US – Page 9 – praag.org

Second black teen had gun powder residue on his hands

A black teenager killed by a police officer in St. Louis, coming just two months after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, had gunpowder residue on his hands, jeans and T-shirt, according to crime lab results.

Last Wednesday, Vonderrit Myers, 18, became the second black teenager to be shot and killed by a white officer in as many months. Meyer’s death reignited simmering rage on the streets of St. Louis, which is attempting to recover from the August 9 shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown.

In scenes becoming all-too-familiar for this Missouri city, protesters took to the streets to speak out against “police violence,” while demanding the arrest of Darren Wilson, the white officer who killed Brown in August. A grand jury is considering the evidence against the officer, but has not yet reached a conclusion.

Meanwhile, the forensics results in the latest shooting incident lends credence to the initial police report that Myers fired at least three times at an off-duty police officer. Myers’ family claims he did not own a gun, but police say they found the weapon he allegedly fired at the crime scene.

The identity of the police officer who shot Myers has not been released.

Source: RT

Black Alabama pastor with AIDS sleeps with church members

A Black Alabama pastor is being sued after admitting that he had sex with multiple female members of his congregation. Worse, however, is that he declined to inform them he had AIDS.

The shocking news was revealed by the pastor himself, Reverend Juan Demetrius McFarland of the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church. Starting in September this year, McFarland began recounting to parishioners – through his sermons – the fact that he tested positive for HIV back in 2003, going on to note that he has had AIDS since 2008.

This news alone was not enough to attract calls for McFarland to step aside. In fact, most black members of the Church supported the pastor and initiated efforts to help in in whatever way they could, according to a report by local NBC affiliate WSFA.

However, McFarland dropped a bombshell just a few Sundays ago, when he announced – again, in a sermon – that he’d had sex with women and did not tell them of the fact that he had AIDS. In another sermon, the pastor admitted he was abusing illegal drugs, the Associated Press reported.

“He concealed from the church that he had knowingly engaged in adultery in the church building with female members of Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church while knowingly having AIDS,” Church Deacon Nathan Williams Jr. said to WSFA.

For the Church’s deacons, that was the last straw. On October 5, they voted overwhelmingly to fire McFarland, though the pastor of 23 years insisted he would not step down. With McFarland remaining defiant, the deacons filed a lawsuit asking a judge to prevent the pastor from working and hand over control of the Church.

In their lawsuit, the deacons claim McFarland practiced “debauchery, sinfulness, hedonism, sexual misconduct, dishonesty, thievery and rejection of the Ten Commandments.”

McFarland could also face misdemeanor charges if it’s true that he knowingly spread a sexually transmitted disease.

“Our moves are going to come directly from counsel. We want peace and we want to do things right, legally,” Williams said to WSFA. “We are not looking to hurt him. We are looking to get the Church back. That’s our theme: Get the Church back. We want the Church back. That’s it.”

For his part, McFarland was dismissive of the lawsuit, telling the AP his attorney would be looking closely at it before he takes his next step. Still, the minister indicated he would not be leaving his post. He has even replaced the locks on the church doors and changed bank account numbers in order to evade financial consequences.

“I will command the pulpit from this day forward,” he said.

Despite previous support from churchgoers, attendance at McFarland’s sermons has dwindled considerably. This past Sunday, just 50 people attended the service – usually, there are 170 people every week.

Source: RT

America usurped: China becomes world’s largest economy

Last week the International Monetary Fund updated its data on the world economy. For the first time it ranks China’s economy as the world’s biggest in purchasing-power-parity terms.

Historians, though, point out that China is merely regaining a title that it has held for much of recorded history.

In 1820 it probably produced one-third of global economic output. The brief interlude in which America overshadowed it is now over.

The White House seemed oblivious on Wednesday, crowing that “the economic policies that this president put in place are the envy of the world”.

They seemed caught flat-footed by the news.

The latest IMF figures show the Chinese economy is worth $17.61 trillion compared with $17.4 trillion for the U.S.

The figure is controversial as it requires the comparison of a huge amount of goods and services, and is therefore a vast statistical undertaking that can only be conducted infrequently with estimates used during intervening periods. The methods used to collect the data have also led to controversy in the past.

