Wednesday, December 18, 2013
NSA's goal is elimination of everyone's privacy worldwide - Greenwald to EU.
The NSA’s ultimate goal along with its UK partner, the GCHQ, is to eliminate individual privacy worldwide, journalist Glenn Greenwald has told an EU inquiry.
Ex-Guardian journalist Greenwald testifies before EU Parliament over NSA
Glenn
Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist known for publishing Edward
Snowden’s leaks, is testifying before the European Parliament’s
Committee on Civil Liberties and Home Affairs via video connection. He
is participating in an inquiry into the NSA’s surveillance on EU
citizens. Follow live updates here.
The inquiry was set up to discuss ratcheting up the security of the internet and telephone networks in the European Union.
Snowden is also expected to testify before the Civil Liberties Committee in January as part of the inquiry.
RTEx-Guardian journalist Greenwald testifies on NSA spying before EU parliament. LIVE UPDATES
Greenwald, the former Guardian
journalist known for publishing Edward Snowden’s leaks, is testifying
before the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties and Home
Affairs via video connection, contributing to an inquiry into the NSA’s
surveillance on EU citizens.
- Free press: it is hard to overstate how important it was for me to speek out on surveillance. But UK gov't threatens journalists who cover surveillance prog - Greenwald
West continues to put "overt pressure" on Ukrainian gov't - Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov
Russia is "surprised by attempts to put overt pressure on the Ukrainian government, which continue despite the decisions made in Moscow yesterday," Lavrov said in remarks to Russia's upper house of parliament.
Reuters
Russian-Ukrainian action plan 'provides President Yanukovych and his government with breathing space' - expert
Gazprom will sell gas to Ukraine at
268.5 dollars per 1,000 cubic meters, Russian President Vladimir Putin
said on Tuesday. Also, Russia will convert 15 billion dollars worth of
its National Welfare Fund - a rainy day fund - into Ukrainian securities
to help it stave off financial crisis. The deal was signed after talks
in Moscow between Mr Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor
Yanukovych. The issue of Ukraine joining the Customs Union was not
discussed during the talks. The two presidents met in Moscow to chair
the Russian-Ukrainian inter-governmental commission. Our source
discussed it with Lilit Gevorgyan, Commonwealth of Independent States and Russia analyst at UK-based economic organization IHS Global Insight.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Barbaric: Commercial Bus Driver Rápes Passenger From 7p.m To 10a.m
According to the prosecution counsel, Mr Francis Ajagu, the driver plies the New Market-Gariki route and the victim was one of his passengers.
On that fateful day, the driver noticed only the victim was remaining in the bus and drove to an uncompleted building beside the Mayor Market and started ráping the victim.
Explosion Rocks Rivers state Deputy Governor’s office
Ms. Semenitari said the explosion is suspected to have occurred after a dynamite was thrown into the building at about 3 am Tuesday.
Sweet Yoruba Actress,Lola Ajibola Loses Mum To Cancer!
Crime: Lagos Pastor Beats Accused Witch Woman To Death In Lagos Church [Phot'd]
Reportedly, Mrs. Oluranti Adesina, Tawakalitu’s mother said that Razak, his father and the leader of a white garment church where her daughter died, know something about the young woman’s strange death.
Heartless: Ghanaian Man In UK Stabs Wife to death For Flirting With A Nigerian [PICTURED]
Minta Adiddo sent Akua Agyeman a Christmas card as she was being treated in hospital, blaming the attack on 'devils', the Old Bailey heard.
The 32-year-old mother of two died two months after the brutal stabbing, which was witnessed by her five-year-old daughter. Adiddo, 38, was today given a life sentence after being convicted of murder, with a minimum term of 17 years.
60-Yr-Old Man Nabbed in Bed Making Love With 11-Yr-Old Girl Freed Bcos They Are in Love
Culled from coloradonewsday
A court has annulled a five-year jail term for a 60-year-old man who was caught having sex with an 11-year-old-girl because they have a ‘romantic relationship’. The supreme court in the southern Italian town of Catanzaro ruled that it was a ‘real relationship’.
The young girl is said to be from a disadvantaged background and was in the care of a man who works for the town’s social services department. However, police raided the man’s seaside villa to find the pair unclad in bed together.
