Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court sentenced a prominent human rights activist to five years in prison on June 17, 2013, based on his writings and exposure of human rights abuses. Mikhlif al-Shammari was convicted of “sowing discord” and other offenses and barred from travelling for 10 years. Two days earlier, a Khobar court sentenced two [...] The post Saudi Arabia: Five-Year Sentence For Rights Defender appeared first on Eurasia Review.

To continue reading this article, click on the headline.

A new reef system has been found at the mouth of the Amazon River, the largest river by discharge of water in the world. As large rivers empty into the world’s oceans in areas known...

An Eygptian statuette that mysteriously turns itself round inside its display case has left experts baffled at the Manchester Museum.

It's kind of hard to scope things out on Venus because the surface probes we send get obliterated pretty quickly by the heat. Pictures of Venus' surface do exist, though, and this one shows "large circular domes" that look pretty darn hot. The domes are thought to be magma erupting through vents, in a process that happens on Earth too, called volcanism. Get it? Volcanoes? Get it? Okay. Moving on.

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by Ronen Solomon
[IsraelDefense.com]

Last week, Israel conducted an extensive military exercise that saw the participation of the IDF ground forces, the Israeli Navy and the IAF. The precise goals of the exercise were not made public and remained a secret. However, assessments are that it was aimed towards Israel's northern arena - towards the tension with Syria and Hezbollah.

What was not known was that at the same time, the Russian Navy vessel CCB-201 - one of the Russian Navy's largest intelligence vessels - was present in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The CCB-201 is no ordinary intelligence vessel, but rather a naval intelligence gathering unit which is similar in its characteristics to Israel's Unit 8200 - a SIGINT collection and decryption unit capable of intercepting and listening to military transmissions between naval vessels and aircraft in the Mediterranean Sea.

The vessel, which is also equipped with air defense systems, departed from one of the bases in the Black Sea and crossed the straits of Turkey on June 10 on its way to an area off the coasts of Syria and Cyprus.

From past experience, it appears that the purpose of the visit to the area is for gathering intelligence on NATO and US force activities, as well as Israel's readiness with regards to the situation in Syria - where Russia has military interests and assets, and thus is concerned of military intervention.

In 2000, Russia sent one of the same intelligence vessels to the Persian Gulf due to information received by Russian military intelligence, which indicated that NATO forces were planning to deal a blow to Iraq. At the time, the vessel's objective was to track NATO activities in the Persian Gulf and preserve Russia's interests there, especially those related to the fuel routes between Russia and Iran. A blow was dealt only in 2003 after an international coalition headed by the US and the UK dealt a blow that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime. Now that there are demands for US and NATO intervention in the Syrian crisis, Russia is responding in a similar manner.

The CCB-201 was constructed in 1980 in the framework of what NATO refers to as the Russian Navy's "Project 864" in the Black Sea. The vessel is manned by 150 crew members, including dozens of operators of listening, tracking, radio transmission and electronic signal decryption systems, as well as electronic warfare systems. The gathered information is transmitted in real-time via the vessel's satellite antennas to the coastal headquarters of Russian Navy intelligence units, and perhaps to those found on Russian soil.

Now, I will be the first to admit that drone aircraft have other uses aside from killing Muslims in Pakistan. But given that Liberty University bills itself as "one of America’s top military-friendly schools," and considering that the school has more than 23,000 online students are in the military, and given the school's track record as a warvangelical school, I wonder how many students in Liberty's drone aircraft training program will end up piloting drones for the DOD or CIA? Or as a local cop fighting the war on drugs? I am no fan of the theology of Sojourners, but there is a good article in the July issue about how Liberty University "became an evangelist for drone warfare."

[Ahram Online]

Protesters have put up 15 tents at Egypt's Defence Ministry starting a sit-in to demand that President Mohamed Morsi is dismissed from office and that executive power be handed over to Defence Minister Abd El-Fatah El-Sisi.

About 200 protesters remain at the ministry's headquarters in Cairo's Abbasiya district after hundreds staged a demonstration at the site Friday voicing their demands.

The protest was initially called for by far right television presenter Tawfik Okasha.

Egypt is anticipating mass nationwide protests 30 June against Morsi — who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood group — aimed at forcing him to step down followed by early presidential elections.

The 30 June call made by the Rebel campaign, and supported by several opposition groups, including the National Salvation Front (NSF), did not cite the military as an alternative to Morsi's rule and opposes this option.

