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Links 6/10/2014: Linux 3.17, OpenELEC 4.2.1, FreeBSD 10.1 RC1, Debian 8.0 Beta 2 Released



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop



    • With This Many Linux Games On Steam, You Could Almost Drop Windows
      It didn’t happen overnight, but Steam’s catalogue of Linux games has grown significantly over the last few years, no doubt helped by the release Value’s Debian-powered SteamOS. Abandoning Windows for the open source platform was once the quickest way to gaming frustration, be it a lack of native ports or wrestling with the likes of Wine or other virtualisation option, but with almost 700 working titles available, the variety is certainly there.




  • Server



    • How thin? Imagine the Linux server as a process
      Lately I've been causing a ruckus among readers who appear to have a very narrow view of Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. My main point has been that we need a streamlined, finely tailored Linux server distro that better supports what server instances are becoming: transient, highly specialized bundles of processes and services. At some point, beyond Linux containers and cloud-scale server instances, we hit on the concept of server as process.


    • ARM and TSMC unveil roadmap for 64-bit ARM-based processors on 10nm FinFET process
      ARM and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) have announced a new multi-year agreement that will deliver ARMv8-A processor IP optimized for TSMC 10nm FinFET process technology. Because of the success in scaling from 20nm SoC to 16nm FinFET, ARM and TSMC have decided to collaborate again for 10FinFET. This early pathfinding work will provide valuable learning to enable physical design IP and methodologies in support of customers to tape-out 10nm FinFET designs as early as the fourth quarter of 2015.


    • ARMed And Dangerous To Monopoly
      It gets even better. ARM and its “partners” are drawing a bead on 10nm which will make ARMed processors even less expensive to produce/operate. This will allow even more processors to be sold for tiny gadgets, mobile gadgets, personal computers and yes, servers and HPC. Of course Intel can do this too, reclaiming some performance leads but Intel will have to go head to head on price/performance, the antithesis of monopoly.






  • Kernel Space



    • Open Platform for NFV Project (OPNFV) Joined by AT&T, China Mobile, NTT, Telecom Italia, Vodafone, Orange, Sprint & Vendors
      AT&T, Brocade, China Mobile, Cisco, Dell, Ericsson, HP, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Juniper Networks, NEC, Nokia Networks, NTT DOCOMO, Red Hat, Telecom Italia and Vodafone are the platinum-level founding members of Open Platform for NFV Project (OPNVF), a newly established carrier-grade, integrated, open source reference platform by Linux Foundation intended to accelerate the introduction of new products and services using NFV.


    • Linux kernel 3.17 is released with some nifty new features
      Other updates that are included with the release include support for the Radeon R9 290 GPU family in the open-source AMD Linux driver. In addition, the open-source NVIDIA driver has received several improvements.


    • Linux 3.17 Kernel Released With Many Great Features
      After a calm week when Linux 3.17 was extended by one week, Linus Torvalds happily released the Linux 3.17 kernel a few minutes ago. Linux 3.17 is out in all of its glory and due to Torvalds' travel schedule the Linux 3.18 merge window will be open for about three weeks.


    • Linux 3.17


    • Graphics Stack



      • Freedreno Gallium3D Is Passing 90%+ Of Piglit Tests
        In addition to doing the xf86-video-freedreno 1.3.0 release this weekend, Rob Clark also took the opportunity to write a lengthy blog post on the progress made for the open-source, reverse-engineered Linux graphics driver stack for Qualcomm's Adreno graphics hardware. The few contributors involved have done a stunning job over the past few months to implement much of OpenGL 3 for this ARM graphics driver and make other improvements -- all without the support or backing of Qualcomm.


      • Freedreno Update
        A number of people have recently asked what is new with freedreno. It had been a while since posting an update.. and, well, not everyone watches mesa commit logs for fun, or watches #freedreno on freenode, so it seemed like time for another semi-irregular freedreno blog post.


      • NVIDIA Linux 2D Benchmarks With The GeForce GTX 980
        Last week having done the GeForce GTX 980 Linux review with a ton of OpenGL benchmarks followed by GTX 980 OpenCL benchmarks and yesterday even running some updated NVIDIA VDPAU Linux benchmarks, next up for this high-end Maxwell graphics processor are some 2D performance benchmarks using NVIDIA's binary blob.


      • NVIDIA VDPAU Performance With The GeForce GTX 980
        Now having done the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Linux review with plenty of OpenGL benchmarks and yesterday running a bunch of GTX 980 OpenCL benchmarks, for your Sunday morning viewing are now some Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix (VDPAU) results for a range of NVIDIA GPUs.






  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments/WMs



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt



    • GNOME Desktop/GTK



      • Open Source GNOME 3 Desktop Environment Wins Back Fans
        Is there still a future for GNOME 3, the open source Linux desktop that was once massively popular, yet in recent years has seen its preponderance wane in favor of alternatives such as Xfce and Canonical's Unity? Recent indicators say yes.

        Full disclosure: I should was an avid GNOME user in the days of GNOME 2, the dead-simple yet elegant desktop environment that powered many Linux desktops for the better part of a decade. But when the GNOME developers switched their focus to the next generation of the platform, GNOME 3, circa 2011, I jumped ship, mostly because I couldn't make sense of GNOME Shell, the developers' attempt to discard everything users have learned to expect from the desktop-computer experience over the last 30 years and impose a radically new metaphor of user interaction in its place.






  • Distributions



    • New Releases



      • OpenELEC 4.2.1 released
        This release includes some bugfixes, security fixes and improvements since OpenELEC-4.2.0. Besides the usual bugfixes and package updates we fixed the following reported issues:


      • Powerful OpenELEC 4.2.1 Media Center OS Is Out, Doesn't Need "Shellshock" Fix
        OpenELEC is an embedded operating system built specifically to run the XBMC media player solution and to work on virtually any kind of device out there. This is just an update, but it's still quite an interesting read.




    • Red Hat Family



      • Red Hat scales up Storage Server 3 with support for Hadoop
        Red Hat has revamped its Storage Server platform, adding support for the Hadoop framework and the ability to scale up to support larger volumes of data.


      • Red Hat Storage Server 3 Advances File Storage and Apache Hadoop Big Data Services
        Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), a leading provider of open source solutions, has announced the availability of the newest major release of Red Hat Storage Server, a leading open software-defined storage solution for scale-out file storage. The advanced capabilities in Red Hat Storage 3 are well-suited for data-intensive enterprise workloads including big data, operational analytics and enterprise file sharing and collaboration. With its proven and validated workload solutions, Red Hat Storage Server 3 enables enterprises to curate enterprise data to increase responsiveness, control costs and improve operational efficiency.


      • Open source as second nature to this project leader
        Heiko Rupp, a contributor to Opensource.com and Principal Software Engineer and Project Lead for the RHQ project at Red Hat, shares with us in this Community Spotlight the hardware he wishes were more open in his life. Heiko also gives a glimpse into his day-to-day on the RHQ-Project, an enterprise management solution for JBoss middleware projects and other server-side applications.


      • Fedora



        • Btrfs Won't Likely Replace EXT4 As The Default Until Fedora 23
          Josef Bacik commented this Sunday morning, "My plan is to push for F23, I'm still wrapping up some balance bugs and some other issues we've found at work and then this will be my next priority. Suse benefits from having a narrow 'supported' criteria, like only use it with lots of space and don't use any of the RAID stuff, plus they have two kernel guys on it and Dave Sterba who is now in charge of btrfs-progs. Fedora unfortunately has me who has Facebook work to do and Eric [Sandeen] who is a professional [file-system] juggler. We will get there, and when we do it will be less painful than its going to be for Suse since they will have fixed it all for us."






