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"There are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret."

-- Ronald Reagan

News and Opinion

ACLU Files New Appeal in Drone Lawsuit

The Central Intelligence Agency is under renewed legal pressure to release “thousands” of records pertaining to its international drone war, following an appeal filed Monday by the American Civil Liberties in Washington, D.C. ... The ACLU’s Monday filing marks the latest chapter in ... a five-year legal battle with the U.S. government over the CIA’s program that began with a 2010 freedom of information request calling for a release of official documents detailing when, where, and against whom the U.S. considers itself authorized to conduct drone strikes, as well as information illustrating how the attacks are consistent with international law. ...

Following the request, the CIA initially refused to confirm whether its drone program existed. The ACLU challenged that defense, noting that numerous U.S. officials had publicly confirmed its existence. In March 2013, a lower court ruling siding with the CIA was reversed by a unanimous 3-0 decision in favor of the ACLU.

In the wake of the reversal, the ACLU narrowed its FOIA request to two criteria: first, any and all legal memoranda “concerning the U.S. Government’s use of armed drones to carry out premeditated killings”; and, second, “records containing charts or compilations about U.S. Government strikes sufficient to show the identity of the intended targets, assessed number of people killed, dates, status of those killed, agencies involved, the location of each strike, and the identities of those killed if known.”

Responding to the narrowed requests, the CIA revealed that it had located a dozen final legal memoranda (one of which the government made public in redacted form), and “thousands of classified intelligence products responsive” to the ACLU’s second request. The agency has maintained that the documents are exempt from FOIA publication requirements. At issue now, as the ACLU’s recent filing lays out, is the question of whether the information will be released.

“This case concerns the CIA’s withholding of records that would allow the public to better understand and evaluate the effectiveness, lawfulness, and morality of the government’s drone campaign,” the ACLU noted in its brief. “The CIA continues to withhold essentially everything, and public debate about the drone campaign continues to be impoverished and distorted by unwarranted secrecy and selective disclosure. FOIA was enacted to prevent precisely this.”

Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU comments on the FOIA lawsuit:

Drone Disclosures, Official and Not

As readers of this blog already know, last week The Intercept published a series of fascinating stories about the US drone campaign. The stories, and the official documents that accompany them, supply new details about the way the government chooses its targets, the way drone strikes are authorized, the way the government assesses civilian casualties, and the way the government judges the success or failure of individual strikes.

The Intercept’s stories were based largely on government documents furnished by an unidentified source — someone who was willing to risk career and personal liberty in order to inform the rest of us about legally and morally questionable policies that have been shrouded in unwarranted secrecy. As I’ve argued elsewhere, Americans owe whistleblowers like this an immense debt.

It must be said, though, that whistleblowers like this would be less necessary — and probably less common, too — if the government were complying with the Freedom of Information Act. In passing that Act, Congress intended to guarantee the public access to information about government conduct while also protecting information whose disclosure would truly endanger national security. In practice, though, the government routinely withholds information that the FOIA requires it to disclose. On the rare occasion when courts enforce the FOIA over the government’s objections, the government often manages to delay release of information by months or years, and the public gets access to information only long after it most needs it. (We seem to live in a world in which only the government has a right to information that is “actionable.”)

Unhappy anniversary. The triumph of Obama's humanitarian mission in review:

Libya: From Africa’s Wealthiest Democracy Under Gaddafi to Terrorist Haven After US Intervention

Tuesday marks the four-year anniversary of the US-backed assassination of Libya’s former leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and the decline into chaos of one of Africa’s greatest nations.

In 1967 Colonel Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; by the time he was assassinated, he had transformed Libya into Africa’s richest nation. Prior to the US-led bombing campaign in 2011, Libya had the highest Human Development Index, the lowest infant mortality and the highest life expectancy in all of Africa.

