Steve Aftergood: CIA’s Mind-Set of Misadventure & Impunity

The CIA “Family Jewels,” Then and Now EXTRACT: In 1973, the Director of Central Intelligence ordered CIA officials to prepare a descriptive account of all CIA activities that were “outside the legislative charter of this Agency,” which is to say unauthorized or illegal.  The purpose of the exercise was to identify operations that had “flap …

4th Media: Global Power Project (Part I, II, & III)

Part I: Global Power Project: Exposing the Institute of International Finance This is the first of a series of exposés focusing on the Institute of International Finance (IIF), the very “visible hand” of financial markets. It is a continuation of the Global Power Project produced by Occupy.com. Part 1 examines the origins of the IIF. Founded …

Chuck Spinney: The Lofgren Corollary: The Method Behind the Madness of the Shutdown

It is easy to look at the shutdown and the concomitant chaos in federal government as the product of incompetence and corruption.  But it was a deliberate effort by a vocal congressional minority from safe, cynically gerrymandered, congressional districts to sabotage the functioning of the entire federal government. One would think that a deliberate effort …

SmartPlanet: The world’s top universities — still no “smart nation”

Western universities still dominate the upper reaches of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. But a power shift is underway and the east is beginning to rise through the ranks. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings powered by Thomson Reuters judges research-led universities on teaching, research, citations (research influence), industry income and international …

4th Media: Putin Trying to Build & Secure Rail Link through DPRK + High-Speed Rail RECAP

Putin Trying to Build & Secure Rail Link through DPRK(aka, “North Korea”) for Moving Goods between Asia and Europe Putin is inching closer to his goal of turning Russia into a major transit route for trade between eastern Asia and Europe by prying open North Korea, a nuclear-capable dictatorship isolated for half a century. Russia last …