Some participating groups, including the Revolutionary Socialists, have come out clearly against the military and the police taking a role, as well as any participation by figures from the former Mubarak regime.

Pakistani militants have claimed responsibility for today’s shooting in the country’s northern Kashmir province that allegedly killed at least nine foreign tourists, a Russian news agency reports.

Collapse in strong winds is one of the more amusing modes of failure for the notorious wind turbine.  Other forms such as blade throw are also hazardous.  You need to be 3000 feet away to be safe.  Yet noise, and shadow flicker require them to be kept even further away than that from habitations.  Many are being injured and some are dying.  The cost of wind power is higher than we thought.




http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/9238

Japan's coast guard says three Chinese surveillance ships entered Japanese waters Saturday around the disputed Senkaku islands, which are controlled by Japan and clamed by China. Maritime officials say the three vessels crossed into Japan's territorial waters in the East China Sea at about 9:30 a.m. . Ships from the two countries have been involved in a stand-off over the resource-rich islands, called the Diaoyus in China, for decades.

Six of the largest government contractors doing “Top Secret” work for the National Security Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies have given more than $16 million to lawmakers since 2007, according to Maplight, a firm that tracks political donations.

The biggest donors were Lockheed Martin, whose employees gave over $5 million; Boeing, Inc. whose workers chipped in more than $4.5 million; and Northrop Grumman, $3.3 million.

SAIC, Inc. and consulting giant Accenture each gave more than a million, while Computer Sciences Corporation, with $600,000 and Booz Allen Hamilton with just over $81,000, bring up the rear.

The issue has come under renewed scrutiny after Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old contract worker from Booz Allen, fled the NSA facility in Hawaii with a still-unknown number of Top Secret documents about the agency’s surveillance and data-gathering programs.

He has been leaking providing information to the Guardian newspaper.

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My Comment: Only $16 million?

Anyone who has been investigating GCHQ for years – and we come into that camp – would be incredulous at the notion that blanket surveillance is only a recent phenomena. In reality such broad surveillance, over decades, has adapted to the technologies of the time, becoming more and more sophisticated. Consequently, our investigations can demonstrate that at least one of the mass surveillance programs revealed yesterday by the Guardian (and based on documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden) extends back to the mid-1990s, not 2008 as intimated, with the NSA in co-operation with GCHQ running the program without informing their respective citizenry. See below for more (or as a memo from NSA to GCHQ, included in the Guardian article, said, “Have fun!”).

Update… Edward Snowden has been charged with theft, “unauthorized communication of national defense information” and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person”, with the last two charges brought under the 1917 Espionage Act. A leaked copy of the sealed indictment is here . The US are reportedly requesting Hong Kong police to arrest Snowden. Prosecutors now have 60 days to file the indictment and issue an extradition request. Snowden can fight the extradition in the courts in Hong Kong and the proceedings could last months. The US extradition treaty with Hong Kong has an exception for political offenses, and espionage has been treated as a political offense. Meanwhile, Iceland MP Birgitta Jonsdottir has indicated Snowden would receive widespread support from Icelanders, but applying for citizenship not asylum would be his best course. Should Snowden head for Iceland, a private plane, organised by Wikileaks, is ready to take him there, though to avoid being shot down by US fighter jets Snowden may need to be accompanied by prominent persons.

A. GCHQ and it’s history of mass surveillance

Given its geographical position, Britain can boast having the “biggest internet access” out of the “Five Eyes” Echelon alliance of electronic eavesdropping organisations of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Authorisation of mass surveillance of UK citizens by GCHQ is allowed via a loophole in the RIPA legislation . But ask any British citizen if they are aware of this, they will say no. Even most MP’s were unaware until the recent revelations of the last few days. Most citizens, if they knew of GCHQ, would imagine surveillance was targeted. Operation Tempora, as revealed by Edward Snowden via the Guardian yesterday, was first tested in 2008 and has reportedly been operating since 2011, storing and sifting through vast amounts of data, culled from fibre-optic cables.

But we can demonstrate that at least one of the GCHQ programmes exposed by Snowden was made public in 2009. Also, a similar programme, run by NSA was experimented with, if not implemented, as far back as the mid-1990s.

