Father of Shot Man Linked to Boston Suspects Wants FBI Tried

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Photo Credit: Abdulbaki Todashev

The father of a Chechen immigrant shot dead during FBI questioning over his links with the Boston bombing suspects said on Thursday that the U.S. agents responsible should face trial.

The FBI has said that Ibragim Todashev, 27, was being interrogated at his apartment in Florida on May 22 when he suddenly attacked an agent and was shot and killed.

Abdulbaki Todashev questioned that account at a news conference in Moscow, saying his son was unarmed when he was shot seven times.

“I want justice and I want there to be an investigation, so that these people are tried under American law,” said Todashev. “These are not FBI agents but bandits – I cannot call them anything else and they must be tried.”

Todashev showed reporters photographs of his son’s shirtless corpse on a medical table with several stitched-up wounds on his torso and arm and one on his head. He said his son had been shot after eight hours of questioning.

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Syria’s Assad ‘Confident in Victory’ in Civil War

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Photo Credit: AP

Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview broadcast Thursday that he is “confident in victory” in his country’s civil war, and he warned that Damascus would retaliate for any future Israeli airstrike on his territory.

Assad also told the Lebanese TV station Al-Manar that Russia has fulfilled some of its weapons contracts recently, but he was vague on whether this included advanced S-300 air defense systems.

The comments were in line with a forceful and confident message the regime has been sending in recent days, even as the international community attempts to launch a peace conference in Geneva, possibly next month. The strong tone coincided with recent military victories in battles with armed rebels trying to topple him.

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11 Vanish From Mexico City Bar in Suspected Mass Kidnapping

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Photo Credit: AP

Eleven young people were brazenly kidnapped in broad daylight from an after-hours bar in Mexico City’s Zona Rosa, a normally calm district of offices, restaurants, drinking spots and dance clubs, anguished relatives said Thursday.

The apparent mass abduction purportedly happened sometime between 10 a.m. and noon on Sunday morning just off the Paseo de la Reforma, the city’s main boulevard, near the Angel of Independence monument and only about 1 1/2 blocks from the U.S. Embassy.

The incident was the second recent high-publicity blemish for the city’s largely unregulated entertainment scene, coming 20 days after the grandson of American civil rights activist Malcolm X was beaten to death at another tough bar in the downtown area.

Calling for authorities find their loved ones, family members marched Thursday morning from the Interior Department building to the Zocalo, the city’s main square. Later they protested outside the bar, which bears a sign that reads Bicentenario Restaurante-Bar, and demanded to see the bar’s surveillance video.

“How could so many people have disappeared, just like that, in broad daylight?” said Josefina Garcia, mother of Said Sanchez Garcia, 19, her only son. “The police say they don’t have them, so what, the earth just opened up and swallowed them?”

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Former Counsel to World Bank Claims that US Government has been Co-opted by Corrupt Global Corporations

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Photo Credit: intellihub

A former insider at the World Bank, ex-Senior Counsel Karen Hudes, says the global financial system is dominated by a small group of corrupt, power-hungry figures centered around the privately owned U.S. Federal Reserve.

The network has seized control of the media to cover up its crimes, too, she explained. In an interview with The New American, Hudes said that when she tried to blow the whistle on multiple problems at the World Bank, she was fired for her efforts. Now, along with a network of fellow whistleblowers, Hudes is determined to expose and end the corruption. And she is confident of success.

Citing an explosive 2011 Swiss study published in the PLOS ONE journal on the “network of global corporate control,” Hudes pointed out that a small group of entities — mostly financial institutions and especially central banks — exert a massive amount of influence over the international economy from behind the scenes. “What is really going on is that the world’s resources are being dominated by this group,” she explained, adding that the “corrupt power grabbers” have managed to dominate the media as well. “They’re being allowed to do it.”

According to the peer-reviewed paper, which presented the first global investigation of ownership architecture in the international economy, transnational corporations form a “giant bow-tie structure.” A large portion of control, meanwhile, “flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions.” The researchers described the core as an “economic ‘super-entity’” that raises important issues for policymakers and researchers. Of course, the implications are enormous for citizens as well.

Hudes, an attorney who spent some two decades working in the World Bank’s legal department, has observed the machinations of the network up close. “I realized we were now dealing with something known as state capture, which is where the institutions of government are co-opted by the group that’s corrupt,” she told The New American in a phone interview. “The pillars of the U.S. government — some of them — are dysfunctional because of state capture; this is a big story, this is a big cover up.”

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Larry King to Join RT News – Russia Today – Funded by Russian Government

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Photo Credit: Edward Headington

Long time talker Larry King, former CNN host and radio talk personality, is joining the lineup on Russia Today TV with his own politcal gab show as well as another show already launched on Hulu TV.

Award-winning interviewer Larry King will host a mold-breaking political talk show on RT from next month, speaking to both leading establishment figures, and those who are not afraid to go against the grain.

“I have always been passionate about government and issues that impact the public, and I’m thrilled at the opportunity to talk politics with some of the most influential people in Washington and around the country,” says King.

King’s career has spanned 56 years and more than 50,000 interviews, but he says the show will break new ground. The veteran broadcaster will not shy away from causing controversy, or using his authority to give a chance to hear voices other media ignore.

“I have interviewed every US president since Nixon, and lest people forget, I helped usher Ross Perot into the national conversation during the 1992 presidential contest. I appreciate the importance of providing a platform to those with real alternative visions for our country’s future,” says the host.

