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Paris terror attacks: Islamic State says France is 'key target' for actions in Syria
President says France will defend itself after at least 128 people killed in series of gun and bomb attacks across Paris

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a deadly wave of bombings and shootings across Paris that has left nearly 130 people dead and which the French president, François Hollande, denounced as an “act of war”.

Paris police reported that at least 128 people had been killed and 180 more injured – including 80 seriously – in the six attacks, the deadliest in Europe since the 2004 Madrid railway bombings. Eight militants also died.

Isis said it had dispatched jihadis wearing suicide bomb belts and carrying machine guns around the French capital on Friday night in a coordinated series of attacks intended to show that France would remain one of its main targets as long as its present policies continued.

Islamic State claims Paris attacks that killed 127

Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for a coordinated assault by gunmen and bombers that killed 127 people at locations across Paris that President Francois Hollande said amounted to an act of war against France.

In the worst attack, a Paris city hall official said four gunmen systematically slaughtered at least 87 young people at a rock concert at the Bataclan concert hall before anti-terrorist commandos launched an assault on the building. Dozens of survivors were rescued, and bodies were still being recovered on Saturday morning.

Some 40 more people were killed in five other attacks in the Paris region, the official said, including an apparent double suicide bombing outside the Stade de France national stadium, where Hollande and the German foreign minister were watching a friendly soccer international.

Paris attacks: Hollande blames Islamic State for 'act of war'
The near-simultaneous attacks in Paris that killed nearly 130 people were an "act of war" organised by the Islamic State (IS) militant group, French President Francois Hollande says.

He said the attacks, carried out by eight gunmen and suicide bombers, were "organised and planned from outside".

The targets included bars, restaurants, a concert and a high-profile football match. IS claimed the attacks.

Mr Hollande has declared three days of national mourning.

He raised the security threat level to its highest point and imposed a nationwide state of emergency. Hospital officials now put the number of injured at 300. Eighty are in a critical condition.

Non-French War Deaths Matter

By David Swanson
We are all France. Apparently. Though we are never all Lebanon or Syria or Iraq for some reason. Or a long, long list of additional places.

We are led to believe that U.S. wars are not tolerated and cheered because of the color or culture of the people being bombed and occupied. But let a relatively tiny number of people be murdered in a white, Christian, Western-European land, with a pro-war government, and suddenly sympathy is the order of the day.

“This is not just an attack on the French people, it is an attack on human decency and all things that we hold dear,” says U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham. I’m not sure I hold ALL the same things dear as the senator, but for the most part I think he’s exactly right and that sympathy damn well ought to be the order of the day following a horrific mass killing in France.

I just think the same should apply to everywhere else on earth as well. The majority of deaths in all recent wars are civilian. The majority of civilians are not hard to sympathize with once superficial barriers are overcome. Yet, the U.S. media never seems to declare deaths in Yemen or Pakistan or Palestine to be attacks on our common humanity.

Attack in France = State Sponsored Terror, But Which State?

Reports indicate an unprecedented terrorist attack has unfolded in France, with over 150 dead, many more injured and reports still trickling in regarding the full-scale of the violence. The  BBC in its report, "Paris attacks: Bataclan and other assaults leave many dead," stated:

France has declared a national state of emergency and tightened borders after at least 120 people were killed in a night of gun and bomb attacks in Paris. 

Eighty people were reported killed after gunmen burst into the Bataclan concert hall and took dozens hostage. 

The siege ended when security forces stormed the building. 

People were shot dead at bars and restaurants at five other sites in Paris. Eight attackers are reported to have been killed.

The BBC has also released a graphic indicating at least 5 separate locations where the attacks unfolded, while other media organizations have reported that both bombs and small arms were employed, including military rifles.

Bush and Cheney were warned. Bush and Cheney yawned. And then 9/11 happened
Bombshell new interviews with CIA officials make clear what we've always suspected: Their negligence is horrifying

Documentarian Chris Whipple has some new bombshell revelations about how the Bush administration ignored the advance warnings of 9/11 in story for Politico, “‘The Attacks Will Be Spectacular,’” a spin-off of his documentary, “The Spymasters,” set to air this month on Showtime, in which he interviews all 12 living former CIA directors.