    • Debian Family



      • Debian 8.0 Beta 2 "Jessie" Released with GNOME as Default
        The Debian Installer Team has announced that Debian Installer Jessie Beta 2 is out and ready for download. This latest version brings some very interesting changes for Jessie and a ton of improvements.

        The Debian installer is always launched first, so if you want to test the latest Debian 8 version, you will have to install it. There is no Live CD, which means that you will need to have a lot of patience. From what we've seen so far, Debian Jessie Beta 2 was worth the wait.


      • Debian Installer Preps For 8.0 Jessie With Beta 2 Release
        Significant about the Debian Installer Jessie Beta 2 is that it defaults again to using the GNOME desktop environment over Xfce and there's currently initial support for the ARM64 and PowerPC64el architectures with the Debian installer. This Jessie beta 2 update also has console setup changes, hardware detection improvements, and a number of other changes.


      • Debian Installer Jessie Beta 2 release


      • Derivatives



        • Canonical/Ubuntu



          • The Ubuntu 14.10 Upgrade: What to do
            The first thing you need to know is that Ubuntu 14.10 is almost exactly like 14.04. There are virtually no visible meaningful differences as far as I can tell. So if you are using Ubuntu and are sticking with Ubuntu, don’t expect pretty fireworks. This will not be an exciting upgrade.


          • Meizu: Ubuntu Touch Landing On Meizu MX4 In December
            Meizu’s MX4 flagship has been launched at the beginning of last month and the device is selling like hotcakes. People around the world have ordered (and many of them already received) Meizu’s flagship. It seems like Meizu will soon get an interesting software offering. Meizu, Bq and Canonical announced their partnership a while ago and it was just a matter of time before we see Ubuntu on Meizu, that’s at least what everyone was guessing at the time.


          • UbuTricks
            UbuTricks is a Zenity-based, graphical script with a simple interface. Although early in development, its aim is to create a simple, graphical way of installing updated applications in Ubuntu 14.04 and future releases.


          • The Ubuntu Touch RTM #3 Image Got Better support for Secure Connections and Updates For The Dialer, Messaging And Adress Book Apps
            While the first Ubuntu Touch RTM (release to manufacturing) image has been made available a few weeks ago, the Ubuntu Touch RTM #3 image has been recently released, bringing better user feedback for secure connections has been implemented, the developer mode has been enhanced, and fixes for the dialer, messaging, address-book, the ofono packages have been added and the Mir display server and QtMir packages have been updated.


          • Ubuntu MATE 14.10 Will Be Available With Two Desktop Layouts: One Providing GNOME2 Experience And One Mimicking Windows XP
            hile Canonical is focusing a lot on developing Ubuntu Touch and taking the Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Mobile systems closer to convergence, the Ubuntu Mate version may convince many users to switch to Ubuntu.

            Ubuntu Mate 14.10 will be using MATE 1.8.1 as default and will contain some special optimizations for Ubuntu, optimizations that are not available if you only install the classical Mate version on Ubuntu.


          • Jono Bacon: How to Build Exponential Open Source Communities
            Open source projects live and die by their communities. Cultivating that core group of developers, administrators, users and other contributors who work together to improve the code base is no easy task, even for experienced community managers. There are some tried-and-true methods to follow, however, pioneered by some of the best open source communities around.


          • Flavours and Variants



            • Linux Mint 17.1 to Let Users Choose the Login Screen Design
              Most of the Linux operating systems usually choose a specific design for the login window and stick with it. Developers rarely let users choose details about the login window, and at most they only allow them to modify the background.












  • Devices/Embedded



    • Pi Vessel Mini PC Based On Raspberry Pi Platform Running Linux (video)
      German developers have this week launched a new mini PC called the Pi Vessel, which as the name suggests is based on the Raspberry Pi platform and comes supplied running a version of the versatile Linux operating system.

      The Pi Vessel has been created to provide a complete mini PC package and offers a fully enclosed Pi minicomputer using the Raspberry Pi a model B+ computer encased in an aluminium outer casing.


    • Phones



      • Top 4 Alternatives for iOS and Android – Firefox, Ubuntu, Tizen and Sailfish
        Firefox OS was developed by Mozilla and it made its appearance in 2012, but it was released one year later for smartphones and tablets, following to be used on smart TVs as well. It was built on HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, which means that the websites are treated as applications and the HTML5 apps are communicating with the phone’s hardware through Web APIs. This makes it unique, but it’s not just a browser that runs on a Linux-based OS. Even the camera or the dialer are considered applications, and every website that is ran in the form of an app is accessed through Gecko engine. For now, the devices that can support Fire OS are Keon and Peak by Geeksphone.


      • Android



        • Google Launches Closed Version of Open Source Android
          So in an attempt to stem the flow of phone manufactures using the free version of Android, Google have developed Android One, which is essentially a premium version of Android which Google itself will run and maintain. It is essentially a light weight version of the original with less customization options which manufactures will be able to install and forget about because Google will take care of the maintenance.


        • SureMote Makes Your Android Phone a Remote For Any Wi-Fi Device You Own
          SureMote controls appliances through the infrared blaster on newer Android phones (there's no iOS version yet, so iPhone fans need to hold on to their Blu-Ray clickers for now). It was developed by Israeli company Tekoia and already has thousands of devices connected. It's a strong start, though the app will need to continue growing its list of compatible devices to be a true approximation of a universal remote.










Free Software/Open Source



  • Markdown throwdown: what happens when FOSS software gets corporate backing?
    Markdown is a Perl script that converts plain text into Web-ready HTML; it's also a shorthand syntax for writing HTML tags without needing to write the actual HTML. Markdown has been around for a decade now, but it hasn't seen an update in all that time—nearly unheard of for a piece of software. In that light, the fact that Markdown continues to work at all is somewhat amazing.


  • Bringing Open Source to Scientific Research
    I already knew that academia is behind the curve when it comes to IT, from my non-tech part time job at a local university library. For starters, there’s the overreliance on Windows. Then there’s the use of poorly designed proprietary products when perfectly acceptable GPL solutions exist — not to mention the look of scorn and fright coming from the IT people whenever the term “free and open source” is uttered within their hearing.


  • Operating systems war story: How feminism helped me solve one of file systems’ oldest conundrums
    I was working on another human-centered file system feature, union mounts, when I heard that a friend of mine had been groped at an open source conference for the third time in one year. While I loved my file systems work, I felt like stopping sexual harassment and assault of women in open source was more urgent, and that I was uniquely qualified to work on it. (I myself had been groped by another Linux storage developer.) So I quit my job as a Linux kernel developer and co-founded the Ada Initiative, whose mission is supporting women in open technology and culture. Unfortunately, as a result of my work, several more Linux storage developers came out publicly in favor of harassment and assault.


  • Stanford dropout returns to teach open-source startup class
    Nine years ago, Sam Altman was a Stanford University computer science student. And then he dropped out to start a startup.

    This year, he's returned to campus -- not to finish his degree, but to teach a class called "How to Start a Startup."

    Altman, whose mobile location startup Loopt eventually sold for a cool $43.4 million, is now 29 years old and the president of Y Combinator, an accelerator that provides seed funding and guidance to fledgling startups. He launched the class to make the wealth of knowledge Y Combinator gives to a select group of startups more publicly available -- not only by giving it to a class of 300 Stanford students but to everyone.


  • Elasticsearch director tells us how the magic happens
    I was introduced to open source nearly 15 years ago by a friend when I asked him what that foot thing was bouncing around on his screen saver. He then explained what GNOME was and what open source software was. I was hooked immediately; the philosophy and methodology made perfect sense to me. It took awhile for it to become the focus of my career, but it's been an incredibly rewarding path.


