My readers, from where? From where not?

Posted on February 10, 2013 by petrel41

Blogging, cartoon

Soon, it will be 25 February.

Then, it will be a year ago since WordPress statistics started showing from which countries visitors come.

I will maybe be too busy on 25 February to make a blog post on this.

So, I will do it now.

By now, people from most countries and territories in the world have read my blog.

There are a few exceptions. When I look at the WordPress stats map, most countries are orange; meaning visitors from there have come.

Some countries are white. Meaning, no visitors so far. They may include countries too small to show on the map. As far as I know, eg, so far I did not get any visits from San Marino, or the Saint Pierre and Miquelon islands.

Countries, big enough to see on the WordPress map with no visits so far include Turkmenistan, Greenland, Svalbard, North Korea, the Western Sahara, South Sudan, Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Togo.

Here are stats for my visitors since WordPress started country by country figures.

Top Views by Country for all days ending 2013-02-10 (Summarized)

Country	Views
United States	50,453
United Kingdom	23,750
Canada	7,616
Netherlands	6,587
Greece	4,792
India	3,920
Romania	3,693
Australia	3,509
Germany	2,854
France	2,400
New Zealand	1,893
Sweden	1,890
Italy	1,784
Belgium	1,771
Jamaica	1,452
Philippines	1,445
Spain	1,362
Armenia	1,358
Singapore	1,292
Indonesia	1,004
Ireland	916
Saudi Arabia	812
Brazil	794
Bahrain	727
Turkey	725
Pakistan	708
Japan	694
South Africa	692
Switzerland	686
United Arab Emirates	622
Russian Federation	600
Thailand	599
Portugal	592
Poland	590
Hong Kong	570
Finland	556
Malaysia	544
Norway	530
Denmark	523
Mexico	486
Hungary	454
Republic of Korea	453
Israel	415
Czech Republic	379
Egypt	360
Argentina	321
Serbia	310
Bulgaria	309
Lebanon	287
Slovenia	269
Austria	267
Taiwan	249
Sri Lanka	242
Venezuela	209
Croatia	200
Viet Nam	197
Malta	184
Ukraine	170
Iceland	167
Morocco	167
Kenya	167
Kuwait	166
Qatar	158
Colombia	153
Slovakia	149
Bangladesh	143
Costa Rica	140
Tunisia	131
Ecuador	125
Peru	115
Jordan	114
Lithuania	113
Cyprus	110
Chile	108
Georgia	91
Latvia	81
Estonia	80
Albania	80
Algeria	77
Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic	76
Oman	76
Luxembourg	74
Nigeria	73
Iraq	71
Trinidad and Tobago	69
Puerto Rico	67
Uganda	59
Bolivia	58
Palestinian Territory, Occupied	50
United Republic of Tanzania	50
Bosnia and Herzegovina	48
Ethiopia	46
Afghanistan	45
Cambodia	44
Panama	42
Nepal	41
Libya	39
Mauritius	38
Dominican Republic	38
Suriname	37
Azerbaijan	37
Jersey	36
Moldova	33
Myanmar	29
Guyana	28
Uruguay	28
Yemen	26
Ghana	25
Brunei Darussalam	24
Gambia	24
Montenegro	21
Mongolia	20
Maldives	19
Belarus	18
Senegal	18
Isle of Man	17
Barbados	17
Syrian Arab Republic	17
Macao	16
Gibraltar	16
Honduras	16
El Salvador	15
Botswana	14
Guernsey	14
Aruba	13
New Caledonia	13
Paraguay	13
Cayman Islands	13
Antigua and Barbuda	13
Madagascar	12
Swaziland	12
Mozambique	12
Saint Lucia	12
Rwanda	11
Sudan	11
Guatemala	11
Namibia	11
Malawi	11
Angola	11
Haiti	10
Zimbabwe	10
Bahamas	10
Lao People’s Democratic Republic	10
Nicaragua	9
Seychelles	9
Belize	9
Kazakhstan	8
Bermuda	8
Fiji	8
Virgin Islands	7
Cameroon	7
Faroe Islands	7
Iran, Islamic Republic of	7
Kyrgyzstan	7
Micronesia, Federated States of	7
Côte d’Ivoire	7
Djibouti	6
Andorra	5
Turks and Caicos Islands	5
Liberia	5
China	5
Cuba	5
Mali	5
Guam	4
Zambia	4
Guadeloupe	4
Benin	4
Grenada	4
British Virgin Islands	4
Papua New Guinea	3
Saint Kitts and Nevis	3
Réunion	3
Burkina Faso	3
Niger	3
Lesotho	3
American Samoa	3
Comoros	2
Netherlands Antilles	2
Vatican City	2
Northern Mariana Islands	2
Monaco	2
Guinea-Bissau	2
French Guiana	2
Montserrat	2
Mauritania	2
Martinique	2
Anguilla	2
Tonga	1
French Polynesia	1
Somalia	1
Cook Islands	1
Bhutan	1
Burundi	1
Vanuatu	1
Uzbekistan	1
Democratic Republic of the Congo	1
Dominica	1
Tajikistan	1
Kiribati	1
British Indian Ocean Territory	1
Gabon	1
Timor-Leste	1