Today, Libya is a failed state. Western military intervention has caused all of the worst-scenarios: Western embassies have all left, the South of the country has become a haven for ISIS terrorists, and the Northern coast a center of migrant trafficking. Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia have all closed their borders with Libya. This all occurs amidst a backdrop of widespread rape, assassinations and torture that complete the picture of a state that is failed to the bone. ...

Contrary to popular belief, Libya, which western media routinely described as “Gaddafi’s military dictatorship” was in actual fact one of the world’s most democratic States.

Under Gaddafi’s unique system of direct democracy, traditional institutions of government were disbanded and abolished, and power belonged to the people directly through various committees and congresses. ...

In 2009, Mr. Gaddafi invited the New York Times to Libya to spend two weeks observing the nation’s direct democracy. The New York Times, that has traditionally been highly critical of Colonel Gaddafi’s democratic experiment, conceded that in Libya, the intention was that “everyone is involved in every decision...Tens of thousands of people take part in local committee meetings to discuss issues and vote on everything from foreign treaties to building schools.”

Rhetoric Shift: Washington position on Syrian govt future changing

Obama Has Threatened Vetoes Over Guantánamo Before, and Caved In Every Time

We’ve been here before.

President Barack Obama is vowing to veto the Pentagon budget bill heading to his desk, in part because it creates legal roadblocks that would prevent him from closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay.

But the White House made similar promises to veto defense authorizations for three of the last four years, largely because of language about Guantánamo — and didn’t keep them. ...

The FY 2016 defense bill would ban all transfers of Guantánamo prisoners to the United States, heighten the barrier for transfer overseas, and include prohibitions against transfers to specific countries — measures that were removed by the House and Senate in 2014 and 2015. White House senior advisers have once again said they would recommend he veto it. The White House is reportedly looking at facilities in Colorado as potential transfer locations for detainees.

Obama’s veto has been described as his “last chance” to shutter the prison. “It is essential that President Obama carry out his threat to veto the legislation,” said Virginia Sloan, president of the Constitution Project, in a press release earlier this month. “Although it is significant that large bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate backed provisions in the legislation preventing a return to torture in future administrations — provisions that must remain in any final version of the bill — the president must insist that the transfer restrictions be removed before signing the NDAA into law.”

German human rights group files complaint against CIA ‘Queen of Torture’

A German human rights group has filed a criminal complaint against Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, a CIA official who allegedly authorized torture of suspected al Qaeda militants. The complaint, submitted in federal court on Monday, presents proof of Bikowsky’s involvement in the torture of German citizen Khaled El Masri and asks that she be prosecuted in Germany. It also puts Bikowsky, nicknamed the “Queen of Torture,” in the spotlight of European efforts to hold CIA officials accountable for allegations of abuse. ...

In the complaint, which was filed in July and has been seen by Al Jazeera America, the ECCHR asks the prosecutor to launch a criminal investigation into Bikowsky. The complaint notes that the U.S. Senate’s torture report, released in December last year, contains evidence linking Bikowsky to El Masri’s rendition and torture. “The CIA director … decided that no further action was warranted against XXX, then the deputy chief of ALEC Station, who advocated for al-Masri’s [sic] rendition,” the Senate report stated in a passage included in the ECCHR’s complaint. The allegations are consistent with findings by investigative reporters. In December last year, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer reported that Bikowsky “gleefully participated in torture sessions,” and “falsely told congressional overseers that the torture worked.”

Should the German federal prosecutor decide not to launch a criminal investigation, ECCHR will file a criminal complaint with the state prosecutor in Munich, whose office eight years ago issued arrest warrants against 13 CIA officials involved in El Masri’s disappearance and detention.

“If the prosecutors are inclined to take up a case of human rights abuse by foreign officials, there’s scope in Germany for broad investigations into human rights abuses under universal jurisdiction,” explained Benjamin Ward, Human Rights Watch’s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia. “That could have a very important effect and make officials implicated in abuse reluctant to travel to other countries.”

