Mainstream News

Oliver Stone on NSA Spying

"Some have claimed that Americans don't care about the revelations that the NSA is conducting massive surveillance on our private communications. But Oliver Stone isn't buying it. In a video produced with the ACLU, Director Oliver Stone shares some of his reflections on the NSA spying program and the disastrous legacy of unchecked government abuse of power. All Americans should stand up for our civil liberties at this critical moment in history, he says-- by asking our representatives in Congress to roll back the surveillance state." Continue reading →

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Kremlin turns back to typewriters to avoid security leaks

"The throwback to the paper-strewn days of Soviet bureaucracy has reportedly been prompted by the publication of secret documents by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks and the revelations leaked by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. The Federal Guard Service, which is also in charge of protecting President Vladimir Putin, is looking to spend just over 486,000 rubles ($14,800) to buy a number of electric typewriters. Pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia said the state service was looking to purchase 20 typerwriters because using computers to prepare top-secret documents may no longer be safe." Continue reading →

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Latin America demands answers from U.S. on spying

"Governments voiced a mix of outrage and concern after the Brazilian daily O Globo, citing documents leaked by fugitive former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, said several nations were targets of US electronic surveillance. The snooping included lifting data on leftist Venezuela’s oil and military purchases and Mexico’s drug war and energy sector as well as mapping the movements of a Marxist guerrilla group in Colombia, the newspaper said. The Mexican daily Excelsior reported Wednesday that Pena Nieto’s predecessor had allowed the United States to install a system to intercept phone calls and Internet chatter." Continue reading →

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Yahoo wants to make its NSA PRISM fight against U.S. FISA court public

"Yahoo has called on Fisa, the secretive US surveillance court, to let it publish its legal argument against a case that gave the government 'powerful leverage' in persuading tech companies to co-operate with a controversial data-gathering program. In a court filing first reported by San Jose Mercury News the company argues the release would demonstrate that Yahoo 'objected strenuously' in a key 2008 case after the National Security Agency (NSA) demanded Yahoo customers’ information. Yahoo’s move comes as its rivals have also pushed for the government to provide more public clarity on their surveillance of people’s online lives." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingYahoo wants to make its NSA PRISM fight against U.S. FISA court public

Venezuelan minister: Facebook users unwittingly work as CIA informants

"A government minister in Venezuela, which has offered fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden asylum, is urging her countrymen to cancel their Facebook accounts lest they be targeted by US snooping. 'Fellow Venezuelans: cancel your Facebook accounts, since you unwittingly have worked as CIA informants! Look at the Snowden case!' prisons minister Maria Iris Varela said in a Twitter posting. Varela also said victims of 'gringo espionage' should file lawsuits to demand 'fair compensation' and bankrupt the US government." Continue reading →

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One Million Children Labor in Africa’s Goldmines

"The U.S. Department of Labor also is funding a four-year, $5 million project in Burkina Faso, one of the world's poorest nations, to reduce child labor in cotton farming and gold mining. The grant will be used to help raise awareness about child labor laws and build government capacity to monitor and enforce the laws, said Eric Biel, acting associate deputy undersecretary for the Bureau of International Labor Affairs. Small-scale gold mining began here in earnest in the 1980s as droughts and famines forced families from farms and into mines to earn a living. It remains a family affair." Continue reading →

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9 foreign countries where you can use U.S. dollars

"There are many great pleasures of the globe-trotting life, but dealing with pesky Travelex lines is not one of them. Sick of exchange rates, transaction fees, and coming home with pockets filled with useless coins? Here are foreign destinations where you can pay with U.S. dollars, from the sunny and subtropical to the still-undiscovered." Continue reading →

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Deutsche Bank’s Opaque Loans From Brazil to Italy Hide Risk

"Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), perennially among the top three in global credit markets, made billions of dollars of loans to banks worldwide since 2008 and accounted for them in a way that obscured their continuing risk to investors. Germany’s largest bank managed to lend to firms from Brazil to Italy while making the transactions disappear from its balance sheet, even though it still is owed the money, according to four people with knowledge of the practice and internal documents provided to Bloomberg News. In the no-balance-sheet transactions, Deutsche Bank received the collateral, sold it and used the cash to make the loan." Continue reading →

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The wheels are coming off the whole of southern Europe

"A leaked report from the European Commission confirms that Greece will miss its austerity targets yet again by a wide margin. Italy’s slow crisis is again flaring up. Its debt trajectory has punched through the danger line over the past two years. Spain’s crisis has a new twist. The ruling Partido Popular is caught in a slush-fund scandal of such gravity that it cannot plausibly brazen out the allegations any longer, let alone rally the nation behind another year of scorched-earth cuts. Portugal is slipping away. Professor João Ferreira do Amaral’s book -Why We Should Leave The Euro – has been a bestseller for months." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe wheels are coming off the whole of southern Europe

Navy’s experimental X-47B drone successfully lands on aircraft carrier

"A US Navy drone successfully landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier on Wednesday, in an historic first for robotic flight, officials said. The X-47B experimental plane had taken off earlier from the Patuxent River naval air station in Maryland before heading to the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier off the Virginia coast, the Navy said in a statement. The X-47B is controlled remotely but has more autonomy than older drones such as the Reaper and Predator. Wednesday’s unprecedented landing by an unmanned plane showed that sophisticated computer software could guide a robotic aircraft onto the deck of a ship in the Atlantic Ocean." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNavy’s experimental X-47B drone successfully lands on aircraft carrier