Mastering the Internet (MTI), one of the programmes exposed by Snowden (the other was Global Telecoms Exploitation) was first talked of in 2009 and is part of Britain’s broader Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP). It involves the recording of ‘phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user’s access to websites”. At the time, Jacqui Smith, the then Home Secretary under the Labour Government, was questioned about the programme and she told Parliament that responsibility for storing details of “who contacts whom, when and where, will be imposed on communications providers”. In other words, ISPs. This statement, as we now know, was patently untrue or at least duplicitous in that it told only half the story. The programme, in reality, was much deeper and broader and not confined to targets, but targeted everyone – British and non-British. And the data collected? “The Guardian understands that a total of 850,000 NSA employees and US private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQ databases”. In other words, the data GCHQ mined about Americans and the rest of the world is routinely passed on to the NSA, who can then say that they (NSA) did not spy on Americans in a blanket fashion, which is against the US Constitution (NSA is only allowed to target individuals), even though they ended up with the data anyway.

GCHQ lawyers reportedly told NSA that: “We have a light oversight regime compared with the US” (i.e. GCHQ are not hampered by stringent legislation). In effect, GCHQ is the data collection site – at least in initial stages – for the NSA.

B. NSA and its history of mass surveillance

But the NSA has been undertaking its own mass surveillance program, which is similar, if not identical, to the GCHQ one mentioned above. And it appears to have been doing this since at least the mid 1990s. The evidence? Aa 2001 article published by the Wall Street Journal (and suitably referenced by Cryptome). The article details how the NSA was hoovering data from undersea fibre-optic cables (presumably in co-operation with GCHQ) in a mass surveillance operation. Did the American citizenry know about this? Or the politicians? The answer to both is no.

As with the UK example, what has been happening in the US is nothing less than totalitarian surveillance, the antithesis of the very core values which underpin those countries’ beliefs.

It can be argued, therefore, that those people who set up, managed, and oversaw those programmes were and are nothing less than traitors.

C. So will the Euro bureaucrats lie down or fight back?

Meanwhile, according to Infosecurity magazine , “data from PRISM is made available to a number, if not all, intelligence services within the EU. For example, in Belgium, De Standaard reported, “State Security also gets information from PRISM”. In the Netherlands, intelligence sources confirmed to De Telegraaf that the Dutch secret services receive data, and that some members “would like PRISM active in the Netherlands,” (according to an AIVD – General Intelligence and Security Service – agent.

But while the intelligence services and some member governments within Europe may welcome the existence of PRISM, the dismay of European politicians is evident… “What is happening now is really shocking: (…) we cannot allow Americans to spy on EU citizens (…) even if it is a security matter,” said Veronique Mathieu (EPP, FR). “Our allies treat us not as friends, but as suspects,” said Sophia in’t Veld (ALDE, NL). The EU needs to “show some backbone” and say where the limits are, she added. But given the long history in Europe of muddling through, it’s unlikely that any real challenge will come from parliamentarians.

Links

http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-mastering-the-internet

http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa

http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/how-does-gchq-internet-surveillance-work?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/06/21/with-a-little-help-from-the-nsa-uk-spy-agency-set-out-to-master-the-internet/

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/outsourced-spooks

Posted from the darker net via Android.

The outbreak of a deadly new virus in the Middle East, mostly in Saudi Arabia, is raising concerns it could endanger hajj pilgrims to Mecca. But experts say that for now only normal health precautions seem necessary.

UPDATE -    http://the-tap.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/darwin-was-horrific-eugenicist.html

ALL ABOUT THE NEW EU SEED LAW

Well, what a hectic fortnight. Everyone we know has been lobbying hard, and thanks to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been emailing and writing about this, there were some important last-minute changes to the proposed law.

While it is still a terrible law, it is less bad than the earlier drafts. This is only because so much pressure was brought to bear on them! We must remain vigilant, and fight for improvements to the law as it goes through the EU, and then is translated into UK laws. For now, here is a summary of the current situation. The law itself is linked at the bottom.