Syrian Rebel Commander Among Dozens Killed in Russian Airstrikes

Russian air strikes in Syria's northwestern Latakia province killed dozens of people including a top rebel commander from a group armed by President Bashar al-Assad's foreign enemies, a monitoring group said on Tuesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said 45 people — both rebel fighters and civilians — were killed in the air strikes on Monday evening in the Jabal Akrad area, which is held by the First Coastal Division rebel group.

The group, which fights under the banner of a loose alliance of factions known as the "Free Syrian Army", confirmed the death of its chief of staff, Basil Zamo, formerly a captain in the Syrian military.

Russia built an airbase in Latakia in August and September, and started airstrikes on September 30 with the stated aim of targeting the so-called Islamic State.

Syrian Kurds Get US Arms, Vow to Capture ISIS Cities

Apart from continuing its air strikes against ISIL, the United States has airdropped 50 tonnes of weapons and ammunitions to supply the Arab militias in Rojava, at least some of which have found their way to the Kurdish forces.

Providing the Kurds with weapons and ammunition is politically sensitive: Rojava is governed by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), an offshoot of the Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) considered a terrorist organisation by the US.

In spite of Russia’s recent entry into the Syrian civil war, Russian military assistance will not be welcome unless Moscow and Washington agree to cooperate in helping the Kurds, says Idriss Nassan, deputy minister of foreign affairs of Kobani canton.

Commander Rubar does not think his unit will receive US arms, but he is not overly concerned. Brimming with confidence after a string of victories against ISIL, he is convinced of the fighting abilities of his troops, from the men and women’s military wings of the PYD.

“We can take Raqqa, it’s easy. In Syria, we are the only force that can beat Daesh,” he says.

Despite his optimism, the commander does not think ISIL will collapse once its de facto capital is taken.

Scope of Russian War in Syria Growing, Officials Admit

When Russia formally joined the Syrian Civil War, Foreign Affairs Committee head Alexei Pushkov sought to reassure the public that it wouldn’t be a protracted affair, saying the government expected the war against ISIS to last 3-4 months at most.

The comments were seen as aiming to reassure the Russian public, which hasn’t seen a major overseas conflict in decades, that the war would be short and simple. Today, officials are starting to admit that that’s not the case, and that the war is going to be broader in scope and much longer than initially sold to the public.

US officials are furious with Russia, while simultaneously mocking their “doomed” war and the suggestion ISIS could be defeated so quickly. The US, of course, is engaged in materially the exact same war against ISIS, and likewise presented the conflict as a relatively straightforward one when they launched it, over a year ago, only to find they’ve made no real progress in either Iraq or Syria.

New Role for General After Failure of Syria Rebel Plan

The Army general in charge of the Pentagon’s failed $500 million program to train and equip Syrian rebels is leaving his job in the next few weeks, but is likely to be promoted and assigned a senior counterterrorism position here, American officials said on Monday.

The officer, Maj. Gen. Michael K. Nagata, is stepping down as commander of American Special Operations forces in the Middle East, which made him responsible for the training program that ultimately produced only a few dozen fighters. That was a far cry from the 15,000 fighters that the program was going to train over a three-year period when it was formally started in December.

Afghan DM Defends Requesting US Attack on MSF Hospital Full of Civilians

In a new interview with the Associated Press, Afghan Defense Minister Masoom Stanekzai reiterated already discredited claims that the hospital was “a Taliban base,” saying the Taliban were using the site as a “safe place because everyone knows our security forces and international security forces” would never attack a hospital. So Afghan officials ordered an attack on the hospital anyhow, and the US attacked it.

MSF has never denied treating wounded Taliban, as virtually all aid groups do, but insists no weapons were allowed within the compound, and no firing was coming from the compound the night of the attack. The US appears to have backed up that claim, and has also confirmed that even if there had been gunfire from the site, the hospital was “restricted” and could not have been legitimately attacked under any circumstances. ...