State Department: Turkmenistan’s energy strategy finds widespread acceptance in U.S. (en.trend.az)
Turkmenistan and Saudi Arabia study prospects of cooperation (en.trend.az)
Swedish parliament wants government to recognise Western Sahara (newstimeafrica.com)
Silly Dictator Story #25: Turkmenistan’s Protector Becomes Photobomber-in-Chief (rferl.org)

Bahrain dictatorship helped by British spyware corporation

Posted on February 7, 2013 by petrel41

This video is called Torture in Bahrain.

By David Swanson:

UK SPYWARE IN BAHRAIN: COMPANY’S DENIALS CALLED INTO QUESTION

06 February 2013

New Evidence Suggests Gamma Sold FinSpy to Bahrain

[Manama] In July 2012, Bahrain Watch reported that the Government of Bahrain was targeting activists with the FinSpy/FinFisher “lawful interception” computer spyware, programmed by UK company Gamma International. An analysis revealed that the spyware steals passwords and can record screen shots, Skype calls, and audio from a computer’s microphone. The spyware sends the data it captures back to a server in Bahrain. The Bahrain Watch report cited a technical analysis by Morgan Marquis-Boire and Bahrain Watch member Bill Marczak published through CitizenLab, and a report by Bloomberg. In response to these reports, Gamma International issued several statements to the press claiming that:

(1) The version of FinSpy used in Bahrain is an old copy that might have been stolen via a flash drive during a product demonstration. [1, 2]

(2) The server in Bahrain is not a FinFisher product, but is a “proxy” that relays the captured data to another server. [1]

(3) The version of FinSpy used in Bahrain has been modified so that it does not communicate with Gamma. If the product did communicate with Gamma, then Gamma could disable it. [1]

(4) Gamma never sold FinSpy to Bahrain. [1]

New evidence, presented in a complaint to the OECD, calls these claims into question:

(1) The version of FinSpy used in Bahrain is an old copy that might have been stolen via a flash drive during a product demonstration.

The copy of FinSpy sent to Bahraini Activists identifies itself as FinSpy 4.01, and bears a March 2012 date. However, Bahrain Watch has obtained a sample of a different version of FinSpy used in Bahrain, which predates the campaign against Bahraini Activists. The other version of the spyware identifies itself as FinSpy 4.00, and has an older date. Both the FinSpy 4.01 and FinSpy 4.00 samples communicate with the same server in Bahrain. The use of two different FinSpy versions calls into question Gamma’s claim that Bahrain is using a stolen copy of FinSpy, and instead suggests that Bahrain is receiving updated spyware from Gamma.

(2) The server in Bahrain is not a FinFisher product, but is a “proxy” that relays the captured data to another server.

The server sent responses including the phrase “finspy_master” — Gamma documentation refers to the server component of a FinSpy installation as the Master. Bahrain Watch believes that Bahrain’s server is not a proxy, based both on what appeared to be a bug in the server that revealed to each single recipient the sum total number of messages sent by the server to all recipients. Analysis of this total over time showed that the server was not forwarding messages to a third party. The technical term for this bug is a “Global IP ID.” The bug was corrected around July 2012.

(3) The version of FinSpy used in Bahrain has been modified so that it does not communicate with Gamma. If the product did communicate with Gamma, then Gamma could disable it.