  • Indians on open source honour roll
    Sayan Chowdhury couldn't believe his name would be etched on the wall of fame along with other Mozillians. The Mozilla Monument outside the company's office in San Francisco recognizes contributors who've helped the maker of the Firefox browser and other products keep the internet alive, open and accessible. Chowdhury is one among the 5,000-odd Mozilla volunteers doing his bit for the love of code.


  • Databases



  • CMS



    • Moodle will always be an open source project
      In 2001, Moodle was launched as an online solution for educators to freely adopt as a tool to reach and engage students in the learning experience within their own websites. Today, Moodle’s design and evolution continues to achieve this goal as a free and open source learning platform with clear pedagogical principles, adopted by over 50 million users in pretty much every country that has computers.




  • BSD



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



    • GNU Make 4.1 released!
      The next stable version of GNU make, version 4.1, has been released and is available for download from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/


    • GCC Has A Call For Help To Improve Diagnostics
      Manuel explained, "GCC diagnostics have steadily improved in recent releases. In addition to the myriad of bugs fixed per release, every release had at least one major improvement in diagnostics. Unfortunately, the number of people contributing to this effort is very limited and we are more and more busy with other obligations. We need new blood and we need help. It has never been easier to contribute to GCC than nowadays. There are many ways you can help and there are tasks for every level of skill and time commitment."




  • Public Services/Government



  • Openness/Sharing



    • Canadian firm develops 'open source' hydroponics system


      A Canadian 3D printing company has devised a hydroponics system which it calls 3Dponics, using some parts which are printed on a 3D printer and others which are commonly available.


    • Open Data



      • OpenStreetMap as infrastructure - a localgov map?
        The Moabi project is reusing the tools of the OpenStreetMap project to map natural resource use in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is an example of what Mikel Maron (from the Moabi project) and Elizabeth McCartney (from the US Geological Survey) called 'OpenStreetMap as Infrastructure' in their recent talk at State of the Map US. ie taking the OpenStreetMap tool-chain and applying them to new problems.







  • Programming





Leftovers



  • Apple completely loses the plot, revokes Computer Bild magazine accreditation over #bendgate video
    Obviously Apple is very keen to only supply review units and grant event accreditation only to medias that are guaranteed to heap praise on its products and wouldn’t bother investigating any potential issues with it.


  • Science



  • Health/Drug War



  • Security



  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • The Vast Majority of Americans Believe We'll Use Combat Troops in Iraq. Of Course They Do.
      The vast majority of Americans—some 72 percent, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll conducted in late September—say they believe that the United States will end up using ground troops to combat ISIS in Iraq.

      In other words, they don't believe the multiple explicit promises that President Obama has made to the contrary since he first announced the start of this conflict in August.


    • You break it, you own it: American misadventures in the Middle East
      US intelligence services seem to have a knack for seeing what isn’t there - Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and endless communist plots in an earlier era - while missing what is. The CIA famously failed to spot the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union but it has also missed the pretty conspicuous warning signs of looming catastrophes where benign American action could have saved a lot of lives, such as the genocide in Rwanda two decades ago.


    • Political risk is now a growth industry in its own right
      Brandishing colour-coded maps and complex scoring systems and boasting an array of top-level government contacts, political risk consultancies can charge large sums for their analysis and reports.


    • Can bombs end it all
      It should be obvious by now that if such bombing campaigns have an effect, it is to make things much worse. What western leaders portray as valiant efforts to rid the world of evil forces such as ISIL just don't play the same way in the region. In Iraq, for instance, western military intervention is viewed as support for the authoritarian, sectarian and West-approved leadership, whose persecution and air strikes are so bad that many Sunnis are prepared to put up with ISIL, for now, as preferable.


    • Washington’s Secret Agendas
      One might think that by now even Americans would have caught on to the constant stream of false alarms that Washington sounds in order to deceive the people into supporting its hidden agendas.

      [...]

      The American public fell for the lies told about Gaddafi in Libya. The formerly stable and prosperous country is now in chaos.


    • Iraq air-strikes: In the war against Isis, we have much more powerful weapons than bombs


      Waging war abroad won't stop the long-term spread of extremism, but tackling it in our schools and mosques will
    • The US Government Won't Give Peace a Chance
      Indeed, going further back in history, the United States grew from 13 former colonies into a vast nation based on the European model of colonial conquest: Wage brutal war on the indigenous population with the goal of annihilation.

      The nation that prides itself on declaring its independence from a colonial empire actually adapted the colonial model of expansion, both domestically and as an international military interventionist.


    • Learn the lessons of history: Oppose the threat of world war
      American bombs had killed 36 civilians in the first days of the Syrian campaign.


    • Fact-checking the war comparisons between Obama and Bush


    • Stephen Colbert mocks Fox News over Obama-Bush comparisons


    • Conservative Media Blames Rise of Islamic State On Long Debunked Claim That Obama "Missed" Intelligence Briefings
      Conservative media is dubiously claiming that the rise of the Islamic State is due in part to President Obama skipping scheduled daily intelligence briefings. The basis of this claim is a misleading interpretation of how intelligence briefings are received by the White House that was debunked two years ago.


    • Obama skipped most of his daily intelligence briefings - Govt Accountability Institute
    • ‘US wars in Mideast – only excuse for $ trillion military budget’
      The purpose of the US campaign against the Islamic State is to provide grounds for the trillion dollar annual military budget Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan administration, told RT.


    • Why the Showdown with Islamic Extremists Is the War the Pentagon Was Hoping For


    • Bureau project shortlisted for Amnesty and Lovie awards
      The Bureau’s drones team has been shortlisted for two awards: an Amnesty Media Award for digital innovation and a Lovie Award for best news website.
    • US & Russia Re-Arming for a New Cold War
      The U.S. and Russia are sinking billions into nuclear-capable bombers, missiles, and submarines. Another round of “Mutually Assured Destruction,” anyone?


    • Lavrov: US Base Their Statements on Ukraine on Unverified Facts or Framing-Up


    • Operation Gladio: NATO’s Secret Armies
      This fascinating new study shows how the CIA and the British secret service, in collaboration with the military alliance NATO and European military secret services, set up a network of clandestine anti-communist armies in Western Europe after World War II.


    • ‘Join the invisible to make the impossible’: Israel’s Mossad now recruits agents online
      Israeli intelligence has given up to modern trends and introduced an online questionnaire for would-be spies. Unlike the businesslike CIA or MI5 web draft campaigns, Israelis are luring volunteers with mystery halo always shrouding Mossad’s activities.


    • Want to work for the CIA to kill ISIS terrorists? Try an internship with the National Clandestine Service


    • Egypt's pain: Paralysis vs. people power in the land of the Pyramids
      When the CIA’s ex-Cairo station chief Miles Copeland penned his book ‘The Game of Nations’ in 1969, readers were shocked to discover the huge resources spent by Washington stage-managing the post-war politics of the Middle East and Egypt in particular.


    • Will New Film, ‘Colonia,’ Starring Emma Watson, Address U.S. Role in Chile?
      This could get awkward. A new film, “Colonia,” starring Emma Watson (@emwatson) and Daniel Bruhl, depicts events that transpired during the 1973 Chilean military coup. Will it touch on things the United States might or might not have done during that time frame?

      The United States, in 2000, admitted to some indirect involvement in the coup, which led to the ascension of dictator Augusto Pinochet. But the CIA has not gone so far as saying it was involved directly. That led to a peculiar exchange when President Obama went to Chile in 2009.


