defense system for Northern Israel, which has been subjected to Hezbollah’s attacks for years.

She promised she “will sustain a robust military presence in the [Persian Gulf] region, especially our air and naval forces.” She vowed to “increase security cooperation with our Gulf allies” — by which she means the despotic regimes in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar, among others. She swore she will crack down even further on Hezbollah: “It’s time to eliminate the false distinction that some still make between the supposed political and military wings. If you’re part of Hezbollah, you’re part of a terrorist organization, plain and simple.” Then she took the ultimate pledge: “I would not support this agreement for one second if I thought it put Israel in greater danger.” So even if the deal would benefit the U.S., she would not support it “for one second” if it “put Israel in greater danger.” That’s an unusually blunt vow to subordinate the interests of the U.S. to that foreign nation.

But when it comes to gifts to Israel, that’s not all! Echoing the vow of several GOP candidates to call Netanyahu right away after being elected, Clinton promised: “I would invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House during my first month in office to talk about all of these issues and to set us on a course of close, frequent consultation right from the start, because we both rely on each other for support as partners, allies and friends.” She then addressed “the people of Israel,” telling them: “Let me say, you’ll never have to question whether we’re with you. The United States will always be with you.” For good measure, she heaped praise on “my friend Chuck Schumer,” who has led the battle to defeat the Iran Deal, gushing about what an “excellent leader in the Senate” he will make. What’s a little warmongering among friends? Just as was true in her book, she implicitly criticized Obama — who boasts that he has bombed seven predominantly Muslim countries — of being insufficiently militaristic, imperialistic, and violent. She said she wanted more involvement in Syria from the start (though did not call for the U.S. to accept any of its refugees). In a clear rebuke to the current president, she decreed that any criticisms U.S. officials may utter of Israel should be done only in private (“in private and behind, you know, closed doors”), not in public, lest “it open[] the door to everybody else to delegitimize Israel to, you know, pile on in ways that are not good for the — the strength and stability, not just of Israel.” About Russia, she said, “I think we have not done enough” and put herself “in the category of people who wanted us to do more in response to the annexation of Crimea and the continuing destabilization of Ukraine.”

Two words that did not come out of Clinton’s mouth during the entire event: “Palestinians” (do they exist?) and “Libya” (that glorious war she supported that was going to be the inspiring template for future “humanitarian interventions” before it predictably destroyed that whole country).

Last year, 2014, Song Xin, president of the China Gold Association stated, “We need to establish our gold bank as soon as possible…It can further help us acquire reserves and give us more say and control in the gold market.” A gold sector fund involving countries along the Silk Road has been set up in northwest China’s Xi’an City this May, led by Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), part of China’s national bank, PBOC. China is the world’s largest gold producer. Among the 65 countries along the routes of the Silk Road Economic Belt, there are numerous Asian countries identified as important reserve bases and consumers of gold. Xinhua reports that 60 countries have invested in the fund, which will facilitate central banks of member states to increase their holdings of gold. Dr. Diedrick Goedhuys, former economic adviser to the Reserve Bank of South Africa in an interview told me, “I want to emphasize the unique quality of gold, when viewed as a financial asset, of being an asset that is no-one’s liability. A treasury bond, for instance, is an asset in my hands, but a liability, or debt to be repaid, in the books of the treasury. Gold is a pure asset. The Chinese gold mining plan is of vast importance. It’s a long-term plan; it may take ten years before it has a significant effect.”

“I am going to tell you something. I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met with top British officials, who confessed to me, that they were preparing something in Syria. … This was in Britain not in America. Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer Minister of Foreign Affairs, if I would like to participate. Naturally, I refused, I said I am French, that does not interest me. … This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned… in the region it is important to know that this Syrian regime has a very anti-Israeli stance. … Consequently, everything that moves in the region…- and I have this from a former Israeli Prime Minister who told me ´we will try to get on with our neighbors but those who don´t agree with us will be destroyed. It is a type of politics, a view of history, why not after all. But one should  know about it”. The Islamic State, a.k.a. ISIS or ISIL has its origin in the Unites States, the UK’s, NATO’s and Middle Eastern NATO allies’ attempt to introduce Al-Qaeda into Iraq as a pretext for the U.S.-led military presence in the country.