SHOCKER: Commercial Bus Driver Rapes Passenger From 7p.M To 10a.M
According to the prosecution counsel, Mr Francis Ajagu, the driver plies the New Market-Gariki route and the victim was one of his passengers.
On that fateful day, the driver noticed only the victim was remaining in the bus and drove to an uncompleted building beside the Mayor Market and started defiling the victim.
Israel sends 150 protesting African migrants back to jail
Aided by rights groups, the migrants had travelled to Jerusalem to demonstrate outside the Israeli parliament, which last week passed a law allowing authorities to hold illegal migrants in an "open facility" until they leave the country. The Israeli government says that most of the 50,000 African migrants, mostly Sudanese and Eritrean, who have since 2006 crossed over the Egyptian border into its territory, are illegal job-seekers who threaten the Jewish state's social makeup.
Reuters
9/11 suspect removed from Guantanamo Bay prison hearing after outburst
One of the men accused of planning the September 11, 2001 attacks was removed from a US military court on Tuesday after making an outburst about a secret CIA prison. Yemeni defendant Ramzi Binalshibh, accused of helping the hijackers enter the United States and of financing the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, was ejected from a pre-trial hearing at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp on the judge's orders.
His
removal came shortly after Binalshibh's lawyer suggested that guards at
the US military prison in Cuba were deliberately depriving his client
of sleep.
"He
could not sleep at all last night because of the noise he is exposed
to," said Navy Lieutenant Commander Kevin Bogucki. "He is too tired to
pay attention."
Ukraine-China: 'third alternative'
The Europe-Ukraine-Russia triangle may turn into a quadruple if China enters the game. Faced with a contracting labor market and limited credit resources, East and Central European countries approach Ukraine’s associated membership in the European Union with caution, fearing that it all may end up in Kiev claiming its fair share of the pie.
EU
strategists are racking their brains over how to lure Kiev, while
keeping East European member states less concerned about it. Ukraine’s
hopes to negotiate more favorable terms failed. When President Viktor
Yanukovych requested 150 billion euros in aid to speed up the economy’s
transition to the European technical standards, even “senior” EU members
got scared. Europe just can’t afford it.
Islamic Jihad: is Islam the first target? (Must Read)
Radical Islam, which today is growing in numbers all over the world, could ruin traditional Islam. The “Jihad for the purity of faith” proclaimed by the fanatics is trying to destroy not only the non-Muslim population of the planet, but even Muslims themselves. Radicalism has nothing in common with the Prophet Muhammad's religion and is founded on political ideology of people far from faith, experts are convinced.
A
few days ago Syrian Islamists executed 15 peaceful residents of the
town of Arda, located 40 km away from Damascus, which they seized. The
bloodbath lasted for several hours. All people killed were Muslim. Such
events today take place in many countries considered as purely Muslim.
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You're a liar, hypocrite & manipulator, Iyabo Obasanjo writes 11-page letter to dad.
About fourteen days after he wrote an 18-page open letter to President Jonathan, former president Olusegun Obasanjo is now a recipient of an alleged open letter. Unconfirmed: His daughter, Iyabo obasanjo, has written him an 11-page open latter where she said'it is the conclusion of her communication with him for a lifetime '.
In the letter dated 16 December 2013 and exclusively obtained by vanguard newspaper, Sen. Iyabo Obasanjo described her dad as a liar, two faced hypocrite and a legendary women maltreater. She accused him of beating her mum when these were young and described him being an absentee father and grandfather.
She also said her father is decided to foist on President Goodluck Jonathan what no one would contemplate with him as president. She called him an egoistic craving for power and living a life where only men of low esteem and intellect thrive.
How do you say all this to your own father? Oh well, read the full letter after the break...
India launches reprisals against US over diplomat arrest
India on Tuesday launched a series of reprisals against the US over a diplomat's arrest in New York, including pulling identity cards for American consular officials in the country, foreign ministry sources said.
"We
have ordered the withdrawal of all ID cards that are issued by the
Ministry of External Affairs to the officials at the US consulates
across India," a senior ministry source told AFP on condition of
anonymity.