When it comes the raw GDP data base on exchange rates, China will eventually also overtake the US if it carries on growing as it has, but that is still likely to take some years.

China says US behind Hong Kong protests

A commentary in the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party on Saturday accused the U.S. of trying to foment a “color revolution” in Hong Kong.

The commentary, which was entitled “Why is the U.S. so keen on ‘Color Revolutions’?”, appeared on the front page of the The People’s Daily overseas editions on Saturday. The People’s Daily is the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party.

The commentary deems it “inevitable” that the U.S. actions towards Hong Kong “will be associated with the US involvement in the ‘Color Revolutions’ in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere.” The People’s Daily then slams the U.S. for pretending to be interested in democracy when it is really only trying to advance its “strategic interests.” For the United States, the commentary claims, a “‘democratic’ country is one that conducts its affairs in line with American interests.”

The commentary ends by stating that “U.S. may enjoy the sweet taste of interfering in other countries’ internal affairs, but on the issue of Hong Kong it stands little chance of overcoming the determination of the Chinese government to maintain stability and prosperity.”

Although China has strongly implied that foreigners were secretly controlling the Hong Kong protests in recent weeks, the commentary was the first time it so explicitly accused the U.S. of being behind the movement. Its support for this accusation is not very compelling, however, as it mostly focuses on the coverage of independent different media outlets, one of which appears to be a Hong Kong-based online publication.

The commentary begins by noting that, “according to media reports,” Louisa Greve, National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) the Vice President for Asia, Middle East & North Africa, and Global Programs, met with “key people” in Occupy Central “several months ago” to “talk about the movement.” The unidentified media reports the article references likely refers to an earlier report published in a “Hong Kong-based pro-Beijing newspaper,” according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. The allegations themselves are most likely based on a NED-hosted public discussion on democracy in Hong Kong between Occupy Central leaders Martin Lee and Anson Chan that was held in Washington, DC in April of this year. Louisa Greve mediated the hour long talk, a video of which is available on YouTube.

The National Endowment for Democracy is a democracy promotion organization that, while administered as a private non-profit organization, receives the bulk of its funding from the U.S. government. In 2013 it gave two grants that together totaled less than $300,000 to two organizations for work on Hong Kong. Only one of those organizations is based in Hong Kong.

However, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the NED, does maintain a tiny office in Hong Kong. The Diplomat has learned that NDI’s Hong Kong office typically employs one international staff member and occasionally hires one or two locals to help out when needed. Most of NDI’s work in Hong Kong focuses on holding workshops attended by young leaders from all interested political parties that focus on building skills in areas like public speaking, campaign strategy, message development and message delivery. The Diplomat has learned that NDI has regularly worked with pro-Beijing political parties in Hong Kong who, like all political parties, hope to prevail in local elections. Local Hong Kong press have occasionally accused NDI of being a front for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the past.

Beyond NED, the People’s Daily article notes that three former U.S. Consuls General to Hong Kong had “recently united” to write an open letter to Hong Kong Chief Executive CY Leung.

Most of the People’s Daily’s claim that the U.S. is trying to foment a color revolution in Hong Kong, however, is based on mainstream newspapers using the term “Umbrella Revolution” in their coverage of the Hong Kong protests. For example, it notes that the Associated Press and Wall Street Journal had used the term “Umbrella Revolution” in their Hong Kong coverage. Neither organization is affiliated with the U.S. government.

The People’s Daily commentary also claimed the “The Times Asia” had used the Umbrella Revolution phrase. It wasn’t entirely clear which publication the commentary was referring to, but it most likely it meant Asia Times Online. Asia Times Online is a Hong Kong-based online publication that grew out of a former Hong Kong and Bangkok-based daily print newspaper. Asia Times Online claims to cover issues “from an Asian perspective; this distinguishes us from the mainstream English-language media, whose reporting on Asian matters is generally by Westerners, for Westerners.”