War For Oil – By Foreign Funded Mercenary Brigades. Details about the genesis of ISIS have been published in the nsnbc international article entitled “ISIS Unveiled: The Identity of the Insurgency in Syria and Iraq”. ISIS initially launched its assaults against Syria via Turkey and Jordan.

In 2012 the Iraqi government under the then Prime Minister al-Maliki deployed troops to Iraq’s al-Anbar province to stem up for the trafficking of weapons, munitions and fighters via old smuggling routes to Syria’s oil-rich Deir Ez-Zour province where ISIS had gained a foothold. The al-Maliki government’s initiative made it necessary to re-route much of that traffic via Jordan, where the U.S. JSOC, CIA, USAID and other organizations had established a joint command and intelligence structure with the “opposition” at the Ramtha Air Base as well as in the border town Al-Mafraq. April 22, 2013 the European Union (EU) lifted its ban on the import of Syrian oil from “rebel-held territories”. The export of Syrian oil to Turkey has since then more than doubled. In June 2014 nsnbc international’s editor-in-chief met a person from within the inner circle around the former Lebanese PM and multi-billionaire Saad Hariri. The meeting took place in the Danish capital Copenhagen.

Concerned about that the war was developing into a regional war that eventually also would engulf Lebanon the whistleblower presented evidence to support his claim that the final decision to launch the invasion of Iraq with ISIS brigades was made on the sidelines of the Atlantic Council Energy Summit in Turkey on November 22 -23, 2013. He added that ISIS operations via Turkey are run via the U.S. Embassy in Turkey, involving Ambassador Riccardione.

Also in 2013, U.S. Senator John McCain met with the then Free Syrian Army (FSA) chief Salim Idriss, ISIS leader al-Badri, a.k.a al-Baghdadi and Caliph Ibrahim in a safe house in the Syrian city of Idlib, near the Turkish border. In 2014 over 5,000 the fighters of the so-called “moderate opposition” groups which are supported by the United States and others would join the ranks of ISIS. ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusrah are currently fighting side-by-side for control over the Damascus suburb and Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk at the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus. The deployment of Swedish troops, regardless how small or symbolic the contingent is, constitutes, arguably, a crime against peace committed by Margot Wallström and Peter Hulquist as it is implausible that the two Swedish Ministers are unaware of the above mentioned information that is readily available in the public domain.

U.S. officials have maintained that they do not steal secrets to give an advantage to U.S. companies, but in China, Lewis said, the line between military and business prowess is unclear.Unit 61398 has hundreds of active spies and is just one of dozens of such bodies in China, said Jen Weedon, an analyst at Mandiant, now owned by global network security company FireEye Inc. She said the group is not among the most sophisticated.

Washington announced the charges as new claims emerged last week about the scope of overseas spying by the United States. Documents leaked by Snowden showed the agency intercepted and modified equipment made by Cisco Systems Inc that was headed overseas.Cisco responded by asking Obama to curtail U.S. surveillance programs, underscoring the vulnerability of multinationals to a whipsaw of competing government interests.

Skeptics said U.S. authorities would not be able to arrest those indicted because Beijing would not hand them over. Still, the move would prevent the individuals from traveling to the United States or other countries that have an extradition agreement with the United States.

In an indictment filed in the Western District of Pennsylvania, prosecutors said the officers hacked into computers starting in 2006, often by infecting machines with tainted "spear phishing" emails to employees that purport to be from colleagues.Prosecutors alleged that one hacker, for example, stole cost and pricing information in 2012 from an Oregon-based solar panel production unit of SolarWorld. The company was losing market share at the time to Chinese competitors who were systematically pricing exports below production costs, according to the indictment.Another officer is accused of stealing technical and design specifications about pipes for nuclear plants from Westinghouse Electric as the company was negotiating with a Chinese company to build four power plants in China, prosecutors said.

"While a person may voluntarily convey personal information to a business or other entity for personal purposes, such disclosure cannot reasonably be considered to be disclosure for all purposes to third parties not involved in that transaction," he wrote. "Requiring a cell phone user to turn off the cell phone just to assure privacy from governmental intrusion that can reveal a detailed and intimate picture of the user's life places an unreasonable burden on the user to forego necessary use of his cell phone, a device now considered essential by much of the populace," he continued. Again, this decision only counts in Florida for the time being, but it's the first time a high court has ruled, based on the US Constitution, that the practice is illegal, and it sets a strong precedent for future cases. Previously, New Jersey and Massachusetts made similar rulings using their state constitutions.