    • US Interference in Bolivia to be Revealed in New Documentary
      The documentary is called “USA Invasion: History of American Intervention in Bolivia”, covering the relationship between North America and Bolivia from 1920 until recent times.

      A documentary series that implicated Bolivian opposition candidates with United States agencies and neoliberal policies will be released on Friday, which is less than two weeks before the general elections.
    • Terror in Latin America and the Caribbean
      Cuban national hero José Martí referred to land lying between the Rio Grande River and the Straits of Magellan as “Our America.” In an essay with that title published in 1892, Martí evoked the Rio Grande boundary as a divide between peoples with their own history, culture and future and an industrializing, crass civilization to the north promising no good.

      Indeed, U.S. agents or proxies would soon be sewing grief and despair. Early in the 20th century they launched military incursions. Subsequently less blatant interventions left terror in their wake. Anniversaries in September and October – a season of sorrow in Our America – recall murder and mayhem. One asks: Can international solidarity prevent victims? Who in North America, epicenter of terrorist plotting, will take on that job?


    • Chamber of Commerce of Cuba renews licenses to foreign companies


    • Warren of conspiracies: Kennedy’s assassination
      The committee was formed in the mid-1970s in the wake of the Watergate scandal and subsequent revelations about CIA activities, including information about the agency’s anti-Castro efforts not divulged to the Warren Commission.

      Its conclusion was stunning, though tempered by its choice of language: Kennedy “was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy”, but investigators were unable to identify a second gunman or the extent of the conspiracy. The committee ruled out the Cuban and Soviet governments, as well as the Secret Service, FBI and CIA; it didn’t rule out the possible involvement of individual members of organised crime or anti-Castro Cuban groups.


    • Cuban Exile Militant Claims CIA Meeting With Oswald Before JFK Killing
      A former Cuban exile anti-Castro militant told a conference audience Sept. 26 in a blockbuster revelation that he saw accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald with their mutual CIA handler six weeks before the killing and there would have been no anti-Castro movement in Cuba without the CIA funding.


    • Records: Kissinger made plans to attack Cuba


    • Kissinger wanted to smash Cuba in 1976 for its intervention in Angola
      US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger drew up plans to “smash Cuba” with air strikes nearly 40 years ago, government papers obtained by researchers show. He was angered by Cuba's 1976 military intervention in Angola and was considering retaliation if Cuban forces were deployed elsewhere in Africa.


    • Fred Grimm: About Henry’s plan to bomb Cuba
      Except it wasn’t just Cuba that was intervening in Angola. China, the Soviet Union and the U.S. were messing about. Zaire (as the Democratic Republic of Congo was called under the terrible, autocratic reign of Mobutu Sese Seko) was trying to steal the oil province of Cabinda from Angola. And South Africa had invaded, worried that a leftie Angola might undermine apartheid and give upstart Namibians unwelcome notions about independence.


    • Kissinger’s Plan to Bomb Cuba (Video)
      In the new book, “Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana,” authors Peter Kornbluh and William LeoGrande use recently declassified documents to expose the secret history of dialogue between the United States and Cuba.


    • Kissinger Wanted to Attack Cuba in 1976


    • Secret History of U.S.-Cuba Ties Reveals Henry Kissinger Plan to Bomb Havana for Fighting Apartheid


      In the new book, "Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana," authors Peter Kornbluh and William LeoGrande use recently declassified documents to expose the secret history of dialogue between the United States and Cuba. Among the revelations are details of how then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger considered launching airstrikes against Cuba after Fidel Castro sent troops to support independence fighters in Angola in 1976. In the years that followed, top-secret U.S. emissaries, including former President Jimmy Carter and Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez, worked to normalize relations with Cuba. The book’s release comes as Cuban leader Raúl Castro is set to participate for the first time in next year’s Summit of the Americas in Panama. Cuba recently denounced the Obama administration for extending the more than 50-year embargo for another year in a little-noticed move in September.


    • The Reporter Behind the Unveiling Scoops that Brought Down CIA
      The Secret Service did not disclose this amount of information. Also, after the hearing, Leonnig brought to light President Obama‘s elevator ride with an armed felon who was acting strange.

      Leonnig “…has been on the beleaguered agency’s tail for years: She reported in 2012 that a dozen agents solicited prostitutes while traveling with the president,” Yahoo! said.
    • Former CIA director's undoing was quick as support vanished
      Pierson's undoing was not telling the president about a Sept. 16 incident in Atlanta in which President Barack Obama rode an elevator with an armed security contractor during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two White House officials said. The armed contractor's proximity to Obama violated the agency's security protocols.


    • For Julia Pierson, No Face-to-Face Meeting With Obama


    • Op-Ed: In Libya attacks hit CIA-linked Haftar's air base in Benghazi
      After being driven out of most of Benghazi CIA-linked Khalifa Haftar and his allies are holed up in the key Benina air base on the outskirts of Benghazi.


    • US headed for ‘China Syndrome’ meltdown in Syria
      Usually, Washington starts scapegoating its spies after its wars have failed to achieve their objectives – as happened in Iraq, when the natives failed to greet the American invaders with bottomless gratitude, and in Vietnam, where the awesome U.S. war machine slaughtered three million people but still could not subdue a Third World country’s quest for independence.

      But President Obama has essentially inaugurated his bombing campaign in Syria with an admission of past “mistakes,” telling 60 Minutes that the CIA “underestimated” the strength of ISIS. What Obama’s admission actually shows is that the real U.S. mission in Syria – the three-year proxy war to overthrow the government of Bashar Assad – is already a failure.


    • REALITIES BEHIND THE RAPID EXPANSION OF ISIS
      As far as the public knows, there is no money attached to the bill. The Saudi government has already volunteered to train and contribute funds to approved Syrian rebel groups. According to an expert from Foreign Policy Magazine, the CIA has already been training Syrian fighters at a base in Jordan for a long time. Understandably, the efforts have not started to pay off yet. Obviously there is a broad range of people fighting against the regime in Damascus. One of them has gained strength more rapidly than the others - ISIS. Well, who are these militants? Where do they come from? According to the BBC, the group was first established in Iraq as a derivation of al-Qaida in Iraq.
    • A serial intervener, after all
      America’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate president, Barack Obama, who helped turn Libya into a failed state by toppling ruler Moammar Gadhafi, has started a new war in Syria and Iraq even as the U.S. remains embroiled in the Afghanistan war. Obama’s air war in Syria — his presidency’s seventh military campaign in a Muslim nation and the one likely to consume his remaining term in office — raises troubling questions about its objectives and his own adherence to the rule of law.


    • US targets Syria infrastructure rather than militants: Sabrosky
      Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday while commenting on Washington-led coalition airstrikes in Syria that began last week.
    • The mess in Afghanistan
    • Afghanistan Signs Pact Allowing 10,000 U.S. Troops to Remain


    • As US-Afghanistan Sign Troop Deal, CIA-Backed Warlord Behind Massacre of 2,000 POWs Sworn-In as VP
      Afghanistan has inaugurated its first new president in a decade, swearing in Ashraf Ghani to head a power-sharing government. Joining him on stage Monday was Abdul Rashid Dostum, Afghanistan's new vice president. Dostum is one of Afghanistan's most notorious warlords, once described by Ghani himself as a "known killer." Dostum's rise to the vice presidency comes despite his involvement in a 2001 massacre that killed up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners of war. The victims were allegedly shot to death or suffocated in sealed metal truck containers after they surrendered to Dostum and the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance. The dead prisoners — some of whom had been tortured — were then buried in the northern Afghan desert. Dostum, who was on the CIA payroll, has been widely accused of orchestrating the massacre and tampering with evidence of the mass killing. For more than a decade, human rights groups have called on the United States to conduct a full investigation into the massacre including the role of U.S. special forces and CIA operatives. We speak to Jamie Doran, director of the 2002 documentary "Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death," and Susannah Sirkin, director of international policy at Physicians for Human Rights, the group that discovered the site of the mass graves of the Taliban POWs.