Source: The Diplomat

Snowden fingers Dropbox, Facebook, Google as hostile to privacy

Edward Snowden has hit out at Dropbox and other services he says are “hostile to privacy,” urging web users to abandon unencrypted communication and adjust privacy settings to prevent governments from spying on them in increasingly intrusive ways.

“We are no longer citizens, we no longer have leaders. We’re subjects, and we have rulers,” Snowden told The New Yorker magazine in a comprehensive hour-long interview.

There isn’t enough investment into security research, into understanding how metadata could better be protected and why that is more necessary today than yesterday, he said.

The whistleblower believes one fallacy in how authorities view individual rights has to do with making the individual forsake those rights by default. Snowden’s point is that the moment you are compelled to reveal that you have nothing to hide is when the right to privacy stops being a right – because you are effectively waiving that right.

“When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights – you don’t have to justify why you need freedom of speech.”

In that situation, it becomes OK to live in a world where one is no longer interested in privacy as such – a world where Facebook, Google and Dropbox have become ubiquitous, and where there are virtually no safeguards against the wrongful use of the information one puts there.
In particular, Snowden advised web users to “get rid” of Dropbox. Such services only insist on encrypting user data during transfer and when being stored on the servers. Other services he recommends instead, such as SpiderOak, encrypt information while it’s on your computer as well.

“We’re talking about dropping programs that are hostile to privacy,” Snowden said.

The same goes for social networks such as Facebook and Google, too. Snowden says they are “dangerous” and proposes that people use other services that allow for encrypted messages to be sent, such as RedPhone or SilentCircle.

The argument that encryption harms security efforts to capture terrorists is flawed, even from a purely legalistic point of view, Snowden said, explaining that you can still retain encryption and have the relevant authorities requesting private information from phone carriers and internet providers on a need-to-know basis.

And the penchant for close, secretive cooperation with the government will only cost companies money and jobs, Snowden added, because no one would want to buy a phone made by a company that provides inherent backdoors for third parties to access your information.

“The same rights that we inherited our children deserve to inherit the same way,” Snowden said.

“But ultimately we have to remember that political reform in the United States is not going to solve the problem globally. Governments [everywhere] are going to have their own national laws. And these can be terrible governments… so, because of that, you have to use secure communications… the real key is that companies willing to collaborate with the government and compromise their products and services do not deserve to be trusted with your data. Because if they do it for one government, they’ll do it for another government,” Snowden said.

For consumers to retain trust in the services they use, they need to fight for the very idea of privacy, to keep the topic in focus, he said, adding: “I speak with computer scientists and cryptographers every day to try to figure out how we can create solutions” for metadata to be appreciated and viewed as someone’s own private business.

“There are solutions, there are ways forward, and we need to pursue them, to work toward them,” Snowden said. “And we need to say that this is an effort worth doing.”

The whistleblower continues to lead a secretive existence in Russia, where he’s been stranded since June 2013, hiding from his own government, which is seeking to prosecute him for his crimes behind closed doors.

“I’ve told the government again and again in negotiations, you know, that if they’re prepared to offer an open trial, a fair trial in the same way that Dan Ellsberg got, and I’m allowed to make my case to the jury, I would love to do so,” Snowden said. “But to this point they’ve declined.”

Source: RT

Ferguson all over again

A white off-duty policeman shot and killed a black teenager in St Louis on Wednesday, officers said, triggering a night of protests just miles from the site of another police shooting of another black youth in the suburb of Ferguson.

Police said the 18-year-old was armed and fired three shots while he was being chased by the officer, and they had recovered a gun at the scene.

The youth was killed almost two months to the day since sometimes violent protests erupted in Ferguson after a white police officer shot dead unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown.

In Wednesday’s shooting, the dead man was one of three people who fled after being approached by the officer, a six-year veteran of the department who was working for a private security company, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Sam Dotson said.

The officer, who was wearing his city police uniform, fired 17 shots at the teenager, police added.

A crowd of around 200 gathered at the scene in the south St. Louis neighborhood of Shaw, 11 miles (18 km) south of Ferguson. Many of the protesters marched to a major thoroughfare, partially blocking traffic and chanting “Whose streets? Our streets?” as a police helicopter hovered overhead.