"It's a great decision, and it's a big deal," Nate Wessler, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, told me. "The way the court's decision is written, it would apply to most StingRay use." Wessler said that while this is a huge decision, it's not clear yet if all StingRay use—warrant or not—may one day be ruled unconstitutional. The ruling simply hasn't been tested yet. "It's an unanswered question, but the devices wrap up innocent people, which looks like a dragnet search that's not legal under the Fourth Amendment," he said. "Even if they're tracking a specific suspect, they're getting info about every bystander. That's a concern."

Jaresco, who served in the U.S. Embassy in Kiev after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has said that Western NIS Enterprise Fund was “funded by the U.S. government to invest in small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine and Moldova – in essence, to ‘kick-start’ the private equity industry in the region.” While the ultimate success of that U.S.-funded endeavor may still be unknown, it is clear that the U.S. AID money did “kick-start” Jaresco’s career in equity investments and put her on the path that has now taken her to the job of Ukraine’s new finance minister. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko cited her experience in these investment fields to explain his unusual decision to bring in an American to run Ukraine’s finances and grant her citizenship.

The substantial U.S. government sum invested in Jaresco’s WNISEF-based equity fund also sheds new light on how it was possible for Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland to tally up U.S. spending on Ukraine since it became independent in 1991 and reach the astounding figure of “more than $5 billion,” which she announced to a meeting of U.S.-Ukrainian business leaders last December as she was pushing for “regime change” in Kiev. The figure was so high that it surprised some of Nuland’s State Department colleagues. Several months later – after a U.S.-backed coup had overthrown Yanukovych and pitched Ukraine into a nasty civil war – Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs Richard Stengel cited the $5 billion figure as “ludicrous” Russian disinformation after hearing the number on Russia’s RT network.

Stengel, a former Time magazine editor, didn’t seem to know that the figure had come from a fellow senior State Department official. Nuland’s “more than $5 billion” figure did seem high, even if one counted the many millions of dollars spent over the past couple of decades by U.S. AID (which puts its contributions to Ukraine at $1.8 billion) and the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, which has financed hundreds of projects for supporting Ukrainian political activists, media operatives and non-governmental organizations. But if one looks at the $150 million largesse bestowed on Natalie Jaresco, you can begin to understand the old adage that a hundred million dollars here and a hundred million dollars there soon adds up to real money.

Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Shurat Hadin legal center's director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said that if Abbas follows through on his threats, the PA's case would likely center around alleged war crimes committed by the IDF during the past summer's war with Gazan terrorists, as well as "settlement-building" - a euphemism for any Jewish communities built in Judea, Samaria, and large parts of Jerusalem. The veteran attorney and legal campaigner warns that if such a case is launched the prospects for Israel are bleak. "Israel will of course try to defend itself, but chances are they will lose. And if they lose and they're convicted for war crimes, it would be a game-changer. It would drop Israel to the bottom tier internationally," she said. Darshan-Leitner emphasizes that her pessimistic prediction is not borne out of a lack of confidence in Israel's legal position. On the contrary, she believes Israel can - and would - make a very strong defense case on either issue were it forced to do so. The problem, she says, is a political one.

"In addition, the court will issue arrest warrants against those individuals; Interpol will make it international and those people won't be able to leave the country - it will snowball." There is hope, however. If the ICC is Abbas's "doomsday weapon", Israel's hope lies in deterrence. "That's what were working on."

Indeed, Shurat HaDin has already threatened a "tsunami" of prosecutions if the PA chooses to file charges against Israel at the ICC. The NGO has already made good on its threats following unilateral actions by the PA in recent months, launching charges against Mahmoud Abbas himself as well as Hamas's Qatar-based terror chief Khaled Meshaal - both of whom are Jordanian citizens and thus already covered by the ICC's jurisdiction. Should the PA succeed in joining the Court, Shurat HaDin is already preparing a long list of other Palestinian leaders to target with a wide range of charges. "It could be crimes committed during the Intifada against Israelis - all the suicide bombings, all the drive-by shooting attacks. All the heads of the different armed factions have superior liability over what was done by their forces," Darshan-Leitner explains. "And there are also crimes committed against the Palestinian people themselves," from torture to public executions and the use of human shields, she adds. But won't the ICC just dismiss such cases for the same political reasons she cited?