Over the past several months, Bahrain Watch sent scanning probes to a number of FinSpy servers, including servers identified in Turkmenistan, Ethiopia, and Bahrain. Bahrain Watch observed behavior changes that were consistent across all servers. For example, around October 2012, an update to the servers broke a technique used by Bahrain Watch and CitizenLab to scan for FinSpy servers. That scanning technique identified FinSpy servers by detecting a bug in the FinSpy protocol. That this particular bug was corrected on all servers at roughly the same time suggests that the product in Bahrain does indeed communicate with Gamma in order to receive updates.

(4) Gamma never sold FinSpy to Bahrain.

According to leaked Gamma documentation, a FinSpy server requires a current update license purchased from Gamma in order to receive updates. Once the update license is expired, the server can no longer receive updates. The continued behavior changes on Bahrain’s server indicate a current update license, which suggests an ongoing business relationship between Gamma and Bahrain.

Bahrain Watch founding member Bill Marczak said: “It looks like Gamma is providing updates to Bahrain’s FinSpy installation. This calls into question Gamma’s claim that Bahrain stole a demonstration version of FinSpy. Given this new evidence, we call on Gamma to cease providing any software, hardware, or training — whether directly or indirectly — to the Government of Bahrain, and to disable Bahrain’s FinSpy installation. Software like FinSpy needs to be export controlled on the basis of its surveillance capabilities, and companies should face penalties if they sell their products to and end user that they should reasonably know will use their product in service of human rights violations.”

Bahrain Watch is a monitoring and advocacy group that seeks to promote effective, accountable, and transparent governance in Bahrain through research and evidence-based activism. About Bahrain Watch: http://bahrainwatch.org/.

View this press release on our website here.

Bahrain’s opposition groups, expecting little from a renewed national dialogue, plan to stage protests this week to mark the second anniversary of a Shiite-led uprising that was crushed by security forces: here.

UK firm faces questions over how spyware ended up in Bahrain (guardian.co.uk)
Bahrain football corruption? (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
Bahrain, Kuwait monarchies oppress opposition (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
Rights Groups File OECD Complaint Against Surveillance Firms – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
Bahrain – Human rights organisations file formal complaints against surveillance software firms Gamma International and Trovicor with British and German governments (en.rsf.org)
Customs urged to investigate UK spyware firm (guardian.co.uk)
Bahrain dictatorship gets more British weapons (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
Bahraini already dead prisoner on trial (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
Bahrain dictatorship’s European friends (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)

Dictatorships’ Internet spying

Posted on August 31, 2012 by petrel41

This video is called WikiLeaks Spy Files: GAMMA.

By Nicole Perlroth, The New York Times in the USA:

Crime-fighting software used by govts to spy on political dissidents

Updated: August 31, 2012 09:52 IST

San Francisco: Morgan Marquis-Boire works as a Google engineer and Bill Marczak is earning a Ph.D. in computer science. But this summer, the two men have been moonlighting as detectives, chasing an elusive surveillance tool from Bahrain across five continents.

What they found was the widespread use of sophisticated, off-the-shelf computer espionage software by governments with questionable records on human rights. While the software is supposedly sold for use only in criminal investigations, the two came across evidence that it was being used to target political dissidents.

The software proved to be the stuff of a spy film: It can grab images of computer screens, record Skype chats, turn on cameras and microphones and log keystrokes. The two men said they discovered mobile versions of the spyware customized for all major mobile phones.

But what made the software especially sophisticated was how well it avoided detection. Its creators specifically engineered it to elude antivirus software made by Kaspersky Lab, Symantec, F-Secure and others.

The software has been identified as FinSpy, one of the more elusive spyware tools sold in the growing market of off-the-shelf computer surveillance technologies that give governments a sophisticated plug-in monitoring operation. Research now links it to servers in more than a dozen countries, including Turkmenistan, Brunei and Bahrain, although no government acknowledges using the software for surveillance purposes.

The market for such technologies has grown to $5 billion a year from “nothing 10 years ago,” said Jerry Lucas, president of TeleStrategies, the company behind ISS World, an annual surveillance show where law enforcement agents view the latest computer spyware.

FinSpy is made by the Gamma Group, a British company that says it sells monitoring software to governments solely for criminal investigations.