Teyonna Myers, 23, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper that she was the cousin of the suspect and that he was unarmed when he was killed.

“He had a sandwich in his hand, and they thought it was a gun. It’s like Michael Brown all over again,” she told the paper. Police have not named the teenager.

Source: Reuters

Whites see harmony where blacks see racism

Alice Singen had always seen her home town Ferguson, Mo., as an integrated, harmonious place. Like many other white residents, she prided herself on staying here even when others began to leave.

But since the death of an unarmed black teenager at the hands of a white police officer, some African Americans are calling it segregated and racist. Now Singen has found herself talking in terms of “us” and “them,” “we” and “they.”

“I didn’t have any problems with anybody or any color, and all of a sudden it feels like we are being held responsible for something that’s not our fault,” Singen, 70, said as she left Faraci Pizza, a 46-year-old Ferguson business that has become a focal point of racial tension. “I don’t get it.”

That sense of shock is common here among Ferguson whites in the wake of 18-year-old Michael Brown’s death and the explosive protests in the days that followed.

The situation has forced many white Ferguson residents in this majority-black city — from small-business owners to the mayor and police chief — to question their beliefs about the community’s racial dynamics.

They have discovered that blacks and whites here profoundly disagree about the existence of racism and the fairness of the justice system. And now, whites who once believed their town was an exception in a country struggling with racial divisions have to confront the possibility it is not.

Between 2000 and 2010, the white population plummeted from 44 percent to 30 percent, while the black population grew from 50 percent to 67 percent.

In her majority-black neighborhood, a white house-owner staked an “I ♥ Ferguson” sign on her lawn.

Some of her neighbors reprimanded her for it. They interpreted the campaign as another way to mask the city’s injustice. Even the sign had two sides.

A Mexican American woman complained about how horrible it was to witness [black] teenagers getting tear-gassed.

“Well, we don’t know all the facts,” a white woman answered.

“But we do know that [Brown] had stolen those cigars, because we saw the video. And we know that the officer called him aside because he was jaywalking.”

Source: Washington Post

Obama threatens sanctions after Zim signs Russian deal

The United States has reportedly warned Zimbabwe about its growing economic dealings with Russia after Harare recently sealed an agreement with Moscow for a US$3billion platinum mine.

According to Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru, who is thought to be President Robert Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba, the Obama administration threatened further sanctions against Zimbabwe over its ties with Russia.

Zimbabwe’s Pen East Investments has teamed up with Afronet, a consortium of three Russian partners, to form Great Dyke Investments, which is developing the US$3 billion Darwendale platinum project.

At full development in 2024, the mine will produce 800,000 platinum ounces, pushing Zimbabwe’s output over one million ounces, and create 8,000 jobs.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov visited Zimbabwe last month to conclude the deal with President Robert Mugabe.

However, according to Manheru, the deal could see Washington hit Harare with further sanctions.

Manheru wrote in the Saturday Herald:

“A week or two ago, the US government, through its local embassy, sent an official communication to the Zimbabwean Government, listing the full measure of sanctions the West, led by America, have slapped on Russia.

“The communication went further. It spelt out American expectations on Zimbabwe, namely that Zimbabwe was expected (read required) to support those sanctions by avoiding any association with companies sanctioned by the Americans and their Western allies. Or their subsidiaries or affiliates.

“And . . . yes you guess right, that targets the new US$3bn-plus platinum investment by the Russians at Darwendale! It (Zimbabwe) should not proceed or else we are under sanctions.”

Manheru said it was ridiculous for the US to refuse to lift sanctions against Harare and then demand support for its measures against Moscow.

“America then invites sanctioned Zimbabwe to support sanctions against Russia, itself a bird of the same feather!

“This is where I am tempted to tell the American government to go and hang, hang on a banana tree, bums up.”

China warns US not to meddle in Hong Kong

China’s foreign minister made it clear Beijing would not allow other countries to meddle into its ‘internal affairs’, responding in this way to US Secretary of State’s call for Beijing to grant Hong Kong the “highest possible degree of autonomy.”

The American and the Chinese heads of foreign offices exchanged their views on the massive protests in Hong Kong before their talks at the US State Department on Wednesday.