"Nobody knows for sure - and that's why it's a deterrent for the Palestinians, because they don't know how the court will take these cases. I find it hard to believe though that the court would agree to prosecute Israel and not the Palestinians." But she cautions that, even though Palestinian leaders will also likely end up in the dock, it wouldn't undo the damage done to Israel. Short of coaxing the Palestinian Authority back to the negotiating table, the only way to stave off an ICC prosecution would be via a combination of threats of counter-prosecution, and concerted political pressure. "The US has threatened to cut all funding to the PA and even UNRWA if they go through with such a move, and obviously Israel will cut off all funding as well," she notes. "And the Palestinian Authority relies almost entirely on American and Israeli funding." The many vocal backers of the PA such as Arab states and the European Union have a poor track record of coughing up the goods, "so if that happens it will essentially collapse." With those considerations in mind, an ICC prosecution is Abbas's "weapon of last resort." And it appears the only real deterrent Israel currently holds in the threat of mutually-assured destruction.

According to Rashid Abanmy, President of the Riyadh-based Saudi Arabia Oil Policies and Strategic Expectations Center, the dramatic price collapse is being deliberately caused by the Saudis, OPEC’s largest producer. The public reason claimed is to gain new markets in a global market of weakening oil demand. The real reason, according to Abanmy, is to put pressure on Iran on her nuclear program, and on Russia to end her support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria.[2] When combined with the financial losses of Russian state natural gas sales to Ukraine and prospects of a US-instigated cutoff of the transit of Russian gas to the huge EU market this winter as EU stockpiles become low, the pressure on oil prices hits Moscow doubly. More than 50% of Russian state revenue comes from its export sales of oil and gas.

The details are emerging of a new secret and quite stupid Saudi-US deal on Syria and the so-called IS. It involves oil and gas control of the entire region and the weakening of Russia and Iran by Saudi Arabian flooding the world market with cheap oil. Details were concluded in the September meeting by US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Saudi King. The unintended consequence will be to push Russia even faster to turn east to China and Eurasia. One of the weirdest anomalies of the recent NATO bombing campaign, allegedly against the ISIS or IS or ISIL or Daash, depending on your preference, is the fact that with major war raging in the world’s richest oil region, the price of crude oil has been dropping, dramatically so. Since June when ISIS suddenly captured the oil-rich region of Iraq around Mosul and Kirkuk, the benchmark Brent price of crude oil dropped some 20% from $112 to about $88. World daily demand for oil has not dropped by 20% however. China oil demand has not fallen 20% nor has US domestic shale oil stock risen by 21%.

But then last June, Graham, while on the rounds of the Sunday talk shows and apparently freaked out about Islamic State’s sweep in northern and western Iraq, called for Washington to work with Iran (and presumably with the hated Revolutionary Guard) to protect Baghdad. The US has to “have to have some dialogue with the Iranians that says, ‘let’s coordinate our efforts,’ but has some red lines,” he said on one show. “The Iranians can provide some assets to make sure Baghdad doesn’t fall,” he said on yet another. “We need to coordinate with the Iranians. To ignore Iran and not tell them, ‘Don’t take advantage of this situation,’ would be a mistake.”

Now, Graham often has had a problem with getting a little carried away in his public rhetoric. Reacting to President Obama’s State of the Union Address last January, and particularly his remarks about imposing sanctions against Iran, the South Carolina senator warned that “the world is literally about to blow up.” At the 2010 Halifax International Security Forum, Graham reportedly stunned the audience—and apparently embarrassed his hosts—by calling for a full-scale attack on Iran beyond its nuclear facilities. So my view of military force would be not to just neutralize their nuclear program, which are probably dispersed and hardened, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard. In other words, neuter that regime.

Now, to be fair to Graham, he did not explicitly endorse Netanyahu’s call for “more sanctions, and stronger sanctions” despite his promise that Congress will follow Bibi’s “lead” in dealing with Iran. Instead, he promised that Congress will vote on the Kirk-Menendez bill, or what I originally called the “Wag the Dog Act of 2014,” next month, the approval of which, according to virtually all knowledgeable observers, will result in the collapse not only of the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, but also of the international sanctions regime. (For a more specific analysis, you can examine Ed Levine’s assessment of the bill after it was introduced last year.) Graham, like Netanyahu himself, also insisted that he supports the administration’s efforts to negotiate a deal. “I would love nothing better than a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear ambitions,” he said. “I support the Administration’s effort to try to bring this to a peaceful conclusion.” But then he went on to insist that any final agreement must include the abandonment by Tehran of its uranium enrichment capabilities—a demand that all of the P5+1 (US, UK, France, Russia, China plus Germany) consider totally unrealistic.