WHAT IS THIS LAW?On Monday May 6th a draconian new law was put before the European Commission, which creates new powers to classify and regulate all plant life anywhere in Europe. The "Plant Reproductive Material Law" regulates all plants. It contains immediate restrictions on vegetables and woodland trees. (It also creates powers that can be used to restrict any other plants in the future, but the details of how this will work are left for later.) Under the new law, it will immediately be illegal to grow, reproduce or trade any vegetable seed or tree that has not been tested and approved by a new "EU Plant Variety Agency", who will make a list of approved plants. Moreover, an annual fee must also be paid to the Agency to keep them on the list, and if not paid, they cannot be produced. WHY IS THERE A NEW LAW? Officially, it is to simplify and bring up to date lots of old laws , and 'increase consumer protection'. In reality, it seems to be mostly about the globalised agribusiness seed industry needing new laws to cope with gene patents and plant patents, and to be able to register 'their' industrial varieties or genes safely and securely before selling them in large quantities to industrial farmers, who might otherwise save the seed and sell it or use it themselves without paying a royalty fee. The needs of the millions of people who grow normal vegetables on a normal scale have been overlooked. THERE WAS A FUSS ABOUT THIS- WHAT HAPPENED? The early drafts of the law were badly written. They really did imply that people couldn't even swap their own saved seeds with their neighbours for free. (This may have been simply poor wording, or deliberate, it was not clear which.) And subsequent drafts got more restrictive, not less. Following a huge outcry and intense lobbying from consumer groups, small-scale farmers, genebanks, and even some member-state governements, some last-minute changes were made, which have reduced the impact slightly. It is still a bad law, just not as bad as they initally proposed. WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY? The law starts from the premise that all vegetables, fruit and trees must be officially registered before they can be reproduced or distributed. This obviously is a major restriction on seed availability, as there are all sorts of costs in both time and money dealing with the bureaucracy of a central Plant Variety Agency. Then, after making that the basic rule, there are some exceptions made in limited cases: Home gardeners will be permitted to save and swap unregistered seed without breaking the law. Small organisations can grow and supply unregistered vegetable seed - but only if they have less than 10 employees Seedbanks can grow unregistered seed without breaking the law (but they cannot give it to the public) There might be easier (in an unspecified way) rules for large producers of seeds suitable for organic agriculture etc, in some (unspecified) future legislation - maybe. SURELY THIS IS OK THEN? No, not really. These concessions might be helpful, but are still limited. They are subject to all sorts of 'ifs' and 'buts' in the small print. And the small print hasn't been written yet, and in fact won't written until long after the law has been approved. So we have no idea if they will survive into the final version in any useful form. Remember, they only made these changes after a huge public outcry - and given what they thought was a good idea to start with, our confidence in the process is not high. And the rest of the law is still overly restrictive - there are all sorts of rules about labelling & sealing packets for example - and in the long run will make it much harder for people to get hold of good seeds they want to grow at home or for small scale sustainable agriculture. For years the availability of freely reproducible open-pollinated seedsuitable for sustainable agriculture has been shrinking due to the seed laws, and this new law doesn't address the problem. It just considers the needs of the agri-tech industry and makes it easier for them to market their industrial seed on a big scale. WHAT IS THE BASIC PROBLEM? The real problem is having a starting point that all seeds are prohibited unless officially tested and registered, and then adding some small exceptions as an afterthought. This is really back to front - testing and registration should be voluntary. Then some people (like massive industrial farmers) who might want the sort of seed that can pass certain types of test - they can choose to use the 'officially registered' seed. And normal people would be free to choose freely what they want to grow from all the myriad of normal seed in the world. There are also clauses that mean the above concessions could be removed or reduced at any time in the future without coming back to the Parliament for a vote. NOW WHAT HAPPENS? This is a starting point - it is a draft law, not the final thing. Next it must go to Parliament for modification or approval, so there is still the chance of changes for better or worse. All the competing and vested interests will try to change it for their own benefit. And almost everyone involved - either as a lobbyist or a bureaucrat - is only thinking about the needs of industrial farmers, not small-scale agriculture - even though they have applied the law to both types of seeds. So we must all campaign for small farmers' and home growers' rights, to make sure only improvements are made! WHAT DO WE WANT? This law was written for the needs of the globalised farm-seed industry, who supply seed by the ton to industrial farmers. It should not apply at all to seed used by home gardeners and small market growers, who have very different needs. Freely reproducible seeds are an inalienable part of our heritage. Listing and official certification of vegetable seeds might be helpful for industrial-scale farmers, but it should be a voluntary scheme that people can choose to use if they need it. So we are calling for registration and testing to be voluntary for all non-GMO, non-patented, non-hybrid seed. That would fix all the problems with the law, while still allowing the giant agri-companies to protect their business the way they want. But if that does not happen, if we must have a seed-registration system, then this law really needs improving - because allowing tiny organisations to supply seed outside the regulations is a good start, but it is not sufficient. Only in this way will we have a broad supply of quality seed for the needs of home gardeners and small growers.

 

1) SIGN THE PETITION(S)

There are several petitions organised for this. The biggest is the Arche Noah petition which you should sign here. 200000 signatures so far!
Another one is the English-language version of the Seed Sovereignty petition (there is one for each EU language, so the total numbers are lower for each.)
Please sign both and share these links.