    • Glenn Greenwald: U.S. manufactured militant threat as pretext to bomb Syria
      In an extensive new report, The Intercept questions whether the much-hyped Khorasan Group actually exists


    • How the U.S. Concocted a Terror Threat to Justify Syria Strikes, and the Corporate Media Went Along
      As the U.S. expands military operations in Syria, we look at the Khorasan group, the shadowy militant organization the Obama administration has invoked to help justify the strikes. One month ago, no one had heard of Khorasan, but now U.S. officials say it poses an imminent threat to the United States. As the strikes on Syria began, U.S. officials said Khorasan was "nearing the execution phase" of an attack on the United States or Europe, most likely an attempt to blow up a commercial plane in flight. We are joined by Murtaza Hussain of The Intercept, whose new article with Glenn Greenwald is "The Khorasan Group: Anatomy of a Fake Terror Threat to Justify Bombing Syria."


    • MSM Support Brazen Lawlessness
      Media scoundrels cheerlead them. They regurgitate Big Lies doing so. Last week's headlines featured a so-called Khorasan Group.

      It's more fiction than fact. It's fake. Irresponsible fear-mongering gets people to believe otherwise.

      Posing a threat to Europe and America's heartland, it's claimed. Truth is polar opposite.


    • A coherent strategy for the Middle East
      The ranks of the Islamic State jihadists are already full of “moderate rebels” previously trained, equipped and funded by U.S. Special Forces and the CIA. So much for the State Department and CIA’s vetting process, particularly when these militias have shown a capability to shift allegiances on a daily, if not more frequent, basis. The fact of the matter is that the main beneficiaries of our attacks on the Islamic State will be the Iranian proxies in Damascus and Baghdad.


    • Has the ISIS Crisis Pushed the CIA into Bed with Hezbollah?
      A few months ago, a former top CIA operative applied for a Lebanese visa to do some work in Beirut for an oil company. While he was waiting for approval, a package arrived at his client’s office. Inside was a full dossier on his CIA career. “It included things on where I had served, well back into 1990s,” said Charles Faddis, who ran the CIA’s covert action program in Kurdistan during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, among other top assignments. “It had details on my travels to Israel and Lebanon—years ago.”


    • Americans: Who’s Your Enemy Now?
      What the U.S. government doesn’t want the world to focus on is the fact that the CIA was very active in supplying Libyan rebels with support to take down Gaddafi. Unfortunately, in an effort to take out one enemy of freedom, the CIA got in bed with another — many of the Libyan rebels included Al-Qaeda backed jihadists who were also Al-Qaeda in Iraq. (1)


    • Who’s to Blame for ISIS ‘Surprise’?
      For several years, Official Washington blinded itself to the growing radicalism of the Syrian opposition, all the better to portray the Assad regime as the “bad guys” and the rebels as the “good guys.” Now, everyone is pointing fingers about the ISIS “surprise,” as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.


    • Eyes Finally Open to Syrian Realities
      For the past three years, Official Washington has viewed the Syrian civil war as “white-hatted” rebels against “black-hatted” President Assad, but finally some of the “gray-hatted” reality is breaking through, though perhaps too late, Robert Parry reports.


    • US airstrikes launched amid intelligence vacuum
      Human rights groups also say coalition airstrikes in both countries have killed as many as two dozen civilians. U.S. officials say they can't rule out civilian deaths but haven't confirmed any.


    • Civilian casualty standard eased in Iraq, Syria
      Warren acknowledged that the Pentagon could not say for sure that every person killed in the bombing of Iraq and Syria has been a combatant.


    • Activists still selling peace, but is public still buying?
      The activists assured me their message was still relevant — that America’s foreign policy remains one of “war-making,” as longtime protestor Greg Giogio put it — and it seems they were right.


    • Cornel West: Obama Administration Is a ‘Drone Presidency’
      Famed public intellectual Cornel West, whose new book Black Prophetic Fire is a re-examination of key black political figures through a different lens, was initially a big supporter of Barack Obama and appeared with him during his first presidential campaign. But in 2012, West says he didn’t even vote. “I couldn’t vote for a war criminal,” he said, calling Obama’s administration a “drone presidency.”


    • Cornel West: Obama ‘Paternalistic’ to Young Black Men, but ‘Subservient’ to Wall Street
      Cornel West has been one of President Obama‘s biggest liberal critics, both on race and foreign policy, and in a new video for TIME, West says that Obama has a very “paternalistic” way of speaking when he addresses young black men.


    • The Civil Rights Leader Cornel West Thinks You Should Know About
      Cornel West — acclaimed thinker and activist — sat down to talk with Belinda Luscombe about his new book, Black Prophetic Fire. The book, which he wrote with Christa Buschendorf, looks at the work of six leaders from African-American history. But, as is pointed out in the video above, those six leaders aren’t all equally well known: the book moves from the most famous Civil Rights names, W.E.B. DuBois and Martin Luther King, Jr., to a name that may be unfamiliar to those not versed in the subject.


    • Fred Branfman, who exposed secret U.S. bombing of Laos, dies at 72
      Fred Branfman, the first person to draw public attention to a previously unknown U.S. bombing campaign inside Laos during the Vietnam War and who later became a leading antiwar activist in Washington, died Sept. 24 at a medical facility in Budapest, where he had lived for several years. He was 72.


    • Jordan on high alert for possible IS retaliation
      Many rumors are circulating in Amman about alleged terror threats to shopping malls and other public places in response to news that the kingdom’s air force has joined the US-led coalition in targeting Islamic State (IS) positions in Syria.
    • Opinion: Did US intelligence truly underestimate ISIS?
      While US President Barack Obama has said his country’s intelligence services underestimated the strength of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Saudi Interior Minister Prince Muhammad Bin Naif said: “We know that ISIS was not randomly formed but rather sponsored by states and organizations that employ all their resources and ill intentions in backing ISIS.” How can we interpret this?
    • ISIS Threat: Let's Refuse to Be Scared
      Late in the 20th century, state terror was a routine instrument of policy, both domestically and internationally. The Phoenix Program in South Vietnam was a CIA-sponsored assassination campaign against suspected Communist leaders on the village level. Chile's dictator Pinochet waged state terror against leftists and even blew up a Chilean exile in Washington, D.C. Ronald Reagan funded the Nicaraguan contras, who murdered schoolteachers, while the CIA laid mines in Nicaraguan harbours. South Africa's apartheid regime carried out state terror against African National Congress members both domestically and in other African countries.


    • Last Days in Vietnam: Rory Kennedy Looks at the Fall of Saigon
    • Chaos and Tragedy in a “Post-War” Zone: Last Days in Vietnam
      Next April will be the 40th anniversary of the operation. Watching the film made me think again of the all the follow-on effects and long-term consequences of any war. It made me think also of the refugees who came to the U.S. and of their accomplishments. In 2009, Commander Hung B. Le, son of a Vietnamese navy officer and rescued by the USS Barbour County (LST-1195) at sea after the air evacuation ended, commanded the USS Lassen (DDG-82) as she sailed into Da Nang. Maj. Bung Lee and his family, now retired Rear Admiral Chambers and Commander Vern Jumper, the USS Midway’s Air Boss who managed the flight deck that hectic day, attended the 35th anniversary celebration held on the Midway, now a museum in San Diego. Recently, Brigadier General Viet Luong, whose family left Vietnam in the “black operation” the day before the official evacuation, became the U.S. Army’s first Vietnamese general officer.