It’s pretty clear that Graham can sometimes get excitable, especially when the TV cameras are rolling. Assuming that the Kirk-Menendez bill does come to the floor next month, however, the big question is whether it will attract enough Senate Democrats to render its passage veto-proof (because there’s no doubt whatsoever that Obama will veto it). That will take 33 Democrats and/or independents and/or Republicans. At this point, I think the president should not have too much trouble getting those votes, and the fact that Graham has now taken the lead on this while on foreign soil will likely make it easier for Obama to get the Democratic support he needs. But Graham’s assurance that a Republican-led Congress will “follow [Netanyahu’s] lead” (against a US president, if necessary) should prompt a few of his fellow-Republicans to reflect just a little on the implications of such deference by a powerful US senator to a foreign leader.

Graham also had a lot to say about Hamas and withholding funding for the United Nations if it becomes more involved in seeking an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. You can read the whole transcript of his appearance with Netanyahu here and judge for yourself.

Even in their redacted form the reports give insight into the level of power individual agency employees have in ordering surveillance, and the intentional and unintentional abuses that can take place in an environment of minimal oversight. Though NSA officials have repeatedly suggested that the agency has rigorous safeguards in place to prevent individual employees from abusing their powers of surveillance, the agency’s own confidential internal reporting appears to contradict this. “The government conducts sweeping surveillance under this authority -— surveillance that increasingly puts Americans’ data in the hands of the NSA”, Patrick Toomey of the ACLU’s National Security Project said in comments to Bloomberg News. “Despite that fact, this spying is conducted almost entirely in secret and without legislative or judicial oversight.”

“There are certain portions of the documents that really vindicate some of the things [Edward] Snowden said when he first described the NSA surveillance in terms of the ability of analysts to conduct queries – without authorisation – of raw internet traffic,” Toomey said. Among the items redacted are sections detailing the total number of violations reported, with many ending up like this entry from 2013 “On [redacted] occasions during the fourth quarter, selectors were incorrectly tasked because of typographical errors.” This makes the scale of the problem difficult to gauge. Toomey said the ACLU would continue to sue for the release of those numbers. “More generally,” Toomey said, “just the range of different compliance violations makes it clear that at every step of the NSA’s collection of information there are vulnerabilities that leave the privacy of Americans at risk.”

Accusing the West of repeatedly blocking a “humanitarian armistice,” a Russian Foreign Ministry statement cited both Kiev’s obstructionist diplomacy and “much more intensive bombardment of Luhansk” on Aug. 21, the day after some progress had been made on the ground regarding customs clearance and border control procedures: “In other words, the Ukrainian authorities are bombing the destination [Luhansk] and are using this as a pretext to stop the delivery of humanitarian relief aid.”

Despite all the agreements and understandings that Moscow claims were reached earlier with Ukrainian authorities, Kiev insists it did not give permission for the Russian convoy to cross its border and that the Russians simply violated Ukrainian sovereignty – no matter the exigent circumstances they adduce. More alarming still, Russia’s “warning” could be construed as the Kremlin claiming the right to use military force within Ukraine itself, in order to protect such humanitarian supply efforts – and perhaps down the road, to protect the anti-coup federalists, as well. The risk of escalation, accordingly, will grow in direct proportion to the aggressiveness of not only the Ukrainian armed forces but also their militias of neo-fascists who have been dispatched by Kiev as frontline shock troops in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow’s move is a difficult one to parry, except for those – and there are many, both in Kiev and in Washington – who would like to see the situation escalate to a wider East-West armed confrontation. One can only hope that, by this stage, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union realize they have a tiger by the tail. The coup regime in Kiev knows which side its bread is buttered on, so to speak, and can be expected to heed the advice from the U.S. and the EU if it is expressed forcefully and clearly. Not so the fanatics of the extreme right party Svoboda and the armed “militia” comprised of the Right Sector. Moreover, there are influential neo-fascist officials in key Kiev ministries who dream of cleansing eastern Ukraine of as many ethnic Russians as possible. Thus, the potential for serious mischief and escalation has grown considerably. Even if Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wants to restrain his hardliners, he may be hard-pressed to do so. Thus, the U.S. government could be put in the unenviable position of being blamed for provocations – even military attacks on unarmed Russian truck drivers – over which it has little or no control.

