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Purveyor's JournalSnowden Ready To Dump More 'Truth' On NSA
National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has denied charges he is spying for China and vowed to release more details on the top-secret intelligence agency's ''direct access'' to tech companies' servers.
''Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped,'' Snowden said during a live blog on The Guardian website. He said the US government ''is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me''.
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Former vice-president Dick Cheney told Fox News he thought Snowden was a ''traitor'' and warned the analyst might be spying for the Chinese government.
''Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honour you can give an American,'' Mr Snowden responded, ''and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, [Dianne] Feinstein, and [Peter] King, the better off we all are.''
He called Mr Cheney ''a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up'' for the war in Iraq. And he ridiculed Mr Cheney's claims he was a spy.
''Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now,'' he said.
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http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/1582735/snowden-ready-to-dump-more-truth-on-nsa/?cs=12
Journalist Who Brought Down U.S. General Is Killed In Los Angeles Car Crash
LOS ANGELES, June 18 | Tue Jun 18, 2013 11:35pm EDT
(Reuters) - Journalist Michael Hastings, whose 2010 Rolling Stone magazine profile of the U.S. military chief in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, led to the general being relieved of command, died on Tuesday in a car wreck in Los Angeles, his employer said.
A statement from the editor-in-chief of online news outlet BuzzFeed reporting that Hastings, 33, had been killed, gave no details of the accident, and neither Los Angeles police nor the county coroner's office would confirm his death.
But police said a man who had not been identified was killed before dawn on Monday when his car slammed into a tree near Hollywood and burst into flames in what authorities say was the only fatal traffic accident reported in the city during the day.
The driver was the lone occupant of the automobile, police said.
Coroner's Lieutenant Fred Corral said the body of the driver was burned beyond recognition and that further investigation was required to make a positive identification.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/19/usa-journalist-carcrash-idUSL2N0EV04A20130619
Jordan's King: Tough Talk As War Rages Nearby
By Nabih Bulos
June 17, 2013, 10:13 a.m.
AMMAN, Jordan — Amid escalating concern about spillover effects of the war in neighboring Syria, Jordan’s King Abdullah II has warned that his kingdom is able "at any moment" to protect its national interests.
Addressing a group of cadets in a graduation ceremony at Mutah Military Academy on Sunday, the king, in full battle dress, made only a single mention of Syria, but the conflict next door was a major subtext.
"If the world does not mobilize or help us in the issue [of Syria] as it should, or if this matter forms a danger to our country, we are able at any moment to take measures that will protect our land and the interests of our people,” said Abdullah, a key regional ally of the United States.
The speech came as Jordan was taking part in "Eager Lion," a 12-day military exercise that has brought 4,500 U.S. military personnel as well as 3,500 soldiers from 17 other countries to the kingdom.
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Abdullah is also facing an increasingly hostile internal environment, with many Jordanians, especially extremist Islamic elements known as Salafists, seeking to cross into Syria and join rebels in the sectarian-fueled conflict that has engulfed Jordan's northern neighbor.
Last week witnessed the formation of the Brigade of Jordanian Mujahedin No. 1, a militant faction registering the names of volunteers who wish to fight with Syrian rebels, according to postings on the group’s Facebook page.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-jordan-king-abdullah-speech-20130617,0,5784321.story
Bill Ayers: Obama Should Be Tried For War Crimes
Bill Ayers, the 1960s radical whose links to President Obama were a source of controversy in the 2008 election, now thinks the president should be tried for war crimes.
In an interview with RealClearPolitics, Ayers said that Mr. Obama's use of drones "absolutely" amounts to terrorist activity.
While Ayers said Mr. Obama should "absolutely" be tried for war crimes, he also said no president in his lifetime has been guilt-free.
"Every president in this century should be put on trial," Ayers said. "Every one of them goes into office -- an office dripping with blood -- and then adds to it. And, yes, I think that these are war crimes. I think that they're acts of terror."
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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57589932/bill-ayers-obama-should-be-tried-for-war-crimes/
OUCH!
NSA Considers Ending Collection Of Data On Americans' Phone Calls
By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News
The National Security Agency is reviewing whether to stop collecting a vast stockpile of records of Americans’ telephone calls — the most controversial component of its surveillance programs— by allowing telecommunications companies to retain the data until U.S. intelligence officials have a specific reason to review it for possible connections to terror plots, U.S. officials said Tuesday
The NSA’s director, Gen. Keith Alexander, disclosed the review during a hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, saying the agency and the FBI are jointly re-examining “how we actually do this program.”
Asked by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., if the records of phone calls – known as metadata -- could be left in the hands of telecommunications firms and then reviewed only when there is a suspicion “of a foreign terrorist connection,” Alexander replied: “I do think that that’s something that we’ve agreed to look at and that we’ll do. It’s just going to take some time. We want to do it right.”
The NSA’s sweeping collection tens of millions of phone records was disclosed on June 5 by the Guardian newspaper after ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked to the paper a top secret order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court requiring Verizon to turn over information on all calls in its system to the NSA.
Under the program, NSA does not eavesdrop on actual phone calls. Instead, it collects the metadata —phone numbers, the time and length of each call – from telecommunications companies. The firms have been secretly turning over the data to the NSA under FISC court orders for years based on a provision of the Patriot Act that forbids the companies from disclosing the NSA’s collection to their customers, officials say.