"These
cards facilitate speedy entry and movement of the people carrying them
as they travel to Indian airports or other public areas," the source
added.
Germany's Merkel voted in for third term
Angela Merkel is elected to a third term as chancellor in a vote in the German lower house of parliament on Tuesday, paving the way for her new "grand coalition" government to be sworn in and formally take power later in the day (12 30 GMT). Merkel's conservatives scored their best result in over two decades in a German election on September 22 but were forced into lengthy coalition talks with the rival Social Democrats (SPD), whose members only approved the deal last weekend.
The
vote in the Bundestag was a formality as the ruling parties hold an
overwhelming majority of the seats. A total of 462 lawmakers backed
Merkel for chancellor, with 150 voting against and 9 abstaining.
The
new government faces a host of challenges, from bedding down European
reforms aimed at shielding the bloc from future crises, to seeing
through Merkel's costly switch from nuclear to renewable energy.
Merkel joins fellow conservatives Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl as the only post-war chancellors to have won three terms.
German state of Hesse agrees conservative-green coalition deal
The
German state of Hesse's centre-right Christian Democrats and its
environmentalist Green Party finalized a coalition agreement on Tuesday,
just as the country's nationwide grand coalition government was being
sworn in.
The
deal marks the first time in Germany's history that the conservative
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the centre-left Greens have agreed
to govern jointly in a larger state.
There has been one such coalition previously at a city-state level.
The
two parties have been in coalition talks since November 22, two months
after the regional election in the central German state took place.
The vote coincided with Germany's nationwide election.
Party
leaders Volker Bouffier (CDU) and Tarek Al-Wazir (Green Party) are set
to present the coalition agreement to their members on Wednesday.
The
only other CDU-Green coalition to have existed in Germany came into
force in the city-state of Hamburg in 2008, with the parties breaking
off the alliance two years into the term.
Merkel is due to be sworn on Tuesday for rare third term as German chancellor ending political limbo
Asked
in September how long she expected coalition negotiations to take,
chancellor Angela Merkel joked that "Christmas comes sooner than you
think." Christmas is coming and Angela Merkel is due to be sworn on
Tuesday for a rare third term as German chancellor, capping months of
political uncertainty as she bartered with her rivals to help govern
Europe's top economy. Eighty-six
days after Merkel, 59, swept to victory in elections but failed to grab
an outright majority, the Bundestag lower house of parliament will vote
on handing her another four-year term. The ballot is secret but the outcome likely holds little surprise.
With
a whopping 504 of the 631 seats, Merkel's conservatives and their new
centre-left partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), hold a comfortable
majority under their hard-fought 'grand coalition' deal.
Afterwards
she must be confirmed by President Joachim Gauck at the presidential
palace before returning to the Bundestag to be sworn in as Germany's
only third post-war chancellor to win a third mandate.
The
ceremony and later swearing-in of ministers followed by the first
cabinet meeting will enable Merkel to finally get back down to business
in earnest after the longest government-building period since World War
II.
Merkel
is then due to address parliament Wednesday and travel to Paris for
talks with President Francois Hollande the same day, ahead of an EU
summit at the end of the week.
A
parliament debate after Wednesday's address will be the first
opportunity for a face-off across the floor since the SPD moved off the
opposition benches. Merkel
has defended the time spent haggling over policy and posts with an
initially reluctant SPD as time well spent, voicing appreciation on
signing the coalition pact Monday "that we listened to each other."
Few observers doubt though that the road ahead will be bumpy.
AFP, dpa, Reuters,VOR
5,000 US teachers and scholars support anti-Israel boycott.
The American Studies Association (ASA) has become the largest US group of scholars to boycott Israel. The scholars' group of more than 5,000 US teachers and researchers voted to launch an academic boycott of Israeli colleges and universities in a move condemned by the World Jewish Congress as "moral bankruptcy." Israeli officials have denounced the campaign as an attempt to delegitimize the Israeli state.
The
group, which is devoted to the study of American culture and history,
announced Monday that its nearly 5,000 members voted in favor of the
boycott by a 2-to-1 margin on Sunday night. A total of 1,252 members
voted on the issue, with 66 percent voting "yes" and 30 percent voting
"no." Three percent abstained from voting altogether.
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