United States – Page 39

Teachers armed at US district school

When classes at Clarksville High Connecticut resume, more than 20 teachers and other employees in the US school district will be carrying concealed weapons.

After a school shooting in Connecticut last December that left 20 children and six teachers dead, the idea of arming schoolhouses against gunmen was hotly debated across the country.

The National Rifle Association declared it the best response to serious threats. But even in the most conservative states, most proposals faltered in the face of resistance from educators or warnings from insurance companies that schools would face higher premiums.

Making use of a little-known Arkansas law that allows licensed, armed security guards on campus, assistant principal Cheyne Dougan and other teachers at the school will be considered guards.

“The plan we’ve been given in the past is, ‘Well, lock your doors, turn off your lights and hope for the best,'” Superintendent David Hopkins said. But as deadly incidents continued to happen in schools, he explained, the district decided, “That’s not a plan.”

In strongly conservative Arkansas, where gun ownership is common and gun laws are permissive, no school district had ever used the law to arm teachers on the job, according to the state’s department of education. The closest was the Lake Hamilton School, which for years has kept several guns locked up in case of emergency. Only a handful of trained administrators – not teachers – have access to the weapons.

Flood of calls from parents
Clarksville, a community of 9 200 people about 160km north-west of Little Rock, is going further.

The town isn’t known for having dangerous schools. But Hopkins said he faced a flood of calls from parents worried about safety after the attack last year at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Hopkins said he and other school leaders didn’t see why the district couldn’t rely on its own staff and teachers to protect students rather than hire someone.

State officials are not blocking Clarksville’s plan, but Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell is opposed to the idea of arming teachers and staff. He prefers to hire law enforcement officers as school resource officers.

There are other dissenters, too. Donna Morey, former president of the Arkansas Education Association, called the idea of arming teachers “awful”. The risk of a student accidentally getting shot or obtaining a gun outweighs any benefits, she said.

“We just think educators should be in the business of educating students, not carrying a weapon,” Morey said.

Gun stipends
Participants in the programme are given a one-time $1 100 stipend to purchase a handgun and holster. Hopkins said the district is paying about $50 000 for ammunition and for training that is narrowly tailored for teachers to respond to shooters on campus.

Sydney Whitkanack, who will enter seventh grade this fall, said she’s grown up around firearms and doesn’t mind if teachers or staff are armed at school.

“If they’re concealed, then it’s no big deal,” said Whitkanack. “It’s not like someone’s going to know ‘Oh, they have a firearm.'”

The district will post signs at each school about the armed guards, but the identities of faculty and staff carrying weapons will be kept secret, Hopkins said.

Those who participate in the programme will continue to receive regular training, he said.

Sherry Wommack said the programme is one reason she’s taking her son, an incoming eighth-grader, out of Clarksville’s schools before the school year begins. Wommack said she doesn’t believe teachers should make life-or-death choices involving students.

“I think police officers are trained to make those decisions, not teachers,” Wommack said. – Sapa-AP

Fed chairman to testify about bailout to foreign entities

A judge has ordered Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, to testify about the bailout of AIG in a case where the government is accused of illegally appropriating the insurer and using it “to covertly funnel billions of dollars to foreign entities”.

Government lawyers had argued Mr Bernanke was too senior and the facts had been raked over too often for his appearance to be necessary.

Judge Thomas Wheeler disagreed. Compelling Mr Bernanke to travel to a Washington law firm to answer questions about the government bailout, he wrote on Monday that the “court cannot fathom having to decide this multibillion-dollar claim without the testimony”.

The claim comes from Hank Greenberg, the former chief executive of AIG, who says he and other shareholders were unfairly diluted when the Federal Reserve Bank of New York took an 80 per cent equity stake in return for $182bn in emergency funding. He is suing the government for compensation.

Judge Wheeler said there were “extraordinary circumstances”, a test of whether senior officials had to give evidence in lawsuits.

In his decision, he wrote: “Mr Bernanke was a central figure in the government’s 2008 determination of how it should handle AIG’s fiscal difficulties. To rule otherwise would deprive the court of important relevant evidence in its fact-finding and resolution of this case.”