Stanekzai seems to be following the long-standing playbook of the Afghan government, which is to never admit wrongdoing, and to stick to any story, no matter how uncredible it becomes. With the US having been brought into the center of this one, and engaging in their own questionable efforts at damage control, the farce is only growing, and along with it, support for an independent investigation, which is likely the only way any truth is going to come out of this fiasco.

UN Leader Making Snap Visit to Israel as Violence Spirals

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon began a snap visit on Tuesday to try to stem Israeli-Palestinian violence as Israel issued fresh assurances addressing Muslim fears of Jewish encroachment at a mosque compound at the centre of the conflict. ...

Israeli officials said Ban, whose trip was announced in Israel only hours before his expected arrival, would meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later in the day in Jerusalem.

The UN leader will see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday, Palestinian officials said.

In a speech on Tuesday, Netanyahu accused Abbas, of "irresponsible behavior" during the past month of violence, saying he should have openly condemned Palestinian attacks. He called on Abbas to "stop lying, stop inciting."

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is to hold talks with Netanyahu in Germany during the prime minister's visit there on Wednesday and Thursday, has said Israeli and Palestinian leaders need to clarify the status of Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound to held stem the bloodshed.

Kerry planned to meet Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah, likely in Amman, later in the week.

The violence has been stoked partly by Palestinians' anger at what they see as increased Jewish visits to the Jerusalem holy site, also revered in Judaism as the location of two destroyed biblical temples.

NATO Launches Massive Exercise to Prep for War With ‘Not Russia’

NATO today launched its biggest single military exercise in more than 13 years, involving some 36,000 troops in the Mediterranean Sea, simulating a war spanning from Sicily to Spain and Portugal against a major invading European superpower, who officials are insisting is definitely totally not Russia.

The exercise is planned to last through November 6 and will focus on support a “Spearhead Force” that NATO intends to install along the Russian border, nominally to fend off a Russian invasion of Eastern Europe.

You've Got Fail: high school students hack CIA director's AOL account

Federal investigators are examining claims that high school students hacked CIA director John Brennan’s personal email account and published identifying information for more than 20 alleged CIA personnel.

On Monday the hackers released a spreadsheet allegedly from Brennan’s account that included the alleged CIA employees’ clearance levels, email addresses, phone numbers and social security numbers.

Former National Security Agency technical director Jasper Graham said the highly embarrassing breach of Brennan’s email was likely a “social engineering” attack, in which personal information supposedly only the account holder would know is used to break in.

“Social media has enabled this to the nth degree, because a quick profile search and a friend request and then LinkedIn can get you enough information to start resetting things. All the providers, whether it’s credit cards or banks, have to have something else in place.”

A Twitter account being used by the hackers threatened to release more information from Brennan’s account, which they reportedly breached after the hackers convinced Verizon to give them the details. The account was suspended Monday afternoon.

Federal regulators to require registration of recreational drones

Federal regulators said Monday that they will require recreational drone users to register their aircraft with the government for the first time in an attempt to track rogue flying robots that are increasingly posing a threat to aviation safety.

The decision to compel drone owners to register their aircraft represents a policy shift by the Obama administration and a tacit admission by the Federal Aviation Administration that it has been unable to safely integrate the popular remote-controlled planes into the national airspace.

U.S. officials said they still need to sort out the basic details of the registration system — which they hope to set up within two months — but concluded that they had to take swift action to cope with a surge in sales of inexpensive, simple-to-fly drones that are interfering with regular air traffic.

“The signal we’re sending today is that when you’re in the national airspace, it’s a very serious matter,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told reporters.

Pilots of passenger planes and other aircraft are reporting more than 100 sightings of or close calls with rogue drones a month, according to the FAA. Such incidents were almost unheard of before last year but have escalated quickly as the consumer drone market has boomed. U.S. hobbyists are projected to buy about 700,000 drones this year, a 63 percent increase from 2014.