“This is dual-use equipment,” said Eva Galperin, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties group. “If you sell it to a country that obeys the rule of law, they may use it for law enforcement. If you sell it to a country where the rule of law is not so strong, it will be used to monitor journalists and dissidents.”

Until Mr. Marquis-Boire and Mr. Marczak stumbled upon FinSpy last May, security researchers had tried, unsuccessfully, for a year to track it down. FinSpy gained notoriety in March 2011 after protesters raided Egypt’s state security headquarters and discovered a document that appeared to be a proposal by the Gamma Group to sell FinSpy to the government of President Hosni Mubarak for $353,000.

UK firm faces questions over how spyware ended up in Bahrain: here.
Update: here.

Spy software. (xymalf.wordpress.com)
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia dictatorship news (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
NSA: We Will Illegally Spy on Citizens Only When Absolutely Necessary (thenewamerican.com)
Congressmen Want Answers On DOJ Spying (personalliberty.com)
5 #cartoons about #Bahrain human rights/freedom of speech under King Hamad dictatorship (latuffcartoons.wordpress.com)
Spy Agency Conducts Surveillance On All US Citizens (eurasiareview.com)

Afghan pipeline and war

Posted on May 5, 2012 by petrel41

This video is called Prof. Noam Chomsky on American goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I quote only very rarely on this blog from the news agency of the absolute monarchy Saudi Arabia.

However, today I do. Because today, it unveils to some extent, the real “reasons” behind the bloody war in Afghanistan.

That war is, unlike what war propagandists say, not about liberating women in Afghanistan. Their situation is as bad as under the previous Taliban regime.

That war is, unlike what war propagandists say, not about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA. The Taliban leaders hardly looked beyond their own provincial borders, let alone Afghanistan’s national borders. They hardly knew where New York City was, let alone where the Twin Towers were.

That war is, unlike what war propagandists say, not about Osama bin Laden. Who was not in Afghanistan, but in United States ally Pakistan during the Afghan war. And who is dead now, though Afghan civilians and United States and other soldiers still keep dying. And United States, Canadian, and other taxpayers keep paying billions for the war.

Now, from MENAFN – Saudi Press Agency:

Turkmens plan trans-Afghan gas sale deal in May

05/05/2012

Senior officials in Turkmenistan said the energy-rich Central Asian nation

Turkmenistan is not just oil- and gas-rich. It is also a dictatorship. Never mind, the Pentagon says: it is our ally in the Afghan war. Being a dictatorship is only a problem if you quarrel with the United States establishment (and being a democracy and quarreling with the US establishment is a problem as well).

plans to sign a natural gas sales agreement with Afghanistan, Pakistan and India this month, AP reported.

The deal would mark a decisive move toward construction of a pipeline crossing the four nations that backers hope will meet energy demands across the region.

Two high-ranking officials, who cannot be named as they are not authorized to speak with the media, told The Associated Press this week they expect the agreement to be signed at an energy conference in Turkmenistan late May.

Progress on the project has to date been delayed by disagreement among participant nations on transit fees and the price for the gas.

It has been widely assumed that gas for the more than 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) pipeline will be sourced from the Dauletabad field in southern Turkmenistan.

An official from the state gas company said, however, that a portion of the fuel will eventually be drawn from the vast and yet-to-be developed South Yolotan field near the Afghan border.

The gas pipeline across Afghanistan, projected to ship 33 billion cubic meters a year, has been actively backed by the United States. It would give Turkmenistan a further export route for its copious energy reserves and generate revenue for Afghanistan.

Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov has said Afghanistan could stand to earn more than $1 billion annually in transit fees.

If that money for Afghanistan materializes, then it would probably disappear into the pockets of a small corrupt clique who don’t care about the poor majority of Afghans. Like the Afghan Kabulbank scandal shows.

Construction begins on Afghan stretch of TAPI gas pipeline: here.

US-Afghan Pact Won’t End War – Or Special Operations Forces Night Raids. Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service News: “But the only substantive agreement reached between the U.S. and Afghanistan – well hidden in the agreements – has been to allow powerful U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) to continue to carry out the unilateral night raids on private homes that are universally hated in the Pashtun zones of Afghanistan…. The Obama administration’s success in obscuring those facts is the real story behind the ostensible story of the agreement”: here.