The insurer came close to collapse in September 2008 as Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. AIG had written credit default swaps, an insurance against default by subprime mortgage-backed securities, which fell in value as the crisis deepened.

The US provided AIG with more than $182bn in taxpayer funds to stave off collapse in return for a majority stake. In its complaint, Starr International, Mr Greenberg’s vehicle, said the US did so against the wishes of AIG shareholders “without due process or just compensation”. – FT

EU lawmakers urge Washington to drop charges against Manning, Snowden

Seventeen lawmakers from the European Parliament have called on President Barack Obama to put an end to the persecution of US soldier Bradley Manning accused of aiding the enemy after he handed over a bunch of sensitive military documents to the WikiLeaks website.

In an open letter to President Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, the group of seventeen praised Manning for shedding light on “evidence of human rights abuses and apparent war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“We hereby urge you to end the persecution of Bradley Manning, a young gay man who has been imprisoned for over three years, including ten months in solitary confinement, under conditions that the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez deemed ‘cruel and abusive.’ Bradley Manning has already suffered too much, and he should be freed as soon as humanly possible,” MEPs from Spain, France, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, Ireland, and Ukraine wrote.

The lawmakers specifically stressed that the “aiding the enemy” offense thrown at him by the US court martial would set a terrible precedent.

“To consider releasing information about war crimes to the public to be ‘aiding the enemy’ would be a terrible setback for the defense of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law worldwide,” they underscored.

“Army prosecutors closed their arguments in the case without having provided any real evidence that Bradley Manning aided the enemy, or that he intended to do so,” they said.

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning faces a potential life sentence for passing hundreds of thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables to the transparency website WikiLeaks, which exposed America’s crimes in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and further abuses around the world.

The military judge in Manning’s trial is expected to deliver a final verdict today, July 30. The sentencing stage of the trial is expected to run for several weeks in August.

Manning faces life imprisonment if found guilty

The sentence a US court will pass upon Wikileaks informant Private Bradley Manning will show what fugitive former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden would get should he return to his country, a senior Russian lawmaker Alexei Pushkov said.

“When the sentence is passed upon Manning for handing files to the Wikileaks website, it would be clear what would await Snowden if he returned to the United States,” Alexei Pushkov, the head of the Russian lower house’s international committee, said on Twitter on Monday.

Snowden, who is wanted by the United States for leaking classified data about the US National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, formally requested temporary asylum in Russia on July 16. Washington has repeatedly called on Moscow to reject Snowden’s request for asylum and send him back to the United States to stand trial on charges of espionage and theft. – Voice of Russia, RIA, RT, Express Tribune, TASS, Scoop

Independent media shake establishment

In a groveling public display earlier this week, the American Department of Defense announced plans to increase its public affairs efforts due to the devastating effect independent media is having on the Pentagon’s ability to control its news, more specifically, its ability to quash negative news stories before they go viral.

On Thursday, the DoD bemoaned the fact that, because of citizen journalists, social media and other online platforms reporting news in real time, the public is more quickly becoming aware of the constant patterns of contradictions and habitual lying by a government long ago captured by a group of corrupt interests.

“..we cannot hide our bad news stories. Bad news gets out one way or the other and we must come to terms with telling bad stories as well as the good,” the secretary of defense for public affairs, George Little, stated.

When bad things happen, the American people should hear it from the DoD, not as a scoop on an aggregated news site, Little said.

When it came time for a brief question and answer segment, Staff Sgt Hostutler, a junior enlisted member of Air Force production, highlighted that many in her position feel that, as a result of recent spates of negative publicity, the American people are just not buying their stories anymore, making it difficult to execute positive spin effectively.

“My question is: you mentioned that we need to start telling the story about the bad news as well as the good, and the issue I see that we’re facing… It seems like we have this culture in our career to kinda glaze over these issues and put out this positive press, and “No, our jets are fine,” and so with the good and the bad, I don’t think the American people actually trust us to deliver accurate information.