    • Biden apologizes to Erdogan in phone call
      US Vice President Joe Biden apologized Saturday to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was angry over comments in which Biden said Erdogan had admitted that Turkey had made mistakes by allowing foreign fighters to cross into Syria.


    • Biden: Turks, Saudis, UAE funded and armed Al Nusra and Al Qaeda
      When Joe Biden gets candid, he really lets rip. The US vice president, speaking at the John F. Kennedy Jr Forum at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, on Thursday told his audience – point blank – that America’s Sunni allies are responsible for funding and arming Al Qaeda-type extremists in Syria.


    • Peace prize pundit bets on Article 9 guardians to win Nobel
      A Nobel Peace Prize observer with a relatively unsuccessful betting record speculates that the Japanese people who uphold war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution are most likely to be chosen the winner of this year’s award, which is to be announced this week.




  • Transparency Reporting



    • When WikiLeaks cold-called Hillary Clinton
      In a trailer advertising WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s new book, When Google Met WikiLeaks, the never-before-seen clip (below) shows WikiLeaks editor Sarah Harrison phoning the State Department’s front desk and asking to speak with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “It’s an emergency,” Assange prompts Harrison to say, passing a notecard across the table.


    • Wikileaks accuses intelligence watchdog of misleading Senate inquiry
      Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has accused an Australian government agency of giving misleading evidence to a parliamentary inquiry.


    • The CIA Still Redacts How Much It Paid for PCs in 1987


    • CIA: Cost of Personal Computer in 1987 is a Secret


    • The Dissenter [reposted from here, "Inspector General Claims to Have Found No ‘Instances’ Where CIA Over-Classified Secrets")
      Also, the CIA "chose not to evaluate declassification actions" in this report but provided "no explanation for that decision." In other words, it did not bother to inspect whether it is appropriately declassifying information that should not be kept secret.

      All the recommendations in the inspector general report are censored. They all address how the CIA can better mark information that the agency classifies and for some unclear reason that is sensitive information that if released would help the terrorists win.


    • CIA Doesn't Think It's Keeping Too Many Secrets
      In a September 2013 report, the CIA's inspector general could find "no instances" of over-classification. The report, obtained Wednesday by The Huffington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, was based on a sample of CIA intelligence reports.

      The report was produced in response to a federal law meant to reduce over-classification. In January, the CIA refused to release the report to HuffPost until after it underwent a review process.


    • CIA Asks to Destroy Email of Non-Senior Agency Officials
      The Central Intelligence Agency has asked for authority to destroy email messages sent by non-senior officials of the Agency. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has tentatively approved the proposal.


    • CIA gets permission to destroy certain emails
      The CIA asked the National Archives and Records Administration In August if it could destroy certain employee emails, according to an NARA appraisal obtained by the Federation of American Scientists.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife



    • Pacific Islands Facing ‘Existential Threats’
      Taking to the General Assembly podium today, Vanuatu’s Prime Minister, Joe Natuman said that as a Pacific small Island developing State (SIDS), his country was confronted with unique development challenges, which needed to be addressed by the UN and international community.


    • On final day of UN Assembly, small island nations discuss climate change, economics
      Noting that small island developing nations must speak with one voice at the global level, representatives of those countries today pressed for international economic partnerships and efforts to combat climate change, on the final day of the annual General Assembly debate in New York.

      The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade for Barbados urged the international community to make provisions for countries which are both small island developing nations and highly-indebted middle income countries.


    • Neil Young and Willie Nelson Protest Keystone Pipeline in American Heartland
      Harvest the Hope, a concert on the farm of Art and Helen Tanderup in Neligh, Nebraska, right on the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline, was many things: a musical tour de force starring Neil Young and Willie Nelson; an anti-pipeline message to President Obama whose election graphic formed the O of "Hope" on the stage banner, the word itself Obama campaign terminology; an artistic call to activism designed by artists Richard Vollaire and John Quigley whose crop design "Heartland No KXL" was plowed by farmer Tanderup into his corn field as he followed Quigley's direction, in an image spanning the size of 80 football fields; and "The day the idea of the Keystone Pipleline died" as pronounced by thousands of attendees who stood in rows like the corn and chanted in call and response with Quigley.


    • Dead water reserves can't quench Sao Paulo's thirst
      Four months after Sao Paulo's state water utility Sabesp spent 80 million reais (26.3 million euros) to tap so-called dead reserves in its shrinking reservoirs, water supplies for South America's biggest metropolis are even worse than they were before.

      Brazil's worst drought in eight decades has turned most of Cantareira, the four-lake complex that supplies half of greater Sao Paulo's 20 million residents, into a dried-up bed of cracked earth. What's left are sediment-filled pools in the centre — the dead reserves — that were previously untappable until Sabesp built 3 kilometres of pipes to drain the water.

      The manoeuvre bought Sabesp some time by boosting drinking supplies by 182.5 billion litres to almost 27 per cent of Cantareira's capacity. Sabesp, formally Cia. de Saneamento Basico do Estado de Sao Paulo, expected the water to last until reservoirs are refreshed by summer rains that typically run from October through March.







  • Finance



    • Has Neoliberalism Turned Us All Into Psychopaths?
      We tend to perceive our identities as stable and largely separate from outside forces. But over decades of research and therapeutic practice, I have become convinced that economic change is having a profound effect not only on our values but also on our personalities. Thirty years of neoliberalism, free-market forces and privatization have taken their toll, as relentless pressure to achieve has become normative. If you’re skeptical, I put this simple statement to you: meritocratic neoliberalism favors certain personality traits and penalizes others.


    • Convicted former U.S. congressman James Traficant dies
      He claimed the government had tried to frame him because of his criticism of the FBI, CIA and Internal Revenue Service.
    • Flamboyant U.S. congressman James Traficant served time for bribery
      He claimed the government had tried to frame him because of his criticism of the FBI, CIA and IRS. During the two-month trial, he did a curbside interview on live network TV outside the courthouse each morning and then went inside to challenge U.S. District Judge Lesley Brooks Wells, who tried to dissuade Mr. Traficant from representing himself.


    • James Traficant Jr., flamboyant former congressman from Ohio, dies at 73
      In Washington, he barreled through the House in rumpled sports coats and loud shirts. Traficant fashioned himself as a maverick populist, spending much of his career railing against foreign aid and various government agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service and the CIA.

      “Lying, thieving, stealing nincompoops” is how he once described the latter.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



    • Scalia has a secrecy problem: Hiding and hypocrisy at the Supreme Court
      The court plays a growing activist role in our politics and lives -- yet all nine justices hide in the shadows


    • The Surprising Power of Subtitles
      Evangelists aren't the only ones who have long recognized the virtues of cross-lingual engagement. By the end of World War II, the U.S.-funded Voice of America radio network was producing more than 1,000 different programs for worldwide broadcast in over 40 languages. In the late 1950s, the CIA had thousands of copies of a Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago printed, which it then surreptitiously distributed to Soviet citizens.


    • Cuomo’s terrorism card game
      He jets to Afghanistan and announces a new commitment to address threats. Honest awakening or election-year opportunism?


    • TV show makes fun of ISIS propaganda


    • Iraqi comedy show mocks Islamic State propaganda


    • Propaganda to fight back with IS TV satire
      As Iraqi forces struggle to pin back the Islamic State group on the ground, Baghdad is taking its war against the jihadists to the airwaves with a television comedy series.

      The usually elusive Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi features prominently in the show, whose promoters argue that ridiculing the jihadist supremo can help dent his aura of almost supernatural villainy.