The White House second-string P.R. team came off the bench on Friday, with the starters on vacation, and it was not a pretty scene. Even if one overlooks the grammatical mistakes, the statement they cobbled together left a lot to be desired. It began: “Today, in violation of its previous commitments and international law, Russian military vehicles painted to look like civilian trucks forced their way into Ukraine. … “The Ukrainian government and the international community have repeatedly made clear that this convoy would constitute a humanitarian mission only if expressly agreed to by the Ukrainian government and only if the aid was inspected, escorted and distributed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). We can confirm that the ICRC is not escorting the vehicles and has no role in managing the mission. … “Russian military vehicles piloted by Russian drivers have unilaterally entered the territory controlled by the separatist forces.”

The White House protested that Kiev had not “expressly agreed” to allow the convoy in without being escorted by the ICRC. Again, the Catch 22 is obvious. Washington has been calling the shots, abetting Kiev’s dawdling as the supply trucks sat at the border for a week while Kiev prevented the kind of ceasefire that the ICRC insists upon before it will escort such a shipment. The other issue emphasized in the White House statement was inspection of the trucks: “While a small number of these vehicles were inspected by Ukrainian customs officials, most of the vehicles have not been inspected by anyone but Russia.” During a press conference at the UN on Friday, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin took strong exception to that charge, claiming not only that 59 Ukrainian inspectors had been looking through the trucks on the Russian side of the border, but that media representatives had been able to choose for themselves which trucks to examine.

Regardless of this latest geopolitical back-and-forth, it’s clear that Moscow’s decision to send the trucks across the border marked a new stage of the civil war in Ukraine. As Putin prepares to meet with Ukrainian President Poroshenko next week in Minsk – and as NATO leaders prepare for their summit on Sept. 4 to 5 in Wales – the Kremlin has put down a marker: there are limits to the amount of suffering that Russia will let Kiev inflict on the anti-coup federalists and ethnic Russian civilians right across the border. The Russians’ attitude seems to be that if the relief convoys can be described as an invasion of sovereign territory, so be it. Nor are they alone in the court of public opinion.

Charter members of the Fawning Corporate Media are already busily at work, including the current FCM dean, the New York Times’ Michael R. Gordon, who was at it again with a story titled “Russia Moves Artillery Units Into Ukraine, NATO Says.”  Gordon’s “scoop” was all over the radio and TV news; it was picked up by NPR and other usual suspects who disseminate these indiscriminate alarums. Gordon, who never did find those Weapons of Mass Destruction that he assured us were in Iraq, now writes: “The Russian military has moved artillery units manned by Russian personnel inside Ukrainian territory in recent days and was using them to fire at Ukrainian forces, NATO officials said on Friday.” His main source seems to be NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who famously declared in 2003, “Iraq has WMDs. It is not something we think; it is something we know.” Cables released by WikiLeaks have further shown the former Danish prime minister to be a tool of Washington.

However, Gordon provided no warning to Times’ readers about Rasmussen’s sorry track record for accuracy. Nor did the Times remind its readers about Gordon’s sorry history of getting sensitive national security stories wrong. Surely, the propaganda war will be stoked by what happened on Friday. Caveat emptor.

An unclassified table accompanying the report states that encryption is the “[b]est defense to protect data”, especially if made particularly strong through “multi-factor authentication” – similar to two-step verification used by Google and others for email – or biometrics. These measures remain all but impossible to crack, even for GCHQ and the NSA. The report warned: “Almost all current and potential adversaries – nations, criminal groups, terrorists, and individual hackers – now have the capability to exploit, and in some cases attack, unclassified access-controlled US and allied information systems.” It further noted that the “scale of detected compromises indicates organisations should assume that any controlled but unclassified networks of intelligence, operational or commercial value directly accessible from the internet are already potentially compromised by foreign adversaries”.

The report had some cause for optimism, especially in the light of Google and other US tech giants having in the months prior greatly increased their use of encryption efforts. “We assess with high confidence that security best practices applied to target networks would prevent the vast majority of intrusions,” it concluded. Official UK government security advice still recommends encryption among a range of other tools for effective network and information defence. However, end-to-end encryption – which means only the two people communicating with each other, and not the company carrying the message, can decode it – is problematic for intelligence agencies as it makes even warranted collection much more difficult.