“What’s the plan to change that in the way ahead, because to continue the way we have, to continue to put that positive spin, it feels like we’re losing a lot of our audience because they’re not listening, because we keep saying the same thing over, everything is okay, and it’s not…

“… Is there a plan to kinda change the way that we think? Because as it is, a lot of people, from what I can see, are going through, “We’re putting out mindless propaganda,” is what some of us feel that we’re putting out and what the American people feel that we’re putting out, so how do we change this?”

In essence, this is a signal of defeat to the power that is independent media, and shows just how large of an effect it is having. All independent forms of journalism alive on the web today are frequently been the target of naysayer critics saying these stories actively “hurt” the White House’s message “on a daily basis.”

On one hand, the government has revealed it is not invincible to the onslaught of curious, honest and hard-working journalists eager to obtain and report the truth. It shows just how vulnerable the man behind the curtain really is; in all his power, he’s upset over the few forms of media he can’t control.

With their constant contradictions being exposed, the American government is finding it harder to keep their stories straight and consistently gets caught off-guard. – prisonplanet.com

Saudi prince warns against fracking

A Saudi prince has warned that his oil-reliant nation is under threat because of fracking technology being developed elsewhere around the world.

Billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said the Gulf Arab kingdom needed to reduce its reliance on crude oil and diversify its revenues.

His warning comes as rising shale energy supplies in the United States cut global demand for Saudi oil.

In an open letter to his country’s oil minister Ali al Naimi and other government heads, published on Sunday via his Twitter account, Prince Alwaleed said demand for oil from Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) member states was “in continuous decline”.

He said Saudi Arabia’s heavy dependence on oil was “a truth that has really become a source of worry for many”.

He added that the world’s biggest crude oil exporter should implement “swift measures” to diversify its economy.

Prince Alwaleed, owner of international investment firm Kingdom Holding, is unusually outspoken for a top Saudi businessman.

But his warning reflects growing concern in private among many Saudis about the long-term impact of shale technology.

It is allowing the US and Canada to tap unconventional oil deposits which they could not reach just a few years ago.

Chancellor George Osborne has also announced support for fracking in Britain and in offshore waters, to ease a reliance on foreign oil and gas.

Some analysts think this may push demand for Saudi oil, as well as global oil prices, down sharply over the next decade.

Over the past couple of years the Saudi government has taken some initial steps to develop the economy beyond oil.

It has sought to liberalise the aviation sector and provided finance to small, entrepreneurial firms in the services and technology sectors.

Mr Naimi said publicly in May that he was not concerned about rising US shale oil supplies.

Prince Alwaleed told Mr Naimi in his open letter, which was dated May 13 this year, that he disagreed with him.

The prince said: “Our country is facing a threat with the continuation of its near-complete reliance on oil, especially as 92% of the budget for this year depends on oil.

“It is necessary to diversify sources of revenue, establish a clear vision for that and start implementing it immediately.”

The prince said Saudi Arabia should move ahead with plans for nuclear and solar energy production to cut local consumption of oil.

The shale oil threat means Saudi Arabia will not be able to raise its production capacity to 15 million barrels of oil per day (mbpd), Prince Alwaleed argued.

Current capacity is about 12.5mbpd; a few years ago the country planned to increase capacity to 15mbpd, but then put the plan on hold after the global financial crisis.

While most Saudi officials have in public insisted they are not worried by the shale threat, Opec has recognised that it needs to address the issue.

In a report earlier this month, Opec forecast demand for its oil in 2014 would average 29.61mbpd, down 250,000bpd from 2013. It cited rising non-Opec supply, especially from the US.

The fracking warning comes as Saudi Arabia announced three foreign consortiums – led by US, Spanish and Italian firms – have won a $22.5bn contract to build Riyadh’s 110-mile, six-line metro train network. – Sky News

Mandela’s ‘two scares’ leaked

Where does Deborah Patta get her information?

Presidency spokesman Mac Maharaj yesterday refused to comment on a weekend report by US TV channel CBS that Nelson Mandela was “in distress” at one point last week.