Chicago sued for 'unconstitutional and torturous' Homan Square police abuse

Chicago police “physically and psychologically abused” three wrongfully imprisoned black men at Homan Square, according to a new lawsuit, which details an officer holding a knife to one man’s throat as two others underwent strip searches and all were short-shackled without access to food, water, bathrooms, families or legal counsel.

The federal civil rights lawsuit, filed on Monday against six officers and the city of Chicago, alleges the use of “unconstitutionally coercive and torturous tactics” and connects the practices at Homan Square to a pattern of racially motivated policing.

In the suit, the third since the Guardian began an investigation into the secretive police compound, Atheris Mann, Jessie Patrick and Deanda Wilson charge that they were coerced into providing false information through a series of physical, verbal and psychological assaults at the facility which their attorney said “does fit into torture under the United Nations definition”.

EU Trade Deals with US and Canada Blasted as 'Attacking Public Services'

As EU and U.S. negotiators start the 11th round of TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks in Miami on Monday, a European watchdog group is sounding the alarm over the negative impacts such "trade" deals could have on citizens' rights to basic services like water, energy, education, and healthcare.

For the sake of corporate profits, both the TTIP and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada "could lock ... public services into a commercialization from which they will not recover—no matter how damaging to welfare the results may be," the Brussels-based Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) stated last week.

The group's report, Public Services Under Attack (pdf), highlights "the secretive collusion between big business and trade negotiators in the making of the EU’s international trade deals."

Specifically, it exposes "the aggressive agenda of services corporations with regards to TTIP and CETA, pushing for far-reaching market opening in areas such as health, cultural and postal services, and water, which would allow them to enter and dominate the markets." ...

So-called Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions, meanwhile, which have been slammed as "a parallel legal system for corporations," could make "regulations in sensitive public service sectors such as education, water, health, social welfare, and pensions prone to all kinds of investor attacks," CEO cautions.

And "[g]iving in to corporate demands for unfettered access to government procurement could restrict governments’ ability to support local and not-for-profit providers and foster the outsourcing of public sector jobs to private firms, where staff are often forced to do the same work with worse pay and working conditions," the group adds. 

Here Comes the Next Global Recession

It might seem peculiar to some people to talk about the ‘next’ global recession, given that it doesn’t feel like we ever really got out of the last one. Eight years on from the global financial crash we find that the global economy is still drowning in debt, and this new era of low economic growth, high unemployment and squeezed wages/conditions has somehow become normalised.

‘Secular stagnation’ is the description de jure of the global capitalist system’s inability to return to another bout of prosperity. But while our old friend Boom departed the stage some time ago, his unruly brother Bust is waiting in the wings, preparing to make an unwelcome return.

Well that’s according to some of the world’s major financial institutions which have been forecasting that 2016 will be the year of the next big global downturn. In the last fortnight the IMF reduced its global growth forecast to 3.1%, that’s a mere 0.1% over the threshold of what constitutes recession. While last month Daiwa – Japan’s second largest brokerage house – and Citibank both released reports in which they made a global financial meltdown in 2016 their baseline scenarios! Let that sink in for a minute; they’re not saying a meltdown next year is their worst case scenario, they’re saying it’s their assumed one! ...

The global economy is heading for a fall. Debt continues to scale new heights, growth is in the doldrums, and our political masters are fast running out of options. In 2008 they could loosen monetary policy and print money but now they’ve played this hand, which has resulted in bubbles in global stock markets and more debt in a world already saturated with the stuff. Now with the massive slowdown in China and other emerging markets, the world is on the brink of slipping back into another global recession.

What’s needed now is something much more radical; something that tries to get to the heart of the problem. Considering that debt, and to be more exact private debt, has created one of the biggest bubbles in human history, which unsurprisingly proved to be the trigger for the last crisis, why not look toward a debt write off of biblical proportions?