2) CHECK OUT OUR FACEBOOK PAGE

http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedlaw.html

Pakistan has raised a special response force, a special escort force and a marine force to protect and guard its strategic assets, the country's finance minister said.

Headteacher of Kenningtons Primary School in Aveley, Essex causes fury among parents with bizarre request, leading to many threatening to ban their offspring from competing.

An iPad and iPhone given to Chinese human right activist and lawyer Chen Guangcheng as gifts by his supporters in the United States last year were found to be installed with spyware, which intended to...

It seems Kim Jong-Un has a taste for the finer things in life. According to a report by NK News, on May 28 North Korea’s state-run news agency Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) broadcast images of the 29-year-old autocrat, flanked by generals, walking on a dock with the starboard of a $7 million yacht looming behind them. The spectacle can be seen here.

The image of Kim and friends in front of the white shiny vessel was allegedly taken during a ten-day jaunt taken by the Supreme Leader along the nation’s impoverished eastern coast.

Will Green, sales director of Princess Yachts, an arm of the world’s largest luxury goods firm LVMH, told NK News that the ship appears to be a 95-foot-long Princess95M. “Given we launched the 95MY some years ago, many of them will have since changed hands on the private brokerage market,” Green said, adding the ship maker was not aware of how Jong-Un attained the boat and is looking into the matter.

Read more ....

Previous Post: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un Has His Own Luxury Yacht

My Comment: This type of behavior is going to have an impact. Regular readers of this blog know that my nationality is Russian, and growing up and seeing the "Communist Commissars" and how they lived did have an impact on me. Envy is one of man's deadly sins, but when it exists on a political/social level and it is 'flaunted' continuously produces an environment that is ripe for a revolution.

Egypt's airports will raise their alert level to "high" ahead of June 30 when opposition-backed protesters plan to demonstrate against President Mohamed Morsi, security officials said on Saturday.

More than a million Brazilians took to the streets of at least 80 Brazilian towns and cities in demonstrations that saw violent clashes and renewed calls for an end to government corruption and demands for better public services.

CIA agents and special operations troops have trained the rebels in anti-tank and antiaircraft weaponry in Jordan and Turkey.

WASHINGTON — CIA operatives and U.S. special operations troops have been secretly training Syrian rebels with anti-tank and antiaircraft weapons since late last year, months before President Obama approved plans to begin directly arming them, according to U.S. officials and rebel commanders.

The covert U.S. training at bases in Jordan and Turkey, along with Obama's decision this month to supply arms and ammunition to the rebels, has raised hope among the beleaguered Syrian opposition that Washington ultimately will provide heavier weapons as well. So far, the rebels say they lack the weapons they need to regain the offensive in the country's bitter civil war.

Read more ....


Report: US began training Syrian rebels in 2012 -- Jerusalem Post/Reuters
CIA secretly providing training for Syrian rebels: report -- AFP
U.S. training Syrian rebels at secret bases -- CBS
CIA training Syria militants in Jordan, Turkey: Report -- Press TV (Iran)
CIA and the US military operatives train rebels in Turkey and Jordan – report -- RIA Novosti

New figures published on Friday by the UK Trade and Investment Defense and Security Organization (UKTI DSO) show that UK defense exports totaled £8.8 billion over the past year, a rise of 62% from 2011 in a global market that grew by 45%. The results mean the UK maintains its position as the second most successful defense exporter after the United States.

RETIRING Bank of England Governor Sir Mervyn King came under attack yesterday over his gold-plated pension worth more than £6.3million.

The highest payment, described as ‘obscene’, was made by the Department of Health. The department accounted for more than a third of the ‘compromise agreements’ exposed by the National Audit Office.

The row over data protection laws is typical of how, in the post-Leveson world, it is becoming ever harder for the Press to expose and scrutinise State wrongdoing.

MEPs have lifted parliamentary immunity for French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, the outspoken politician who is expected to face criminal charges over racist remarks. EurActiv France reports.

I still remember the shock I felt when I was about half way through Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. I was spending an undergraduate summer meandering slowly from Chicago to New Orleans when, in the middle of a passage about something else, I came across a glancing reference to France’s ‘captive king’. Stunned, [...]

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French roads are set to have 4,200 speed cameras by the end of this year, it was revealed on Friday, as the country’s road safety authorities continue to tackle road deaths with enhanced technology and added vigilance.