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Amnesty’s Message: Send Us Your High School Dropouts

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Photo Credit: ros k @ getfunky_paris

For much of our history, the sheer difficulty of getting to America and surviving here ensured the nation was stocked with immigrants who represented a sort of natural elite.

No, these immigrants did not come from foreign aristocracies, nor need they come from any particular location, ethnic group or profession.

But before Franklin Roosevelt began establishing an American welfare state, and before a series of Roosevelt’s successors decided they would make no serious effort to secure our national borders, immigrants to America had at least two things in common: The ability to get to a place that was hard to reach and the ability to survive there on their own.

Now America is becoming a magnet for high-school dropouts.

That is why the report that the Congressional Budget Office produced this month for House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan ought to become a focus of national debate, as members of both parties in Congress work with President Obama to try to give foreign nationals living here illegally a way to become citizens.

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Hezbollah Member, Referred to as ‘God of Death,’ Arrested in Texas

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Photo Credit: euthman

In the defense’s version, Wissam Allouche was a former linguist for the U.S. Army who ran a gas station in Northeast San Antonio as he became an American citizen.

But to counterterrorism officials, Allouche, 44, belonged to Hezbollah, falsely claimed to be a U.S. special forces officer during visits to Fort Sam Houston, and even tried to hook up with women at the post, possibly to gain access to sensitive information.

The two pictures emerged during a bail hearing Wednesday for Allouche, whose own statements recorded by investigators or stated in interviews often were contradictory about his allegiances to Hezbollah.

Allouche was arrested by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force here last week after being indicted on charges of not disclosing, during his quest to obtain his U.S. citizenship, his membership in the Amal militia and Hezbollah in Lebanon in the 1980s.

He’s also charged with not disclosing his prior membership in those groups when he applied for a security clearance with the Defense Department as he sought a contracting job.

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Chinese Hackers Compromise Dozens of US Major Weapons Platforms

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Photo Credit: APBy Ellen Nakashima. Designs for many of the nation’s most sensitive advanced weapons systems have been compromised by Chinese hackers, according to a report prepared for the Pentagon and to officials from government and the defense industry.

Among more than two dozen major weapons systems whose designs were breached were programs critical to U.S. missile defenses and combat aircraft and ships, according to a previously undisclosed section of a confidential report prepared for Pentagon leaders by the Defense Science Board.

Experts warn that the electronic intrusions gave China access to advanced technology that could accelerate the development of its weapons systems and weaken the U.S. military advantage in a future conflict.

The Defense Science Board, a senior advisory group made up of government and civilian experts, did not accuse the Chinese of stealing the designs. But senior military and industry officials with knowledge of the breaches said the vast majority were part of a widening Chinese campaign of espionage against U.S. defense contractors and government agencies.

The significance and extent of the targets help explain why the Obama administration has escalated its warnings to the Chinese government to stop what Washington sees as rampant cyber­theft. Read more from this story HERE.

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Best frenemies: U.S. wants closer military ties with China

By Shaun Waterman. White House National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon called Tuesday for strengthening U.S. military ties with China, despite growing tensions between the two over Beijing’s state-sponsored hacking and maritime territorial claims.

Donilon pushed for increased military cooperation in peacekeeping, fighting piracy and disaster relief.

“An essential part of building a new model for relations between great powers is ensuring we have a healthy, stable and reliable military-to-military relationship,” Mr. Donilon said in brief comments to reporters, Reuters reported.

He added the two countries should work to face “non-traditional security challenges” like peacekeeping and stability operations, emergency disaster relief and naval counter-piracy operations ensuring freedom of navigation.

Mr. Donilon is visiting Beijing this week ahead of a summit next week in California between President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping. He spoke at a meeting with Gen. Fan Changlong, vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, after being received by Mr. Xi on Monday. Read more from this story HERE.

Ex-Head of British Spy Agency Calls on Everyone to Spy on Neighbors

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Photo Credit: APThe former head of MI5 Dame Stella Rimington has called for British people to inform security services if they suspect their neighbours maybe extremists.

Dame Stella, who supports the Government’s controversial ‘snoopers’ charter’, said people need to be more alert because it is impossible for security services to spot every threat.

She called for a wartime vigilance and for people to be the Government’s ‘eyes and ears’ following the killing of Lee Rigby.

The 78-year-old, who was MI5’s first female Director General, said: ‘The community has the responsibility to act as the eyes and ears, as they did during the war … where there were all these posters up saying the walls have ears and the enemy is everywhere.

‘There have often been indications in the community, whether it’s Muslim or anywhere else, that people are becoming extremists and spouting hate phrases.’

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Albanian Socialist Candidate for President Campaigning with Obama’s Picture

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller President Barack Obama met with Socialist Party of Albania leader Edi Rama at a recent San Francisco campaign fundraiser. Rama is currently using a picture of the two politicians to help win next month’s Albanian elections and take over as prime minister.

Rama’s Socialist Party, which has been Albania’s largest opposition party since 2005, is reportedly expected to win the country’s June elections and unseat Democratic Party prime minister Sali Berisha, who has led the country since 2005.

President Obama meets with Albanian Socialist politician in San Francisco. Facebook

Rama posted a photograph of himself with Obama on his Facebook page May 24. The photo is now the main backdrop for Rama’s Facebook page. Julianna Smoot, deputy manager for Obama’s 2012 campaign and major Democratic Party fundraiser, appears in the background of the photograph.

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