Leaving Afghanistan by Staying. David Swanson, War Is a Crime: “Obama is full of praise for U.S. troops, as if they’ve benefitted Afghanistan. And he’s full of concern for the suffering of U.S. troops and U.S. citizens…. ‘Neither Americans nor the Afghan people asked for this war,’ Obama said, forgetting that one of those two countries had invaded the other one and occupied it for over a decade. ‘The reason America is safe is because of you,’ Obama told U.S. troops, forgetting that the war has made our nation more hated around the world”: here.

US war drone kills Afghan child (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
Rice: U.S. Will Not Apologize for Any Afghan War Mistakes (voanews.com)
Obama Administration Extends Afghan War Through 2024 (VIDEO) (thelibertarianrepublic.com)
Obama breaking pledge on Afghan war (rinf.com)
White House will not publicly apologise for Afghan war mistakes – The Guardian (theguardian.com)
3 Canadian veterans from Afghan war found dead in a week. (brandonbourgaize.wordpress.com)

Bringing ‘democracy’ to Afghanistan with Turkmenistan dictatorship

Posted on April 12, 2011 by petrel41

This video is called Amnesty and Turkmenistan.

Special representative: NATO attaches great importance to Turkmenistan: here.

As the USA and other NATO countries bomb Afghanistan into ~~oppression of women, corruption, mass hunger, bank fraud, electoral fraud~~ … err … “democracy” … so sorry I did not speak NATOspeak … they do so in alliances with regional dictatorial governments.

Like with Musharraf when he was dictator of Pakistan. Like with Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan.

Now, another alliance for waging war in Afghanistan seems to get more prominent: alliance with the dictatorship Turkmenistan.

By Deirdre Tynan:

Central Asia: Turkmenistan Could Become Key Cog in NDN Supply Route for Afghanistan

April 12, 2011 – 12:56pm

The United States wants to significantly expand traffic on the Northern Distribution Network, the rail, road and air network that ferries supplies across Central Asia to US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. As Pentagon planners and commercial carriers contemplate their transit options, attention is focusing on Turkmenistan.

The Pentagon reportedly intends to ship 75 percent of all non-military cargo destined for Afghanistan via the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) by the end of 2011. Just a year ago, NDN was handling 35 percent of Afghan-bound supplies, and its share is presently about 50 percent. US military officers met with commercial shippers in late-January to discuss ways to rapidly increase the volume on the NDN. Pakistan for years served as the primary US conduit for supplies headed to Afghanistan, but that route of late has become increasingly vulnerable to Islamic militant attacks.

According to Michele Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for policy, Washington aims to reduce reliance on the Pakistani Ground Line of Communication. It appears the US initiative has the backing of regional partners, including Russia. “We are working, along with the Department of State, to secure the additional approvals that we need from countries participating in the Northern Distribution Network that will allow us to further reduce the load we place on Pakistan’s infrastructure and provide additional routes for our personnel and cargo transiting into Afghanistan,” Flournoy told the US Senate Committee on Armed Services in mid-March.

“We have already secured necessary approvals from Russia and we are negotiating with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to conclude further agreements and arrangements regarding NDN routes that they control,” Flournoy added.

A US Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) representative declined to get into the specifics of NDN expansion plans. “We continually work with our commercial carriers to ensure the overall distribution network is flexible, responsive and viable,” said Cynthia Bauer, TRANSCOM spokesperson, on March 30.

Turkmenistan’s role in the NDN has been until now low key. It has not signed a transit agreement with either the United States or NATO, but the Turkmen government allows Ashgabat’s airport to be used a refueling stop for US military planes. Commercial companies also transit bulk fuel deliveries destined for bases in Afghanistan through Turkmenistan, and US government contracted fuel suppliers occasionally buy fuel from Turkmenistan and they are able to do so tax free.

If US Central Command and interested commercial parties have their way, Turkmenistan’s road and rail infrastructure will soon be integrated into NDN’s transit network. Maersk Line Ltd, a US government contractor, has readied a “Northern Europe Truck Route via Turkmenistan” stretching from the Baltic port of Riga, Latvia, to Serhetabat-Turgundi on the Turkmen-Afghan border.