  • Censorship



    • How Liberals Became the New Book Banners
      Before last week’s Banned Book Week recedes much farther in the rearview mirror, let’s pause for a moment to note this curious fact: Some of those who oppose censorship also support it.


    • The deplorable censorship of the installation Exhibit B at the Barbican
      There was once a telling advertisement for Guinness that went: “I’ve never tried it because I don’t like it.” This super-intelligent cautionary jingle was adopted as the touchstone for his case by Dr Kehinde Andrews in his Head to Head with one of Exhibit B’s actors, Stella Odunlami (New Review).


    • Censorship in 'New Turkey' out of control, media groups show
      This past week, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government shut down a critical news site, censored an article written by a columnist and launched an investigation into another news portal.


    • Turkey’s ErdoÄŸan Says He Is 'Increasingly Against the Internet Every Day'
      Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan lined himself up against a powerful enemy today, when he voiced his growing opposition to the world wide web.


    • AP History class standards spark fight over patriotism and censorship
      When the College Board established new national standards for Advanced Placement U.S. History courses, conservative members of the school board in Jefferson County, Colorado, called for changes to their local curriculum to promote patriotism and the free enterprise system and discourage civil disorder. Hari Sreenivasan reports on the ensuing protests against censorship by students.


    • Egypt Seizes Newspapers to Censor an Article
      The Egyptian authorities on Wednesday confiscated all the copies of one of the country’s largest private newspapers in order to censor an article, just days after President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi vowed in an American television interview that there was “no limitation on freedom of expression in Egypt.”


    • Internet in Iran: A Daily Struggle Against Censorship
      It is estimated that Iranian authorities block access to more than 5 million webpages, including popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube; in addition to porn sites, bank webpages, and any media considered hostile to Iran.




  • Privacy



  • Civil Rights



    • Ray McGovern
      Today’s Project Censored Show presents a speech given by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern. After his retirement from the CIA, McGovern founded “Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity,” and has criticized US spy agencies for their lawbreaking, and subservience to the agendas of politicians. He spoke in Santa Rosa, California on September 24, 2014, at an event co-sponsored by Project Censored.


    • Ray McGovern Triumphs Over State Department
    • Ex-Spy Vindicated After Protesting Hillary
      McGovern is a changed man. He started out in the Army, then he worked for the CIA from the Kennedy administration up through the first Bush presidency, preparing the president’s daily intel brief. He was a hell of a spy. McGovern began to see the evil of much of the government’s work, and has since become an outspoken critic of the intelligence world and an advocate for free speech. He speaks on behalf of people like Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.


    • Detention orders obtained before anti-terrorism raids were carried out
      This may be the first time that Australian anti-terrorism powers have been used in detention of suspects without charge


    • Scores of students still missing after ambush by Mexican police and gunmen
      At least six people killed and at least 20 students ‘disappeared’ by police in Iguala believed to be controlled by drug cartel


    • Mexican women pay high price for country’s rigid abortion laws
      Mexico has some of the strictest abortion laws in the world, and women can find themselves criminalised even after miscarriage


    • US envoy warns against press censorship
      South Africa has to be wary of attempts to censor the media, such as SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng's recent suggestion that journalists be licensed, US ambassador Patrick Gaspard said on Tuesday.


    • Washington Times Settles With DHS in Case Involving Improper Seizure
      When the Department of Homeland Security illegally seized notes from Washington Times reporter Audrey Hudson in 2013, the Times and the reporter took the DHS to court. A settlement has now been reached that includes a review of training for the DHS’ Coast Guard criminal investigators.


    • Student Journalism Conference Features Lovejoy Award Recipient
      Risen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigative reporter who faces possible jail time for refusing to reveal confidential sources, will receive Colby’s Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism and give a formal address at 5:30 p.m. in Lorimer Chapel. The public is invited to the panel discussion and the convocation.


    • NY Journalist Wins Lovejoy Award
      A New York Times reporter who faced the prospect of jail for refusing to reveal a CIA source of classified information is recipient of this year's Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award.


    • Colby College honors journalist James Risen
      The New York Times journalist who’s receiving this year’s Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism has faced down the prospect of jail for refusing to reveal a CIA source of classified information.

      The Justice Department is trying to force reporter James Risen to testify at the trial of a former CIA officer accused of leaking classified information. Risen used an unidentified source for his reports about a botched CIA effort to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions.


    • [Western media:] Russian state television says Britain and US provoked Hong Kong protests
      Accusations from pro-Kremlin media reflect Russia’s growing ties with China after US and EU sanctions


    • More Washington Lies. Hong Kong, ISIS, Ebola, Afghanistan …
      Whatever is occurring in Hong Kong, it bears no relation to what is being reported about it in the Western print and TV media. These reports spin the protests as a conflict between the demand for democracy and a tyrannical Chinese government

      Ming Chun Tang in the alternative media CounterPunch says that the protests are against the neoliberal economic policies that are destroying the prospects of everyone but the one percent. In other words, the protests are akin to the American occupy movement.


    • The Skinny on Hong Kong's Occupy Central Movement
      I have been watching the Occupy Central Movement with some detachment (some are also calling it the Umbrella Movement, since protestors sport umbrellas against the tropical sun and afternoon showers). The rubber stamp, Ministry of Truth-Western mainstream media is kowtowing to the Washington-London-Paris consensus, declaring that Occupy Central is hungering for Western style "democracy", that it is bigger than Hong Kong. It all sounds so predictably deja vu. Knowing that free-wheeling Hong Kong is gladly letting CIA front NGO National Endowment for Democracy operate on its soil, is all we need to know. The main "non" governmental organizations (NGOs) that do the CIA's bidding around the world are...


    • US State Dept Funding and Occupy Central, the Ties that Bind
      We Fully Support A People’s Movement In Hong Kong. As we explain further details about ‘Occupy Central’, it is the intention of this article to help the students and Hong Kongese people who are fighting for the future of Hong Kong make informed decisions on who they join in coalitions with and choose for Chief Executive when they achieve True Universal Sufferage.


    • Ships Passing in the Night
      (This Chinese peninsula) became a colony of the British Empire after the First Opium War (1839--42). As a result of the negotiations and the 1984 agreement between China and Britain, Hong Kong was handed over to the People's Republic of China and became its first Special Administrative Region on 1 July 1997, under the principle of "one country, two systems". The educational system followed the British English model until 2009, and Hong Kong's independent judiciary functions under the common law framework.[15][16] The constitutional document drafted by the Chinese side before the handover based on the terms enshrined in the Joint Declaration,[17] governs its political system, and stipulates that Hong Kong shall have a high degree of autonomy in all matters except foreign relations and military defense.[18][19] Although it has a multi-party system, a minority controls 30 out of 70 seats of its legislature. Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world but also the highest income inequality among advanced economies.[5][tag]


    • Libeling a democracy movement: Accusing Hong Kong Activists of Being Tools of US Policy is Both Ignorant and Dangerous
      A number of progressive and left-leaning writers in the US have jumped on a report by Wikileaks that the neo-con dominated National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and various other US-government linked organizations with a history of subversion and sowing discord abroad are operating in Hong Kong and on that basis are making the leap of "logic" that the democracy protests in Hong Kong must therefore be a creation of US policy-makers.
    • Beyond 935 Lies
      Charles Lewis' book, 935 Lies, would make a fine introduction to reality for anyone who believes the U.S. government usually means well or corporations tend to tell the truth in the free market. And it would make an excellent introduction to the decline and fall of the corporate media. Even if these topics aren't new to you, this book has something to add and retells the familiar quite well.