Whipple’s most stunning revelations revolve around a July 10 meeting that’s been mentioned by others in books before—Bob Woodward, George Tenet, Condi Rice—but always in a manner that drastically underplays the urgency of CIA’s warnings, and how much they had to go on, according to Whipple’s new information:

By May of 2001, says Cofer Black, then chief of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, “it was very evident that we were going to be struck, we were gonna be struck hard and lots of Americans were going to die.” “There were real plots being manifested,” Cofer’s former boss, George Tenet, told me in his first interview in eight years. “The world felt like it was on the edge of eruption. In this time period of June and July, the threat continues to rise. Terrorists were disappearing [as if in hiding, in preparation for an attack]. Camps were closing. Threat reportings on the rise.”

Contractors That Defraud the Government the Most Also Spend the Most on Lobbying

A relatively small handful of federal contractors are responsible for the lion’s share of the $92 billion in fines, settlements, and court judgements assessed  for defrauding taxpayers and other forms of contractor misconduct since 1995, according to a newly updated database published by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO).

An analysis by The Intercept finds that the companies responsible for the most instances of misconduct are also at the top of another list: They are among the biggest spenders on money in politics.

Boeing, an aircraft manufacturing firm that supplies the government with military equipment, has paid over $1.4 billion in penalties since 1995, according to POGO. Boeing’s misdeeds include overbilling the government on the KC-10 aerial refueling tanker, falsifying invoices, and an assortment of environmental crimes such as contaminating local waterways and spilling jet fuel. POGO has identified over 60 resolved instances of Boeing committing fraud or violating the law, topped only by Exxon Mobil, Lockheed Martin and BP.

U.S. Demands There Be No Democracy in Syria

All of the available polling that has been done by Western polling firms in Syria has indicated strongly that the current President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, would easily win any free and fair election in that country. In fact when the question was directly put to Syrians by a Western polling organization, Assad got 55%, which wouldn’t leave much for each of the opposing candidates in any election, the candidates who would be splitting the residual 45%. And this poll was taken shortly after the Arab Spring demonstrations against him — those demonstrators actually possessed little support from most Syrians.

So, the United States Government demands that Assad be simply removed from office, and not allowed on the ballot, if an election for President is to be held at all in Syria.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have repeatedly stated that the ouster of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is a prerequisite for stopping the invasion of Syria by U.S. bombers, and by other forces from the U.S. coalition. That’s a coalition of (besides the U.S.) Sunni Islamic regimes (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey) that are likewise demanding removal of the Shiite President Assad of Syria, before they will cease their invasions of Syrian territory, and their supplies of weapons to the jihadist fighters who are trying to take over Syria.

Carpetbagging ‘Crony Capitalism’ in Ukraine

By Robert Parry

Last December, before being named Ukraine’s Finance Minister, American-born Natalie Jaresko accepted Ukrainian citizenship as a prerequisite for getting the job, but – in almost one year since – she has not renounced her U.S. citizenship, according to U.S. records and a Ukrainian official.

The Ukrainian Constitution allows for only “single citizenship,” meaning that a foreigner who is granted Ukrainian citizenship must terminate his or her previous citizenship and must submit a document attesting to that renunciation “within two years from the date of granting of Ukrainian citizenship,” said Mariia Budiakova, press secretary of the Ukraine Embassy in Washington.

The U.S. government publishes quarterly the names of Americans who have renounced their U.S. citizenship and those names — printed in the Federal Register since last December — do not include Jaresko, who has chosen to remain a U.S. citizen, a fact confirmed by Budiakova.

Jaresko appears to be exploiting the two-year period for submitting proof of renouncing her prior citizenship so she can hold her powerful Ukrainian position for two years with the option of then dropping her Ukrainian citizenship and keeping her U.S. citizenship.

Why the New Boss Is Just like the Old Boss
Candid Academic Admits Democracy Thwarted By Unseen Security Elite

Many people have been confused and even angered that the military and foreign policies of the Bush administration — policies of which the current president and administration were once so critical — have been adopted by them, almost in full.

Has President Obama simply changed course, or is someone else setting our national security policy?

In this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, Prof. Michael Glennon argues that somebody else is calling the shots, members of what he calls the “Double Government.” Initially created under the Truman administration, this unelected layer has grown into a hyper-secret and difficult to control network with over 46 separate federal departments and agencies, and over 2,000 private companies engaged in classified national security operations that costs roughly a trillion dollars a year.

It all started, Glennon argues, with the National Security Act of 1947 that created the CIA, the NSA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The result is a “second government,” that has no oversight, no checks and balances, and is incentivized to perpetuate itself.