“Hong Kong affairs are China’s internal affairs,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. “All countries should respect China’s sovereignty. And this is also a basic principle governing international relations. I believe for any country, for any society, no one will allow those illegal acts that violate public order.”

Wang added he believed the current Hong Kong leadership was able to handle the large-scale sit-ins by itself.

The remark was made after US Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated Washington’s support for “universal suffrage” in Hong Kong, the main demand put forward by protesters in the Asian financial hub.

“We support universal suffrage in Hong Kong accordant with the Basic Law, and we believe in open society with the highest possible degree of autonomy and governed by rule of law is essential for Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity,” Kerry said.

Wang Yi received the same message from Barack Obama, whom he met later the same day, according to a White House statement about the meeting.

“The United States has consistently supported the open system that is essential to Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity, universal suffrage, and the aspiration of the Hong Kong people,” the statement reads.

Protesters in Hong Kong have been demanding election reform. They’re against the central government’s August decision to only allow Beijing-approved nominees run for the city’s leader post in the next election in 2017.

Sunday’s massive crackdown on thousands of protesters, when police use of tear gas, pepper spray and baton charges did not lead to a dispersal of the crowds. What it did inspire is more anger with Hong Kong’s current leader, Leung Chun-ying, with protesters starting to demand his resignation.

On Wednesday, a leader of the pro-reform protests warned the demonstrators were ready to occupy government buildings if the city’s chief didn’t step down by the end of Thursday.

An unnamed government source close to Leung says Hong Kong’s chief executive is ready to wait for weeks for the protests to quiet down.

“Unless there’s some chaotic situation, we won’t send in riot police… We hope this doesn’t happen,” the source told Reuters. “We have to deal with it peacefully, even if it lasts weeks or months.”

Source: RT

Ron Paul joins secessionists

Secessionists across the world were inspired by Scotland’s energetic attempt at independence from the United Kingdom earlier this month. Ron Paul, as it turns out, joined them.

In an essay on his eponymous institution’s website Sunday, the former U.S. congressman from Texas wrote that any supporters of freedom should cheer secessionism because it allows for smaller government—a constant mantra for the libertarian and perennial presidential candidate, who didn’t previously realize there were more than a handful of secessionist groups in the United States.

“I was real pleased with that, and a bit surprised,” Paul told National Journal. “But then, on second thought, you think, ‘Why not? Why not more?’ ”

Fringe groups calling for states and regions to secede from the U.S., such as the Second Vermont Republic and the Alaskan Independence Party, gained more publicity in the weeks leading up to the Scottish referendum. As the outsized federal government continues to encroach on individual rights, Paul said, he thinks there will be a groundswell of these movements.

“It’s something that I think is going to grow, because the failure of the federal government is going to get much worse,” he said. “When the bankruptcy evolves, and maybe some of these pension funds are confiscated, and the wars never end, and bankruptcy comes forth, people [will say], ‘Hey, we’re getting a bad deal from this. Why don’t we leave?’ ”

He added: “I think it’s inevitable people wanting to leave will be there, and the numbers will grow.”

Realistically, though, Paul said he doesn’t think any of these groups could actually succeed. Despite the founders’ own deep belief in secession—they gained America’s independence from Europe, after all—he said the Civil War set the precedent that secession would carry “very, very bad” results.

“By our history, the heavy hand of the federal government would come down,” Paul told National Journal. “They’d probably shoot ’em.”

In typical fashion, Paul argued that the principle of secession was more important than what could actually happen in reality. It’s the threat, he said, that’s important to keep the federal government in check.

“I think what is most important is we have a concrete right to secede,” Paul said. “Even if we never had any secession, or any state declare independence, we would be so much better off, because there would always be this threat. Once the threat of a state leaving was removed, it was just open-door policy for the federal government to expand itself and run roughshod out over the states because the states couldn’t do much.”

Given that his son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., will likely run for president in 2016 with a much better chance of winning than his father ever had, the elder Paul’s willingness to share his reasonably radical views seem imprudent, if not unexpected. In an election cycle that has often equated the politics of Ron and Rand, this latest remark is sure to annoy the potential 2016-er’s supporters.