Hawaii follows Los Angeles in declaring state of emergency over homelessness

Hawaii became the third US jurisdiction on Friday to declare a state of emergency over homelessness, following similar moves in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, over the past month.

Using emergency declarations to tackle intransigent homeless crises is “a new phenomenon”, according to Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. Public officials typically declare states of emergency before or after a natural disaster.

The tactic may jar cities and systems out of what for many has become a new normal.

Thirty-five years ago, homelessness was not a widespread phenomenon. Few people were unable to afford housing, and among those who couldn’t, most remained homeless for only a brief stint.

But in the early 1980s, a number of factors – including rising income inequality, deinstitutionalization of psychiatric hospitals, and cuts in funding for low-income housing – combined to explode the number of people living on US streets. Back then, “homelessness was responded to as an emergency”, said Foscarinis.

Now, despite its status as by far the wealthiest country in the world, close to 600,000 people in the US were homeless last year. Of those, nearly one-third had no shelter at all.

But officials and the public have grown complacent. It’s become commonplace for critics to argue that most homeless people choose to live that way, or taking a fatalistic approach that, as the Bible says: “The poor will always be with you.”

Canadians Oust Stephen Harper, Right-Wing PM Who Ignored Climate Change & Shunned First Nations

Justin Trudeau begins first full day as Canada's prime minister-designate

Liberal leader expected be sworn in before 15 November following dramatic victory over Conservative Stephen Harper

Justin Trudeau has begun his first full day as Canada’s prime minister-designate after a dramatic federal election that ended the divisive reign of the Conservative Stephen Harper.

The son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and leader of the Liberal party won a surprise majority, taking 184 of the 338 seats in parliament with representatives in every province and roughly 40% of the popular vote.

After rousing his party from third in the polls to first place on voting day, Trudeau promised “sunny ways” for all Canadians. “This is what positive politics can do. This is what a positive, hopeful vision, and a platform and a team together can make happen,” he said in his victory speech.

Among his first tasks will be to assemble a cabinet, which he promised in campaigning would contain an equal number of men and women. Trudeau is expected to be sworn in before the G20 summit in Turkey, which starts on 15 November.

Joe Biden for President? Media Buzz Ignores How Veep Worsened Student Debt on Big Banks' Behalf

Trudeau victory may not signal a U-turn in Canada's climate policy

Well before his stunning victory in Canada’s elections, Justin Trudeau, the Liberal party leader, telephoned David Suzuki, the country’s best-known science broadcaster, environmentalist – and a national treasure – to ask for his endorsement.

The conversation did not go well. Suzuki admitted to journalists he called Trudeau a twerp, and the Liberal leader dismissed his critique of the party’s climate policy as “sanctimonious crap”. ...

Trudeau has repudiated Harper’s vision of Canada as an “energy superpower”, promised to reverse devastating cuts to government science budgets, and fix the country’s reputation as a carbon bully in international climate negotiations. ...

However, Trudeau supports the Keystone XL pipeline – Canada’s bid to find new markets for its vast carbon reserves in the Alberta tar sands. ... Trudeau has close ties to Keystone. David Gagnier, his campaign co-chair, was forced to step down last week after it emerged he had written a memo to TransCanada, the company building the pipeline, offering lobbying advice. ...

Suzuki told CBC he chided Trudeau for playing politics.

“I said ‘Justin, stop it,’” Suzuki told CBC. “‘You’re just being political. I know that you want to make headway in Alberta so you’re for the continued development of the tar sands, you’re for the Keystone pipeline, but you’re against the Northern Gateway [pipeline]. You’re all over the damn map!’”

In Suzuki’s version of the conversation, Trudeau did not appreciate the critique or hearing that keeping warming to 2C, the internationally agreed goal of the climate talks, would mean that 80% of the crude in the tar sands would have to stay in the ground.