The previous week, a day after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris, the MI5 chief, Andrew Parker, called for new powers and warned that new technologies were making it harder to track extremists. In November, the head of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, said US social media giants had become the “networks of choice” for terrorists. Chris Soghoian, principal senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said attempts by the British government to force US companies to weaken encryption faced many hurdles.

The Guardian, New York Times and ProPublica have previously reported the intelligence agencies’ broad efforts to undermine encryption and exploit rather than reveal vulnerabilities. This prompted Obama’s NSA review panel to warn that the agency’s conflicting missions caused problems, and so recommend that its cyber-security responsibilities be removed to prevent future issues.

The memo requested a renewal of the legal warrant allowing GCHQ to “modify” commercial software in violation of licensing agreements. The document cites examples of software the agency had hacked, including commonly used software to run web forums, and website administration tools. Such software are widely used by companies and individuals around the world. The document also said the agency had developed “capability against Cisco routers”, which would “allow us to re-route selected traffic across international links towards GCHQ’s passive collection systems”. GCHQ had also been working to “exploit” the anti-virus software Kaspersky, the document said. The report contained no information on the nature of the vulnerabilities found by the agency.

Michael Beckerman, president and CEO of the Internet Association, a lobby group that represents Facebook, Google, Reddit, Twitter, Yahoo and other tech companies, said: “Just as governments have a duty to protect to the public from threats, internet services have a duty to our users to ensure the security and privacy of their data. That’s why internet services have been increasing encryption security.”

In a December 2014 opinion in the Hassanshahi case, US District Judge Rudolph Contreras allowed the evidence, but also required that the government provide a "declaration summarizing the contours of the law enforcement database used by Homeland Security Investigations to discover Hassanshahi’s phone number, including any limitations on how and when the database may be used." To comply with the judge’s order, Robert Patterson, the assistant special agent in charge of the DEA, wrote in the Thursday filing: As noted, this database was a federal law enforcement database. It could be used to query a telephone number where federal law enforcement officials had a reasonable articulable suspicion that the telephone number at issue was related to an ongoing federal criminal investigation. The Iranian number was determined to meet this standard based on specific information indicating that the Iranian number was being used for the purpose of importing technological goods to Iran in violation of United States law. Previously, the government had not revealed exactly how it began its investigation of Hassanshahi, and only referred cryptically to "[DHS]-accessible law enforcement databases," in Akronowitz’ 2013 and  2014 affidavits.

Similarly, other privacy-minded legal experts questioned the government’s tactics in this new revelation. "We just don’t know about the scope of these things, and that’s what’s disturbing," Andrew Crocker, a legal fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Ars. His colleague, Hanni Fakhoury, an EFF attorney who used to be a federal public defender, added that he was "not surprised." "Bulk surveillance technologies and the dangerous legal theories that are used to support them trickle down, and here's a prime example of that," he wrote by e-mail. "The DEA's mandate is of course important but not at the level of national security where as you know there are serious legal questions about the propriety of this collection of phone metadata. And if the DEA has a program like this, it wouldn't surprise me if other agencies do too for other sorts of records the government has claimed it can collect with a subpoena (like bank records)."

Patrick Toomey, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, chimed in to say that this indeed was a clear example of government overreach. "This disclosure underscores how the government has expanded its use of bulk collection far beyond the NSA and the national-security context, to rely on mass surveillance in ordinary criminal investigations," he said by e-mail. "It’s now clear that multiple government agencies have tracked the calls that Americans make to their parents and relatives, friends, and business associates overseas, all without any suspicion of wrongdoing," Toomey continued. "The DEA program shows yet again how strained and untenable legal theories have been used to secretly justify the surveillance of millions of innocent Americans using laws that were never written for that purpose."

Other states, such as Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Ohio, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Wisconsin, are discussing or have passed revisions to their net metering policies that would included fixed monthly surcharges for residences and businesses that install solar to make it less competitive with conventional forms energy.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a nonprofit science advocacy organization, believes pressure on legislators to reduce the benefits consumers reap from renewable energy are being led by a small number of industry-supported lobbying groups. The results of lobbying efforts have been a mixed bag. In certain states, fossil fuel and utility lobbyists have had little effect, but in states such as Kansas, there have been efforts to roll back renewable energy standards for the past two years.