For Rand’s sake, it’s fortunate that Ron didn’t express his support for the Texas Nationalist Movement or any other secessionist groups in the U.S. Before he’d back Texan independence, he joked, “I better check out and see who’s running Austin before we decide about that.”

Source: nationaljournal.com

Largest Liberian newspaper accuses US of creating ebola

The Liberian Daily Observer, which is the largest newspaper in Liberia, just published an article on their front page with the headline, “Ebola, AIDS Manufactured By Western Pharmaceuticals, US DoD?” The article accuses the US of manufacturing the Ebola outbreak in a scheme to use Africa as a testing ground for bioweapons.

SITES AROUND AFRICA, AND IN WEST AFRICA, HAVE OVER THE YEARS BEEN SET UP FOR TESTING EMERGING DISEASES, ESPECIALLY EBOLA

The World Health Organization (WHO) and several other UN Agencies have been implicated in selecting and enticing African countries to participate in the testing events, promoting vaccinations, but pursuing various testing regiments. The August 2, 2014 article, West Africa: What are US Biological Warfare Researchers Doing in the Ebola Zone? by Jon Rappoport of Global Research pinpoints the problem that is facing African governments.

Obvious in this and other reports are, among others:

(a) The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), a well-known centre for bio-war research, located at Fort Detrick, Maryland;

(b) Tulane University, in New Orleans, USA, winner of research grants, including a grant of more than $7 million the National Institute of Health (NIH) to fund research with the Lassa viral hemorrhagic fever;

(c) the US Center for Disease Control (CDC);

(d) Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French name, Medicins Sans Frontiers);

(e) Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company;

(f) The UK’s GlaxoSmithKline; and

(g) the Kenema Government Hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone.

Reports narrate stories of the US Department of Defense (DoD) funding Ebola trials on humans, trials which started just weeks before the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone. The reports continue and state that the DoD gave a contract worth $140 million dollars to Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company, to conduct Ebola research. This research work involved injecting and infusing healthy humans with the deadly Ebola virus. Hence, the DoD is listed as a collaborator in a “First in Human” Ebola clinical trial (NCT02041715, which started in January 2014 shortly before an Ebola epidemic was declared in West Africa in March. Disturbingly, many reports also conclude that the US government has a viral fever bioterrorism research laboratory in Kenema, a town at the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The only relevant positive and ethical olive-branch seen in all of my reading is that Theguardian.com reported, “The US government funding of Ebola trials on healthy humans comes amid warnings by top scientists in Harvard and Yale that such virus experiments risk triggering a worldwide pandemic.” That threat still persists.

Enter the super-evil Khorasans

Obama is now – after the fact – scrambling to justify bombing the sovereign nation of Syria without the permission of either the Syrian government or even the United States Congress by saying that he was going after the super-evil Khorasans, who were about to attack.

The Khorasans sound like a cross between Genghis Khan, Klingons and the Kardashians, and according to the US they’re even more dangerous than the Islamic State.

Agence France-Presse reports that the US has hit a little-known group called “Khorasan” in Syria, but experts and activists argue it actually struck Al-Qaeda’s affiliate Al-Nusra Front, which fights alongside Syrian rebels.

These rebels were called “moderates” by the US earlier.

In announcing its raids in the northern province of Aleppo on Tuesday, Washington described the group it targeted as Khorasan, a cell of Al-Qaeda veterans planning attacks against the West.

But experts and activists cast doubt on the distinction between Khorasan and Al-Nusra Front, which is Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch.

“In Syria, no one had ever heard talk of Khorasan until the US media brought it up,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“Rebels, activists and the whole world knows that these positions (hit Tuesday) were Al-Nusra positions, and the fighters killed were Al-Nusra fighters,” added Abdel Rahman, who has tracked the Syrian conflict since it erupted in 2011.

Experts were similarly dubious about the distinction.

“The name refers to Al-Qaeda fighters previously based in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran who have travelled to Syria to fight with… Al-Nusra,” said Matthew Henman, head of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre.

“They… should not be considered a new or distinct group as such.”