South African journalist Deborah Patta, reporting for CBS news, said Mandela had undergone a “minor procedure” to unblock a dialysis tube on Friday.

Dialysis is the use of machines to take over kidney functioning when the organs are no longer able to work on their own.

Patta told the network that Mandela had “two scares last week”.

In one instance, “he was not responding to his [medications]” and in another “life-support machines indicated that he was in distress”.

She gave no other details.

Maharaj would say only that Mandela was in a critical but stable condition, and was responding to treatment.

Last month, in a report for the same US channel, Patta broke the story about the military ambulance, in which Mandela was being taken to hospital, breaking down on the highway from Johannesburg to Pretoria early on Saturday, June 8.

Mandela has been in hospital for over a month. – timeslive.co.za

Americans against Congress: Over 80% dissaprove

Record-breaking numbers of Americans have lost support for Congress, according to a survey. Eighty-three per cent of respondents said they disapprove of the job its doing, while 57 per cent said they would replace every member of Congress if they could.

The poll (link to poll), conducted jointly by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, has illustrated new heights of vehement public distaste for the actions of the US government.

“There is a palpable unhappiness with Washington,” Republican pollster Peter D. Hart said upon learning the poll’s results. His Democratic counterpart concurred that “now is the summer of our discontent.”

At the same time, President Barack Obama has seen his approval rating slump to 45 per cent – down from 48 per cent last month. This marks his lowest rating since August 2011, when nearly every US politician suffered a blow on account of the debt-ceiling crisis, when Obama became embroiled in a heated debate with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other Republicans in Congress.

The reasons cited for the lack of support for Congress included the government ignoring the middle-class, gridlock, the inability for lawmakers to produce any tangible results, and President Obama’s policies and leadership in general.

However, these reasons invariably fall into different camps, with Republicans and Democrats citing different primary reasons. Democrats and independents are irritated with congressional gridlock and governmental inactivity, while Republicans are anti-Obama.

The poll used a cross section of 1,000 adults – including 300 cell phone only respondents – and was conducted between July 17-21.

Similar polls surrounding Obama’s popularity, conducted in recent weeks, seem to corroborate the results. A Gallup report released Monday revealed that Obama averaged a 47.9 per cent approval rating over the course of the past three months. A McClatchy-Marist national survey placed Obama’s overall approval rating closer to 41 per cent.- RT

‘Libertarians are dangerous’

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Thursday offered a clear broadside against Republicans drifting toward a more libertarian view of foreign policy, lumping Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in with them and suggesting they explain their position to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The House earlier this week narrowly voted against a reduction in funding for the National Security Agency, as libertarian-leaning members from both sides joined together to vote for the amendment.

“As a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think, is a very dangerous thought,” Christie said.

Asked whether he includes Paul — a fellow potential 2016 presidential candidate — in his criticism, Christie didn’t back down.

“You can name any one of them that’s engaged in this,” he said. “I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation. … I’m very nervous about the direction this is moving in.”

Christie acknowledged that there will always be mistakes when it comes to national security and protecting privacy, but said Americans need to stay focused on what’s at stake.

He dismissed some of the current privacy/national security debates as “esoteric.”

“I think what we as a country have to decide is: Do we have amnesia? Because I don’t,” he said. “And I remember what we felt like on Sept. 12, 2001.”

Christie also praised the national security strategies of both President Obama and George W. Bush.

“I want to say that I think both the way President Bush conducted himself and the way President Obama has conducted himself in the main on those types of decisions hasn’t been different because they were right and because we haven’t had another one of those attacks that cost thousands and thousands of lives,” Christie said.

Christie appeared alongside Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R). The four GOP governors appeared side-by-side at a session hosted by the nonpartisan Aspen Institute.

The four of them are all considered among the GOP’s top potential presidential candidates in 2016, with each of them ranking on The Fix’s most recent list of the top 10 likeliest nominees.