Terrorist Groups Are Poaching Elephants In Northern Mali, Warns UN

Terrorist groups in northern Mali are among those poaching the region's shrinking herd of desert elephants, according to the United Nations, part of a global wildlife trafficking trade that helps fund armed groups and fuel conflict.

"We strongly suspect there is a link between the poachers and the armed terrorists, who could be relying on the illegal ivory trade to finance some of their activities," said Sophie Raviers, the UN's environment representative in Mali.

A joint report last year by the UN's environment programme UNEP and international police force Interpol estimated that around 90 percent of elephants killed in Africa each year (numbering 20,000-25,000) are killed by non-state armed groups, in or near conflict zones.

According to MINUSMA — the UN's peacekeeping mission in Mali — a reported 57 elephants, were killed in the country the first half of the year. The elephants, which represent 20 percent of Mali's remaining elephant population, were poached from the northern region of Gourma.

The government has pledged to deploy an extra 50 rangers in the region over the coming weeks as part of a campaign to stamp out elephant poaching.

There Is Persistent Contamination at Former Chevron Sites in the Amazon

New documents are breathing fresh air into a two decade legal battle entangling oil giant Chevron with the people and government of Ecuador.

Since the company was handed a $9.5 billion judgment in 2011, it has gone to great lengths to clear its name and relieve itself of any financial obligations for alleged environmental pollution in the Lago Agrio region of the South American country. In 2009, Chevron initiated international arbitration against the Ecuadorian government under the US-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty.

The first documents from the international tribunal, released today by the Ecuadorian government and provided in advance to VICE News, detail an unprecedented trip made by the three-member arbitration panel to the Lago Agrio region following an invitation by Ecuadorian authorities. Chevron warned against the visit to Ecuador, claiming that the documentation of environmental pollution was irrelevant in a case they hope will prove that the original judgement was the result of a fraudulent judicial process.

After consideration, the arbitration officials, two lawyers from England and an Argentine lawyer practicing in the United States, rolled up their sleeves and got on a plane. The transcripts from the site visits were recorded over two days in early June in the Lago Agrio region. Over more than 100 pages, the dialogue gives a clear sense of the accusations, explosive rebuttals, and sometimes dizzying logic that has dominated the drawn-out legal pingpong between Chevron, affected communities, and Ecuadorian officials.

The country's foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, told VICE News that the persistent presence of oil pollution reveals Chevron's disregard for the Amazon and its people. 

"There was a ongoing debate in the arbitration about whether or not there ever was any pollution, and now, they have personally been witnesses to what happened," he said. "In order to obtain a bigger profit margin, they decided to destroy a piece of the Ecuadorian Amazon."

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Americans want to end the country's longest war. Why won't Congress listen?

The world has 21 million slaves – and millions of them live in the west

The Disappearing Prince of Darkness

Jerusalem, in context

American Hypocrisy: Against Muslim Sharia law at home, Calls it 'Moderate' in Syria

Are Big Banks Manipulating Their Share Prices?

Using Refugees: Merkel’s Turkish Gambit

A Little Night Music

Billy Wright - Hey Little Girl

Billy Wright - Blues For My Baby

Billy Wright - Billy's Boogie Blues

Billy Wright - You Satisfy

Billy Wright - Don't You Want A Man Like Me

Billy Wright - Gotta Find My Baby

Billy Wright - After Dark Blues

Billy Wright - Mean Old Wine

Billy Wright - Wind It Up

Billy Wright - Sad Hour Blues

Billy Wright - I keep drinking

Billy Wright - Mercy Mercy

Billy Wright - Fore Day Blues

Billy Wright - Have mercy baby

Billy Wright - Turn Your Lamps Down Low (Baby Please Don't Go)

Billy Wright - Married woman's boogie

Billy Wright - Stacked Deck

Billy Wright - Man's Brand Boogie

Billy Wright - Goin´ Down Slow

Billy Wright - Let's Be Friends

Billy Wright - Beg-A-Dog

Billy Wright - When The Wagon Comes