Will Obama Give Israel Even More American Weapons and Dollars to Kill Palestinians?
This blind backing for whatever Israel does and providing the weapons to do it is dangerous for the U.S. and for Israel.

President Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on November 9 in the White House and is considering the Israeli request to give a 50% increase of nearly $1.5 billion in U.S. military funding bringing the U.S. donation to the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to $4.5 billion a year.

As it stands now, more that half of the U.S. foreign military spending for 2016 goes to Israel. As in all things, Israel gets special treatment by the U.S. allowing Israel to spend 25% of its gift from the U.S. to pay itself for buying weapons from its own weapons industry!!!

According to a recentcongressional report, Israel has received $124.3 billion in military assistance from the US since its founding in 1948.

The report states that “strong congressional support for Israel has resulted in Israel receiving benefits not available to any other countries; for example, Israel can use U.S. military assistance both for research and development in the United States and for military purchases from Israeli manufacturers.

As US Special Operations Forces Enter Syria, Growing Presence in Africa Goes Unnoticed

The recent US deployment of special operations forces to Syria expands a global US battlefield that is at a historic size. This year, special ops have been sent to a record 147 countries - 75 percent of the nations on the planet. It's a 145 percent increase from the days of George W. Bush. And it means that on any given day elite US forces are on the ground in 70 to 90 countries. Those shocking numbers are revealed by our guest, the journalist Nick Turse. For years, Turse has been tracking the expansion of global US militarism for the website TomDispatch and other outlets. His latest book, Tomorrow's Battlefield: US Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, focuses on one particular American military battlefield that often goes unnoticed. Turse says the US military is now involved in more than 90 percent of Africa's 54 nations.

Transcript here.

Report: Neglected Railways Increase Risk of Exploding Oil "Bomb Trains"

With the White House's recent rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, oil and gas energy analysts are already projecting a modest boost for the crude-by-rail business, despite the fact that US State Department officials indicated on November 6 that the extent to which railways may become a major form of transport for Canadian tar sands crude oil into the United States still "remains uncertain."

But according to a new report out this week from Waterkeeper Alliance, ForestEthics and Riverkeeper, since 2008, oil train traffic has increased more than 5,000 percent along routes "leading from oil fields in central Canada, the Great Plains and the Rockies to refineries and crude oil hubs along our nation's coasts." The environmental advocacy groups' report describes the significant threat posed by explosive crude oil "bomb trains" traveling across aging and neglected US rail infrastructure.

This dramatic increase in oil train traffic has come with an accompanying uptick in tank car derailments, oil spills, fires and explosions across the United States and Canada. The July 6, 2013, oil train derailment and explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, was among the deadliest of these incidents, killing 47 people. According to the report, more oil has spilled from tank car trains in 2013 than in the previous 40 years combined.

In Turning Point, Carbon Emissions Fall Among G20

Greenhouse gas emissions per capita are falling in 11 of the Group of 20 major economies, a turning point for tackling climate change, a study showed.

The report, by a new organization of scientists and other experts called Climate Transparency, also said 15 of the G20 members has seen strong growth in renewable energy in recent years.

"Climate action by the G20 has reached a turning point, with per capita emissions falling in 11 members, and renewable energy growing strongly," the group said in a statement. The G20 accounts for about three-quarters of world greenhouse gases.

It said G20 members "must all urgently decarbonize their economies" to meet a U.N. goal to limit average temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels to limit heat waves, floods and rising seas.

Paris Climate Pact Could Leave Forests Vulnerable

Efforts to foster forests and slow deforestation, which is one of the leading causes of global warming, are largely being glossed over by most nations as they prepare for a historic round of climate negotiations.

It remains unclear whether any agreement struck during the upcoming U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change session, which begins in Paris at the end of this month, will explicitly mention forestry. But forestry and farming are “implicitly” going to play roles in a climate pact “no matter what,” said Chris Meyer, who works on Amazon rainforest issues for the Environmental Defense Fund.

Perhaps most importantly, forest practices could play key roles in helping nations achieve their individual climate pledges — pledges that would underpin the hoped-for Paris climate agreement.

Analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists throughout the year has highlighted the scant attention being paid to forests under most of those national pledges. That’s despite forest loss being blamed for more than 10 percent of climate-changing pollution being released globally every year.