      The familiar topics include the Gulf of Tonkin, the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, the civil rights movement, U.S. aggression and CIA overthrows, Pinochet, Iran-Contra, lying tobacco companies, and Edward R. Murrow. Lewis brings insight to these and other topics, and if he doesn't document that things were better before the 1960s, he does establish that horrible things have been getting worse since, and are now much more poorly reported on.


    • Top German Editor: CIA Bribing Journalists
      Members of the German media are paid by the CIA in return for spinning the news in a way that supports US interests, and some German outlets are nothing more than PR appendages of NATO, according to a new book by Udo Ulfkotte, a former editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany's largest newspapers.


    • German Journalist Reveals That The CIA Has Compromised The Western Media
      A German journalist reveals in his new bestseller that Western Media is paid by the CIA to print propaganda instead of the news.


    • CIA and US military use of Shannon Airport examined by Oireachtas Petitions Committee
      AN OIREACHTAS COMMITTEE visited Shannon Airport this week to look at concerns by human rights group Shannonwatch about its use by US military aircraft in contravention of Irish neutrality and its possible use by the CIA for illegal renditions.


    • Joint Oireachtas Committee to visit Shannon


    • CIA Mum Regarding Surveillance of U.S. Senate
      The Electronic Privacy Information Center sued the CIA for records on the agency's spying on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee's computer network.

      The complaint recounts events leading up to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., accusing the CIA of secretly removing documents from the Intelligence Committee, searching its computers and trying to intimidate congressional investigators.

      The Committee has been investigating the CIA's detention and interrogation program.


    • Majority Say Brennan Violated Checks and Balances, and Must Go
      The Public Policy robo-poll of 898 registered voters was commissioned by the Constitution Project, a highly-respected non-partisan group that has been active in calling attention to the lack of accountability for the torture of detainees during the last administration.

      The poll found overwhelming public support for release of a long-completed report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The report is said to disclose abuse that was more brutal, systematic and widespread than generally recognized, and to expose a pattern of deceit in the Bush administration’s descriptions of the program to Congress and the public.

      But despite having been completed in December 2012, the report remains inaccessible to the public. Most recently, the White House and the CIA have proposed redactions that Senate intelligence committee chair Dianne Feinstein said effectively undermine its key findings.


    • Former ambassador calls Roberts 'congenital liar' complicit in torture scandal


    • Pat Roberts, Congenital Liar
      Make no mistake: Torture is not "enhanced interrogation," but a war crime under the Geneva Conventions written at the direction of the U.S. since World War II when Japanese officials were executed for the offense.


    • Will There Be a Backlash Against Torture?
      The Senate intelligence committee hopes to release soon a redacted summary of its 6,300-page report on the CIA's interrogational torture program. As we wait, the committee is wrangling with the CIA over redactions that the CIA is demanding. So it is an opportune moment to think about how the public might react to the report.
    • Poll shows strong support for releasing Senate torture report
      An overwhelming bipartisan majority of Americans thinks that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence should make public its comprehensive report on the CIA’s detention and torture of terrorism suspects after 9/11, according to a new poll released today by The Constitution Project, a bipartisan legal watchdog group based in Washington, D.C.


    • Controversial former militia leader puts himself forward as Libya’s savior
      He claims that he was “abducted by the CIA” with his then-pregnant wife a decade ago, in Thailand, then transited through the UK-controlled island Diego Garcia and handed over to the Gadhafi regime.


    • Former Military and Intelligence Officials Condemn U.S. Torture Regime
      On October 1, 2014, Human Rights First released the following letter, signed by over a dozen former military and intelligence officials, categorically condemning the U.S. torture regime – calling it illegal, ineffective and counterproductive. As the Senate Intelligence Committee gears up to release portions of its CIA torture report, the Government Accountability Project commends the efforts of these and other former military and intelligence officials, without whom the public would still be in the dark about the United States’ torture program. National security whistleblowers have a long and notable history of exposing the crimes and human rights abuses the United States has committed in the name of national security, including torture. By bringing these abuses to light, national security whistleblowers play a vital role in ensuring that the United States never commits these terrible acts again.


    • CIA sued over Senate spying
      A Washington-based privacy organization is suing the CIA to obtain details about how it spied on Senate staffers.

      The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to obtain the agency inspector general’s report on the spying incident, it announced on Thursday.


    • Crackdown on terrorism threatens civil liberties
      President Obama’s “war on terrorism,” spurred by the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), poses a potential threat to American civil liberties. Under mounting pressure to eliminate an increasing number of security threats, national security professionals may be tempted to overlook boundaries in the name of national security.


    • MI5 'gave green light to Moazzam Begg trip to Syria'
      Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg said he was effectively given a "green light" to go to Syria by MI5 before being detained on terror charges on his return.


    • Did John F. Kennedy's death Impact You?
      This last weekend the AARC Conference drew over 200 to the Bethesda Hyatt Regency on the 50 th anniversary of the Warren Report. Kennedy's violent death in 1963 shocked Americans, undermining public trust.


    • CoE: Human organ trafficking trials outside Kosovo
      The Council of the European Union decided on Monday to mandate EULEX to support the judicial proceedings relocated from Kosovo that arise from the investigation by the EU Special Investigative Task Force (SITF) into the allegations contained in prosecutor Dick Marty’s Council of Europe (CoE) report on the human organ trafficking in Kosovo and Albania in 1999.


    • Vecer: Yugoslavian army used to test chemical weapon in Macedonia


    • Dirty Politics: Police raid Nicky Hager's home
      Dirty Politics author Nicky Hager has had his home raided by police searching for the hacker Rawshark.

      In a 10-hour search of his house, Hager said computers and papers were seized in what appeared to be an attempt to discover the identity of the person who provided information used in the Dirty Politics book.


    • 'Criminals are at work in refugee homes'
      A photo appearing to show a refugee being abused at a home for asylum seekers has caused outrage in Germany. The photo has been compared to those from Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Police are now investigating six cases of abuse at three different centres.


    • Criminal Guards Under Investigation for Abusing Refugees in Asylum Centres
      German police are investigating reports that guards at three asylum centres in North Rhine-Westphalia have been abusing the refugees interned in the centres. Photos released showing the abuse have been compared to Abu-Ghraib, whilst a colleague has told German media that the group of guards were nicknamed “the SS”, The Local has reported.


    • Justice in America. Falling Short of the Mark: The Eric Holder Dossier
      Holder, for that reason, leaves the rule of law in something of a tattered state, and his successor is not likely to do much of a restoration work. This, suggests Ryan Cooper, may be as much a matter of personal flaw as systemic problem.[4] Truly, an altogether illustrative statement about the Obama administration.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality





Recent Techrights' Posts

Comparing U.E.F.I. to B.I.O.S. (Bloat and Insecurity to K.I.S.S.)
By Sami Tikkanen
New 'Slides' From Stallman Support (stallmansupport.org) Site
"In celebration of RMS's birthday, we've been playing a bit. We extracted some quotes from the various articles, comments, letters, writings, etc. and put them in the form of a slideshow in the home page."
Thailand: GNU/Linux Up to 6% of Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
Desktop Operating System Market Share Thailand
António Campinos is Still 'The Fucking President' (in His Own Words) After a Fake 'Election' in 2022 (He Bribed All the Voters to Keep His Seat)
António Campinos and the Administrative Council, whose delegates he clearly bribed with EPO budget in exchange for votes
Adrian von Bidder, homeworking & Debian unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
 
People Don't Just Kill Themselves (Same for Other Animals)
And recent reports about Boeing whistleblower John Barnett
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 18, 2024
Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
Links for the day
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
Links for the day
Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day