“It is common practice for the industry to assess alternative routes to determine what would provide the best solution for its customers in terms of velocity to market and cost. The Northern Europe Truck route via Turkmenistan is a concept that is being evaluated as an alternative option for the Northern Distribution Network,” said Celine Gordon, a spokeswoman for Maersk Line Ltd. However, the company does not expect to use the route “in the foreseeable future,” she added.

Turgundi on the Afghan-Turkmen border could emerge as an import/export node, according to solicitation documents from US Surface Deployment Distribution Command, which seeks “Third Party Logistics Support Services” to monitor “US military-sponsored shipments.” Hairaton on the Afghan-Uzbek border and Sher Khan on the Afghan-Tajik border currently operate as the main points of entry into Afghanistan.

“Additional entry and exit nodes may be added at the discretion of the US Government. There will be an average of 5,000 import conveyances transiting the Afghanistan and Pakistan ground lines of communication (GLOC) per month (to include shipments arriving via the Northern Distribution Network) and 500 export conveyances. This number may increase or decrease due to US military transportation requirements,” the 2010 solicitation stated.

“All military classes of supply will be shipped; exceptions include weapons, weapons systems, ammunition, sensitive items, sensitive medical items, and bulk fuel,” an industry questions and answer supplement added.

Other commercial shippers, speaking to EurasiaNet.org on condition of anonymity, described Turkmenistan’s integration into the NDN as vital to the overall success of the expansion plan. Shipping goods via Turkmenistan would cut transit times and costs. “The US is pushing hard for this, it makes a lot of sense,” one regionally based planner said. Turkmenistan has long been a fickle negotiating partner — not only for Western states, but for Russia as well. Whether or not Ashgabat will consent to a greater NDN role remains uncertain.

Editor’s note:

Deirdre Tynan is a Bishkek-based reporter specializing in Central Asian affairs.

Workers will be forced to visit racecourses in Turkmenistan in anticipation of the nation’s forthcoming Horse Racing Day, celebrated every last Sunday in April, Chronicles of Turkmenistan newspaper reported on Monday.

Endless War and Empire: Your Tax Dollars at Work: here.

The War in Afghanistan: A Burden Taxpayers Can’t Afford: here.

10-Year Old Afghan Girl Claims She Was Raped: here.

With violence against them increasing, 75 women committed self-immolation last year, Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said on Sunday: here.

Guantanamo Psychologist Led Rendition and Imprisonment of Afghan Boys, Complaint Charges. Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout: “Four Ohio residents filed court papers last week seeking to compel the Ohio State Psychology Board to investigate Dr. Larry James, a retired Army colonel and former chief psychologist for the intelligence command at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility, who oversaw the brutal torture of detainees, including children. The motion was filed by Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas on behalf of the four residents, which includes a psychologist, a veteran, a minister and a long-time mental health advocate”: here.

The Ministry of Defence must release some information on people held or captured by British forces in Afghanistan, according to an administrative appeals tribunal ruling: here.

USA: Oregon labor leaders to Congress: end the war: here.

Robert Naiman, Truthout: “When Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold lost his bid for re-election, advocates working to end the war in Afghanistan lost their champion in the Senate. It was Feingold’s office that introduced the bill, introduced the amendment, circulated the letter, led the lobbying of other offices and led the charge in the media. Now California Sen. Barbara Boxer has reintroduced Feingold’s bill requiring the president to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan – a timetable with an end date. So far, Sens. Dick Durbin, Tom Harkin, Kirsten Gillibrand and Sherrod Brown have signed on as co-sponsors of Senator Boxer’s bill. The reintroduction of this bill is extremely timely and important, for two reasons”: here.

THE US military’s top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, has accused Pakistan’s spy agency of having links with Taleban fighters who are targeting US forces: here.

Kazakh Money in Congress? Jake Wiens, Truthout: “It has all the twists of a Hollywood blockbuster: shadowy international figures, a plot to overthrow an oil-rich Central Asian country, an attempted assassination, allegations of kidnapping and murder and a battle in an American courtroom for control of billions of dollars in seized assets. At the center of this saga is a bitter family feud that pits Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev – a strongman who has ruled the obscure former Soviet republic for more than 20 years – against his former son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev. And if that was where the story ended, it might have stayed an inconspicuous foreign squabble with no relevance to the American public”: here.