Archive for the 'Dictatorship' Category
Russia Defends Ruble With Biggest Rate Rise Since 1998
December 15th, 2014Via: Bloomberg: Russia took its biggest step yet to shore up the ruble and defuse the currency crisis threatening its stricken economy. In a surprise announcement just before 1 a.m. in Moscow, the Russian central bank said it would raise its key interest rate to 17 percent from 10.5 percent, effective today. The move was […]
Australia: Hostage Situation in Sydney
December 14th, 2014Update: Hostage-Taker Was Dropped From Watch List Via: Reuters: A gunman responsible for a deadly siege in a Sydney cafe was once on the national security agency’s watch list — but was dropped off it years ago for reasons that remain unclear, Australia’s prime minister said Wednesday. — Update: Gunbattle, Three People Confirmed Dead Including […]
Afghanistan War: One Trillion Dollars
December 14th, 2014Hope + Change we can believe in = Priceless Via: Financial Times: The Afghanistan war, the longest overseas conflict in American history, has cost the US taxpayer nearly $1tn and will require spending several hundred billion dollars more after it officially ends this month, according to FT calculations and independent researchers. Around 80 per cent […]
Repository of Censored and Sensitive Chinese Keywords
December 12th, 2014Via: CitizenLab: …we have collected 13 lists of sensitive Chinese keywords and aggregated them into a single, sortable, and share-able CSV file (see a Google docs sample, sorted by the number of lists each keyword appears on). This file, along with a description of the 13 lists and their sources/origins, are located in a GitHub […]
U.S. PSYOP Funded Anti-Government Hip-Hop Music in Cuba
December 12th, 2014Via: Reuters: The U.S. government financed a four-year effort to promote Cuba’s rap music scene as part of an effort to promote democracy on the communist-run island, federal officials confirmed on Thursday. “It seemed like a good idea to support civil society,” said Matt Herrick, spokesman for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which […]
Senate Report: CIA Misled Public on Torture
December 9th, 2014Update: Rectal Hydration Via: NBC: Along with the waterboarding, Mohammed was subjected to days of standing sleep deprivation, slapping and “stress positions,” the report says. And it says that several times he underwent an emergency medical procedure known as “rectal rehydration,” or proctolysis, which standard medical references describe as a way to quickly replace fluids […]
Give NSA Unlimited Access to Digital Data, Says Federal Judge
December 8th, 2014Via: Computerworld: The U.S. National Security Agency should have an unlimited ability to collect digital information in the name of protecting the country against terrorism and other threats, an influential federal judge said during a debate on privacy. “I think privacy is actually overvalued,” Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the […]
The World Cracks Down on the Internet
December 6th, 2014Via: The New Yorker: On Thursday, Freedom House published its fifth annual report on Internet freedom around the world. As in years past, China is again near the bottom of the rankings, which include sixty-five countries. Only Syria and Iran got worse scores, while Iceland and Estonia fared the best. (The report was funded partly […]
Afghanistan: The Making of a Narco State
December 6th, 2014Oh yes, the big “mystery” as to why the Taliban cut off opium production baffles Rolling Stone. 9/11 scratches more itches than anyone in the corporate media could possibly imagine. I’d say that one of main purposes of 9/11 was to restart the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars of heroin money into the […]
Operation Auroragold: How the NSA Hacks Cellphone Networks Worldwide
December 6th, 2014Via: First Look: According to documents contained in the archive of material provided to The Intercept by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the NSA has spied on hundreds of companies and organizations internationally, including in countries closely allied to the United States, in an effort to find security weaknesses in cellphone technology that it can exploit for […]