The Republican Governors Association was holding its summer meeting in the mountainous resort town.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R), who was slated to appear, had to stay in his home state with the state legislature moving on legislation — including new abortion restrictions. – Washington Post

Most Americans support affirmative action

PRINCETON, N.J. — Two-thirds of Americans think college applicants should be admitted based solely on merit, yet most approve of affirmative action, a Gallup poll indicates.

Twenty-eight percent of Americans think a college applicant’s race and ethnic background should be a factor when granting admission to promote diversity on college campuses.

Seventy-five percent of whites and 59 percent of Hispanics believe applicants should be evaluated based on merit alone, while black people are more evenly divided on the topic, the poll said.

In a separate question, Americans largely support the idea of affirmative action programs more generally. Fifty-eight percent of Americans support affirmative action, including 51 percent of whites, 76 percent of blacks and 69 percent of Hispanics.

Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to favor such programs, the poll found.

“Americans are not averse to having the government take steps to help improve the conditions of minority groups in the United States, and in a broad sense express support for affirmative action programs,” Gallup said. “One of the clearest examples of affirmative action in practice is colleges’ taking into account a person’s racial or ethnic background when deciding which applicants will be admitted.

“Americans seem reluctant to endorse such a practice, and even blacks, who have historically been helped by such programs, are divided on the matter.”

Gallup interviewed 4,373 adults by telephone for the survey between June 13 and July 5. There was a 2 percentage point margin of error. – UPI

Obama gets help from the Revolutionary Communist Party with Trayvon

The has Revolutionary Communist Party coordinated Trayvon Martin protests throughout the United States.

Many of the Trayvon Martin protests that are still taking place in major cities across the United States were organized by the Revolutionary Communist Party which is chaired by a Marxist who praised mass killers Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao.

In a lengthy exposé by the politically independent SF Weekly, columnist Rachel Swan documents how, “Members of the Berkeley-based Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) had, indeed, set the time and date for two consecutive Trayvon Martin rallies in Oakland, as well as the ones in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York.”

Explaining how many of the demonstrations were adorned with Communist red flags, Swan notes how the RCP sent out email blasts urging people to attend the rallies, made protest signs and also used “viral marketing” to give the message a “veneer of spontaneity”.

“It turns out that Revolutionary Communists have coordinated — or perhaps infiltrated — Trayvon Martin protests throughout the country, often with more aggressive sloganeering than in Oakland. In Florida, they didn’t shy away from connecting Martin to larger, more abstract causes,” writes Swan, noting that the group has used the marches to denounce capitalism.

The Founder and current chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party is Bob Avakian, “an acolyte of Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin — he praises both of them in his 2005 autobiography,” writes Swan.

Despite the fact that between them the two dictators killed at least 50 million people, Avakian has been a consistent and vehement supporter of both Chairman Mao and Joseph Stalin.

Avakian protested the efforts of reformer Deng Xiaoping to lead China towards a market economy after Mao’s death in 1976, having backed the cultural revolution, during which historical relics and artifacts were destroyed, cultural and religious sites were ransacked and Mao’s political opponents were tortured and executed.

When the RCP was criticized by some on the left for creating a Mao-like “cult of personality” around Avakian, he responded, “I certainly hope so — we’ve been working very hard to create one.”

It is unsurprising that the Revolutionary Communist Party has backed the Obama administration’s efforts to create a furore around the Trayvon Martin case. Recall that it was the Justice Department which organized and paid for many of the original Trayvon Martin protests last year. Given that Barack Obama’s political career was launched in the living room of Weathermen Communist and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, it makes perfect sense.

The RCP wasn’t similarly perturbed when Roderick Scott, a 42-year-old black man, shot and killed Christopher Cervini, a 17-year old white kid who broke into his car and tried to attack him, suggesting that their protests have little to do with justice for Trayvon Martin and everything to do with hijacking contrived racial tension in order to push their own warped political agenda. – prisonplanet.com

US drones used beyond declared combat zones, target Africa

US military drone surveillance is expanding beyond declared combat zones.

The steel-gray U.S. Air Force Predator drone plunged from the sky, shattering on mountainous terrain near the Iraq-Turkey border. For Kurdish guerrillas hiding nearby, it was an unexpected gift from the propaganda gods.

Fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, filmed the charred wreckage on Sept. 18 and posted a video on YouTube. A narrator bragged unconvincingly that the group had shot down the drone. But for anyone who might doubt that the flying robot was really American, the video zoomed in on mangled parts stamped in English and bearing the label of the manufacturer, San Diego-based General Atomics.

For a brief moment, the crash drew back the curtain on Operation Nomad Shadow, a secretive U.S. military surveillance program. Since November 2011, the U.S. Air Force has been flying unarmed drones from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey in an attempt to suppress a long-simmering regional conflict. The camera-equipped Predators hover above the rugged border with Iraq and beam high-resolution imagery to the Turkish armed forces, helping them pursue PKK rebels as they slip back and forth across the mountains.

As the number of drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen decrease, the U.S. military is shifting its huge fleet of unmanned aircraft to other hot spots around the world. This next phase of drone warfare is focused more on spying than killing and will extend the Pentagon’s robust surveillance networks far beyond traditional, declared combat zones.

Over the past decade, the Pentagon has amassed more than 400 Predators, Reapers, Hunters, Gray Eagles and other high-altitude drones that have revolutionized counterterrorism operations. Some of the unmanned aircraft will return home with U.S. troops when they leave Afghanistan. But many of the drones will redeploy to fresh frontiers, where they will spy on other targets that worry U.S. officials.

In Africa, the U.S. Air Force began flying unarmed drones over the Sahara five months ago and the Pentagon has also set up drone bases in Ethiopia, Djibouti and the Seychelles. Even so, the commander of U.S. forces in Africa told Congress in February that he needed a 15-fold increase in surveillance, reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering on the continent. – Washington Post

Snowdenov soon?

NSA leaker Edward Snowden plans to settle in Russia and is ready to begin a court battle if the country’s migration service denies his asylum plea, Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer who assists the whistleblower, told RT.

“It’s hard for me to say what his actions would be in terms of a positive decision [on the asylum plea],” Kucherena said. “We must understand that security is the number one issue in his case. I think the process of adaptation will take some time. It’s an understandable process as he doesn’t know the Russian language, our customs, and our laws.”

“He’s planning to arrange his life here. He plans to get a job. And, I think, that all his further decisions will be made considering the situation he found himself in,” he added.

Kucherena expressed hope that the whistleblower’s plea will be granted, because the reasons which prompted Snowden ask for political asylum in Russia “deserve attention.”

“He fears for his health and his life. He’s afraid that if he’ll be handed to the US, torture can be used against him down to death penalty,” he said.

In case of a negative ruling on the plea, Kucherena said that Snowden has “an opportunity to go to court and appeal against the decision of the Federal Migration Service.”

“He intends to do so,” the attorney stressed. “During our meeting, our dialogues, and our consultations, he made detailed inquiries on those procedures. And I informed him of what possibilities he has according to Russian law.”

Snowden still remains holed up in the international transit zone of the Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. His asylum plea, which was filed on July 16, has not been yet formalized by migration officials.

“According to the existing practice, it may take five, seven, or eight days. I’m calling them on a daily basis. They tell me that they’re about to finish the formalization,” Kucherena said.

The NSA leaker will then be handed a paper confirming that his asylum application is being reviewed. Once this document is received, Snowden will be allowed to leave the airport where he has spent an entire month.

“There are no travel restrictions. Therefore, receiving the paper will give him an opportunity to leave the transit zone of the Sheremetyevo airport and choose a place of residence – rent a hotel or a flat. [He can] live in any place within the Russian federation,” Kucherena explained.

According to the lawyer, consideration of the plea will then take up to three months. If his request is approved, Snowden will receive a certificate which will “guarantee him the same rights and freedoms possessed by the citizens of the Russian Federation.”

“The temporary asylum is given on a one-year term. After it expires, the term can be prolonged for another year and this can be repeated an indefinite number of times afterwards,” he said.

Snowden arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23 after revealing secret NSA government surveillance programs to the public.

