"Bradley Manning, a 25-year-old US private, downloaded more than 700,000 classified documents from US military servers and passed them to WikiLeaks. The Guardian was one of several news organisations to publish a series of stories based on the contents of the files. Below are 10 of the most revelatory." Continue reading →
"Egypt’s rulers allowed an EU envoy to meet deposed President Mohamed Mursi, the first time an outsider was given access to him since the army overthrew him and jailed him a month ago, and she said she found him in good health. The White House, treading a fine line with a pivotal Arab ally that it funds with $1.3 billion a year in military aid, said on Monday it 'strongly condemns' Saturday’s bloodshed, and urged respect for the right to peaceful protest. 'Violence not only further sets back the process of reconciliation and democratization in Egypt, but it will negatively impact regional stability,' spokesman Josh Earnest said." Continue reading →
"The most prominent battles are taking place in Syria & Egypt; but they're mainly just rhymes of every similar episode that has occurred throughout mankind's history. What's it all for? To control The State...the great weapon that one group of people can use against its neighbors and enemies; that legal use of force to get you (and your friends) what you want the easy way, instead of the voluntary and moral way. So powerful is this lust to control The State that, in Syria alone, 100,000+ have died in just the last several years. Imagine if the rest of life's battles were conducted in the same manner...." Continue reading →
"'It is a lot like playing a video game,' a former Predator drone operator matter-of-factly admits. 'But playing the same video game four years straight on the same level.' His bombs kill real people though and, he admits, often not the people he is aiming at. What Omer Fast's film does brilliantly is evoke the weirdness of people in Nevada endlessly trawling foreign countries for 'bad guys', whom they then get permission to fire on. A former US air force drone operator admits to making mistakes: 'You see a lot of death,' he says before pondering why he carries on – perhaps because if it was not him then it might be some 'new kid doing it badly'." Continue reading →
"Tens of thousands of pro-Morsi supporters have camped outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque since late June, when Morsi’s overthrow began to seem likely. Egypt’s interior minister has made it clear that he intends to clear Rabaa as soon as possible, and Saturday’s nearby massacre was considered an attempt to intimidate the protesters into leaving. Hundreds of thousands of anti-Morsi protesters also turned out on Friday to support a call by Egypt’s army chief, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, for a crackdown on what he called terrorists – a move sceptics saw as a veiled threat to protesters at Rabaa." Continue reading →
"Egyptian police have killed at least 72 people in an attack on pro-Morsi protesters early Saturday. An activist named Mohamed El-Zahaby recorded video Saturday that showed the pre-dawn street fighting, filmed from behind the pro-Morsi lines, reports NYT. Warning: the below video shows graphic images of wounded and dead protesters." Continue reading →
"In an unprecedented move, the US has posted up to $23m in rewards to help track down five leaders of armed groups active in West Africa. The highest reward of $7mn was offered on Monday for the Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, who last week called on those sympathetic in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq to join the fight to create an Islamic-governed state in Nigeria. The State Department's Rewards for Justice programme also targeted al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), offering its first ever bounties for wanted fighters in West Africa." Continue reading →
"Hasan asked for forgiveness and prayers from 'the believers and the innocents' for 'participating in the illegal and immoral aggression against Muslims, their religion and their lands.' Hasan was a army psychiatrist at Fort Hood and was about to be deployed to Afghanistan at the time of the shooting. Hasan is acting as his own attorney in his court martial. If convicted he could face execution or life in prison without parole. Hasan had said at a pre-trial hearing that he opened fire at the base to protect Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan from U.S. aggression. The base is a major center for soldiers deployed to Afghanistan." Continue reading →
"The United States was by far the biggest contributor to the multinational United Nations force that poured into South Korea to roll back a Chinese-supported invasion from the North. Nearly 1.8 million US servicemen and women served in Korea, of whom 33,739 died in combat and more than 100,000 were wounded, according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs. It was also the first war in which US forces were not racially segregated. The conflict ended with a ceasefire, which was never cemented with a treaty, leaving the two Koreas still technically at war." Continue reading →
"Egypt’s troubled transition reached a new nadir of bloodletting today when at least 70 supporters of toppled President Mohamed Morsi were gunned down during a sustained attack by the security services – three weeks after the army committed a similar massacre in nearly exactly the same spot. Doctors at the scene said they believed more than 100 people may have been killed. An exact tally has not yet been confirmed, but the massacre ranks as one of the worst single incidents of violence since the fall of Hosni Mubarak two and a half years ago. Clashes continued this morning as police squared off against thousands of protesters close to Nasr City." Continue reading →