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http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/18/19026469-nsa-considers-ending-collection-of-data-on-americans-phone-calls?lite
'Days Of Rambo Are Over': Pentagon Details Women's Move To Combat
Women in America's armed services will have new options for what units they can join in coming years, the Pentagon says. The military said in January that it will end its combat exclusion that set a minimum size for units in which women could be deployed; the limit kept many women away from front-line combat units. The shift means women could join elite forces such as the Army Rangers and Navy SEALs.
Depending on the job, women could begin training to join combat units in the next one to three years, according to several military officers who spoke at a Pentagon briefing Tuesday afternoon. Integration into special forces units is expected to take the longest.
"The days of Rambo are over," said Maj. Gen. Sacolick, of the U.S. Special Operations Command Force Management Directorate. Noting that special operations groups are looking for people who can learn other languages and be deployed in a variety of situations, he added, "The defining characteristic of our operators is their intellect."
The change is expected to come slowly, with women not expected to begin training to join ground front-line combat units until at least 2014 or later. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has set a deadline of Jan. 1, 2016 for all positions to be open. Neither Hagel nor the top-ranking officers in military's branches attended Tuesday's media briefing.
Branches of the service are developing gender-neutral tests that will be tailored to their units, and they may request a special exception to the policy shift if they find that their female members can't perform the duties of a specific job.
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http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/18/193170940/days-of-rambo-are-over-pentagon-details-womens-move-to-combat
Arab Village Latest Target Of Political Vandalism In Israel
By Batsheva Sobelman
June 18, 2013, 11:10 a.m.
ABU GHOSH, Israel -- Dozens of residents of this Arab village near Jerusalem woke up Tuesday to find their tires slashed and their walls spray-painted with hateful messages, their community the latest target of a series of politically motivated vandalism in Israel.
The late-night attack surprised residents of Abu Ghosh, known for its warm, neighborly relations with Jewish communities west of Jerusalem.
"Not in our worst dreams did we imagine this happening here,” said city official Issa Jaber. “Abu Ghosh has been an exemplary model of Arab-Jewish coexistence for decades."
President Shimon Peres spoke with the village mayor, Salim Jaber, and condemned the attack as "racist behavior which crosses a red line." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised action, saying the incident "contravenes the values of our people and state."
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http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-israel-arab-village-vandalism-20130618,0,1346168.story
US War Games Sends Clear Signal To Syrian President
ZARQA, Jordan (AP) — Under the watchful eye of stern-faced American advisers, hundreds of U.S.-trained Jordanian commandos fanned across this dusty desert plain, holding war games that could eventually form the basis of an assault in Syria.
With the recent deployment of Patriot missiles near the Syrian border, and the mock Syrian accents of those playing the enemy, the message was clear: There is fear of spillover from the Syrian war in this U.S.-allied kingdom, and the potential for a Jordanian role in securing Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles should Bashar Assad's regime lose control.
Dubbed Eager Lion, the 12-day exercise involves combined land, air and sea maneuvers across the country. It brings together 8,000 personnel from 19 Arab and European nations to train on border security, irregular warfare, terrorism and counterinsurgency.
Marine Corps Lt. Col. Duke Shienle said Syria "is a concern that all our regional partners share."
The Syrian crisis is "causing all military in the region to increase intensity," he said as he supervised masked commandos in black uniforms from Jordan and two other Syria neighbors — Iraq and Lebanon — in a mock exercise to free a hijacked aircraft on an airstrip in the eastern Jordanian desert.
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http://www.wtvq.com/news/world/story/US-war-games-sends-clear-signal-to-Syrian-presiden/wGDv4pXNIEisaZ2TCM419g.cspx
U.N. Recommends Bringing Iraq Closer To Ending 1990s Sanctions
Source: REUTERS
UNITED NATIONS | Tue Jun 18, 2013 8:19pm EDT
(Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday recommended bringing Iraq one step closer to ending all U.N. sanctions imposed on Baghdad more than two decades ago after former leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait In 1990.
Despite the toppling of Saddam in 2003 after a U.S.-led invasion, the United Nations has not fully lifted the sanctions. U.S.-led troops drove Iraq out of Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War.
If the U.N. Security Council accepts Ban's recommendation, it will be a significant political boost for Baghdad as it struggles to restore its international standing a decade after Saddam's ouster.
Iraq is still subject to a U.N. arms embargo and asset freeze on individuals and entities linked to Saddam.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/19/us-iraq-kuwait-un-idUSBRE95I00L20130619
Iraq still burdened by 1990 sanctions, who knew?
Israel's President Peres Backs Obama's Move To Arm Syrian Rebels
srael's president has said that the US is right to funnel weapons to the Syrian opposition fighting against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
In an interview with Reuters the Israeli president repudiated fears that weapons the US is supplying will be turned on Israel and that Israel will launch unilateral air strikes against Iran.
As the Jerusalem Post points out Peres gave the interview in the run up to his 90th birthday. He answered "yes" to a question which asked if the US decision was wise adding, "They didn't have a choice."
He lamented that, "Unfortunately it [the situation over Syria] is becoming more of a confrontation between two superpowers and [there is] a growing intervention of outside forces . . . It is a tragedy."
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/352598#ixzz2WbWa3i9x
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