The 30-year-old whistleblower is wanted in the US on charges of espionage and theft of government property.

Several Latin American states have offered him asylum, but the whistleblower believes it is unsafe for him to leave Russia following the July 2 incident in which the Bolivian president’s plane was grounded on suspicion that Snowden was aboard the craft. – RT

It’s a black thing on Capitol Hill

The father of Trayvon Martin, who was shot in February last year, will give a speech on Capitol Hill on Wednesday as part of a hearing focusing on the societal challenges faced by African American boys and men.

Tracy Martin will speak at the opening of the inaugural hearing of the recently-formed Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys.

Other notable speakers at the event will include president of the NAACP, Kweisi Mfume, executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans, David Johns, and Georgetown University Sociology Professor Michael Eric Dyson.

George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder earlier this month after being arrested for shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was unarmed.

Tracy Martin spoke to Congressional Democrats on the House judiciary panel last year on racial profiling and hate crimes, according to theHill.com.

The Department of Justice said it is investigating the Zimmerman case to see if any civil rights laws were violated. However, legal experts don’t believe any federal charges will be brought against Zimmerman in the wake of the Florida jury’s verdict. – RT

Russia allows Snowden ‘to leave airport’

Police outside Sheremetyevo international airport in Moscow

US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden was set Wednesday to leave the Moscow airport transit zone where he has been holed up for the last month after being provided with a document allowing him to officially enter Russia, reports said.

The state RIA Novosti news agency said the document confirms that his application for asylum in Russia is being considered and allows him to cross into Russia proper so long as border guards do not object, it said.

The news agency added that the document was initially given to the lawyer helping him, Anatoly Kucherena, who was now at Sheremetyevo airport and meeting Snowden in a secure zone.

A large crowd of media was already outside a door marked “staff only” on the lower floor of Terminal E at Sheremetyevo, with police and security guards keeping tight control, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

The Interfax news agency said Snowden, who is wanted by the US on espionage charges for revealing a vast spying programme, could leave the airport in the “next hours”.

“The American is currently getting ready to leave. He is being provided with new clothes. The document will be given to him by Kucherena,” Interfax said.

RIA Novosti cited a source within the Russian border guards service as saying he would be allowed to leave the airport as soon as he presents the document.

He would not cross the border with regular passengers but through a special channel, the Interfax news agency reported.

The migration service declined to comment and there was no official confirmation that he was preparing to cross into Russian territory.

Snowden earlier this month applied for asylum in Russia, a process that could take up to three months.

Kucherena has said Snowden may even apply for Russian citizenship and is interested in looking for work in Russia.

Hosting Snowden risks further straining relations between Russia and the United States. But Russia has refused to hand Snowden over, saying it has no extradition treaty with Washington.

Snowden arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23.

The former contractor for the National Security Agency was checked-in to fly on to Cuba the next day but he never boarded the plane to Havana.

He ended up marooned at the Moscow airport after the United States revoked his passport.

With the help of Sarah Harrison, an employee of anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, the 30-year-old applied for asylum in 27 countries but most of the nations denied him a safe haven under pressure from Washington.

Three countries in Latin America known for their anti-US stance –Nicaragua, Bolivia and Venezuela — have said they would be willing to give refuge to Snowden.

But there are doubts about whether the American will be able to travel on to Latin American after Bolivian President Evo Morales’s plane flying from Moscow earlier this month was forced to land in Vienna and searched amid suspicions Snowden was on board.

Breaking his silence for the first time since arriving from Hong Kong, Snowden on July 12 summoned several rights activists and Kremlin-friendly lawyers for a dramatic, closed-door meeting at Sheremetyevo airport.

He told them he would apply for asylum in Russia and asked them to petition President Vladimir Putin on his behalf.

On July 16, Snowden applied for temporary asylum with the help of Kucherena, a pro-Kremlin lawyer who participated in the airport meeting.

The Kremlin has sought to keep Snowden’s case at arm’s length but observers said the activists’ meeting at the state-controlled airport would have never been possible without government involvement. – AFP