This cell linked to Al-Nusra emerged just over a week ago, which is an interesting coincidence. When Washington added Al-Nusra to its list of “terrorist” organisations, even the internationally-backed Syrian opposition National Coalition criticised the decision.

Bloomberg reports that the U.S. dropped almost as many bombs and missiles on Islamic State positions in Syria in its first night of airstrikes there as it did in the first month of attacks on the extremist group in Iraq.

It appears American foreign policy comes down to this, “it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” as the offensive unleashed 200 precision-guided munitions including 47 Tomahawk cruise missiles, and also got to play with its new F-22 toy in its first combat mission.

The first night of airstrikes was “only the beginning,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon’s spokesman, told reporters.

US targets Syrian oil field in anti-ISIS air strike

The United States and its partners launched a new round of strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria on Wednesday.

According to Agency France-Presse, strikes involved targeting an oil field in Syria near the towns of Al-Omar and Deir ez-Zor, journalist Zaid Benjamin reported.

“I can confirm that US military and Arab partner forces are undertaking additional strikes today against ISIL terrorists in Syria,” Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said on Wednesday, using the Obama-administration’s preferred language for the group formerly known as ISIS that today identifies as the Islamic State. “These operations are ongoing, so we will not provide additional details at this time. We will do so later as operationally appropriate.”

Later, the Pentagon confirmed that less than a dozen aircraft are involved in the latest attack. US Central Command (CENTCOM), meanwhile, confirmed that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also participated.

The latest round of strikes was acknowledged on Wednesday just shy of 12 a.m. local time in Syria and marks at least the third consecutive wave of attacks launched by the US and allied partners since Monday. Prior to then, the US had only attacked Islamic State militants in neighboring Iraq.

Obama lapses into Orwellian speech

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the US president’s speech at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday lapsed into an Orwellian fiction.

Lavrov reminded the US that terrorists can hardly be good and bad at the same time. America has insisted that Isil terrorists in Libya and Syria are “moderates” while arming them.

The foreign minister said president Barack Obama failed to deliver a peacemaking speech at the current session of the UN General Assembly.

Lavrov said he found Obama’s statements “bizarre”. Obama insisted several times the the world had become freer and safer despite the fact that the US has now bombed 7 countries in 6 years, thus advancing the scourge of terrorism.

“I didn’t understand whether he was serious or not and whether there was an Orwellian element in it. Because George Orwell invented the Ministry of Truth and it looks like this philosophy is still present.

“The U.S. President presented a US worldview as he stressed many a time the exceptionality of himself and of his country,” Lavrov said.

“That’s the worldview of a country that has spelt out its right to use force arbitrarily regardless of the UN Security Council’s resolutions or other international legal acts in its national defence doctrine.”

“As for the US President’s speech, we earned the second place among the threats to international peace and stability,” Lavrov said. “Number one is the Ebola virus, number two is the so-called Russian aggression in Europe and Isil and other terrorists who are now taking hold of the Middle East and primarily of the countries, which have evidenced US interventions, are ranked as number three.

“That’s why the speech of a peacemaker – the way it was conceived – failed to deliver if one compares it to real facts,” he said.

The events in Iraq are a result of the actions carried out by the US and the UK, and the situation has spiraled out of control.

“We’ve known that our English colleagues have a unique ability to twist everything. But I didn’t expect such cynicism, because the events that are taking place in Iraq are an illustration of a complete failure of the venture started by the US and the UK that allowed it to spiral out of control completely,” Lavrov said.

“We’re interested in settling conflicts in the world not by making unilateral accusations or shifting the blame, but through a fair, equal and respectful dialogue,” Lavrov said.

Regarding the sanctions, Lavrov lashed out that it was only the problem of the US which imposed them. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian conflict is a domestic problem that should be solved without US interference, he added.

“Ukrainians met in Minsk several times and signed two documents there. OSCE and Russian officials helped to foster this dialogue. It’s all written in the protocol and the memorandum and they must be implemented,” he said. “This is what the Ukrainians themselves have agreed to, and it would be incorrect to dictate any of the implementation parameters to them.”

He said he would meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry today to tell him that.