US Government Begins Partial Shutdown After Deadline Passes

For the first time in 17 years, the US government has partially shut down after a midnight deadline passed without an agreement on measures to continue funding basic services.

Despite a last-gasp appeal by President Barack Obama,Federal agencies were ordered to begin closing at midnight on Tuesday [0400 GMT], meaning that over 800,000 US government workers have been forced to stay at home with no guarantee of back pay once the deadlock is over.

According to reports, the Republican-led House of Representatives attempted to draw up a replacement that blocks parts of President Barack Obama's health care reforms on Monday.

The House has passed two spending bills in recent days, both of which have been torpedoed by the Democratic-led Senate. the Democratic-led Senate voted 54-46 against a bill from House Republicans that would have funded the government only if President Obama's healthcare law - dubbed Obamacare - was delayed for a year.

The House asked for a conference on the budget with the Senate. However, the Senate's Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid, said it would reject the proposal, and called on the House to pass a budget law not linked to healthcare.

"The idea of putting the American people's hard-earned progress at risk is the height of irresponsibility, and it doesn't have to happen", President Obama had said on national television that Monday.

The national parks and Washington's Smithsonian museums will close; pension and veterans' benefit cheques will be delayed, and visa and passport applications will go unprocessed with the shutdown in place.

It could affect government services including food assistance for children and pregnant women and federal home loan programmes.

"The Americans don't want a shutdown and neither do I", Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner, responded a few hours later on the House floor, adding that the new health care law was having "a devastating impact... something has to be done".

Snowden: Ecuador Laments over US "Blackmail"

Ecuador has said that they're turning down the trade benefits the United States gives them as part of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication trade pact with the United States, claiming it had become an instrument of "blackmail" against them while considering whistleblower Edward Snowden's asylum request.

Despite, voicing support for the former National Security Agency contractor, authorities in Ecuador have said that they won't bow to U.S. pressure even though they are yet to grant Edward Snowden's request for asylum.

The pact, which covers key Ecuadorean exports such as fresh-cut roses, fruits, vegetables and tuna, is set to expire on July 31 unless the US Congress renews it.

In a news conference on Thursday, President Rafael Correa said, "In the face of threats, insolence and arrogance of certain U.S. sectors, which have pressured to remove the preferential tariffs because of the Snowden case, Ecuador tells the world we unilaterally and irrevocably renounce the preferential tariffs."

"You request asylum when you are on a country's territory. Snowden is not on Ecuadorean territory, so technically we cannot even process the asylum request," he said.

"Would he be allowed to arrive on Ecuadorean territory? This is something that, in principle, we haven't considered," he added.

"It is outrageous to try to delegitimize a state for receiving a petition of asylum.We would probably examine it, but for now he is in Russia."

"Ecuador does not accept pressure or threats from anyone, and does not trade on principles or make them contingent on commercial interests, even if those interests are important", Ecuador's Communications Minister Fernando Alvarado announced earlier, adding  that the country "unilaterally and irrevocably renounces preferential customs tariff rights".

Snowden, who is seeking aslyum after he leaked classified information on a widespread secret surveillance programme, faces espionage charges in the United States, and has been slammed as a traitor by critics while being hailed as a hero by his supporters.

The Obama administration has revoked Snowden's passport, after he leaked documents pointing to a widespread US surveillance programme in early June.

Currently, he is believed to be hiding at the Moscow airport, where he arrived from Hong Kong on Sunday.

Retired US General Under Investigation for Stuxnet Leak

Reports from NBC news channel on Thursday has indicated that a high ranking military officer in the US has been placed under investigation for allegedly leaking top secret information about a cyber attack on Iran's nuclear programme.

The covert computer virus called Stuxnet, was used in 2010 to temporarily disable 1,000 centrifuges used for enriching uranium by Iran's nuclear facilities.

According to the report from NBC, Stuxnet is capable of both surveillance and harming computers, and was initally spread using infected removable drives.

Retired General James Cartwright, a former second-highest-ranking officer, was  in a New York Times article published last year as one of the men instrumental in the development of Stuxnet.

The article exposed that the Obama administration used it as a key weapon in fighting against the development of Iran's nuclear programme.

"My attitude has been zero tolerance for these kinds of leaks. These are criminal acts when they release information like this", President Barack Obama said, responding to the article.

While there was ongoing speculation about Cartwright's motive behind the leak,

"Sometimes to attack a programme, sometimes to defend it, sometimes we don't ever know", Director of the Federation of American Scientists Steve Aftergood told NBC while trying to explain that there are many reasons why people leak classified information.

Cartwright was the number two person in the joint chiefs of staff from 2007 to 2011. As at the time of this report, neither he nor his lawyer has responded to requests for comment.

Guardian- Edward Snowden was NSA Prism Leak Source

UK-owned Guardian newspaper has revealed 29 year old Edward Snowden, a current employee of defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, as a former CIA technical assistant who leaked details of a secret US programme that gathered millions of phone and internet records.

The revelations began on Wednesday night, when a report from Guardian came out indicating that phone company Verizon had been ordered by a US ‘secret’ court to relay millions of phone records on telephone call “metadata” to the National Security Agency (NSA).

The report continued, revealing that the NSA secret surveillance system known as Prism, was undergone, in an effort to track online communication by tapping directly into servers of nine major internet firms.

However, the involved internet companies have denied the allegations, while the papers revealed that the data they (NSA and the FBI) gathered were used to track suspected foreign nationals in terrorism and spying cases.

Although, the ex-CIA man’s identity was revealed by the UK papers with his consent, he claimed that he leaked the information in order to protect “basic liberties for people around the world.”

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, he said, “I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.”

Although, he had no intention of hiding, he replied “nothing good” when asked what he believed would happen to him after the information went public.

Snowden has decided to seek asylum in Iceland, explaining that he had gone Hong Kong because of is strong tradition of “free speech”.

US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has condemned the revelations, calling the leaks “literally gut-wrenching”, as the NSA asks the Justice Department to conduct a criminal investigation.

Former senior NSA executive turned whistleblower Thomas Drake, said that Snowden’s act was an extraordinary act of civil disobedience, adding that the US intelligence community will do whatever it can to prosecute him.

Only on Friday, US President Obama had defended the surveillance programmes of the governnment, calling it a “modest encroachment” on privacy which is of extreme importance in the protection of the country from terrorism.

Emergency rule: US urges Nigeria military to avoid rights abuses

US Secretary of State John Kerry Saturday renewed a plea to Nigerian authorities to ensure the military does not carry out atrocities against civilians in its clampdown on Islamic militants.

Nigeria declared a state of emergency in three northeastern states on May 14 as it launched a military offensive to end Boko Haram’s four-year insurgency.

“Boko Haram is a terrorist organisation and they have killed wantonly and upset the normal governance of Nigeria in fundamental ways that are unacceptable,” Kerry told reporters on the sidelines of an African Union summit.

“We defend the right completely of the government of Nigeria to defend itself and to fight back against terrorists. That said I have raised the issue of humans rights with the government,” he stressed.

Activists as well as the United States have voiced concerns over the fighting, with Nigeria’s military regularly criticised over its response to the insurgency due to allegations of major abuses.

“We all of us try to hold to the highest standards of behaviour,” Kerry said in a joint press conference with Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “One person’s atrocity does not excuse another’s.”

He insisted the authorities should not seek revenge, saying the best way forward was “good governance, it’s ridding yourself of the terrorist organisations so you can establish a standard of law that others can respect.”

A May 7 attack in northern Bama saw insurgents disguised in military uniforms break into a prison and attack several government buildings, leaving 55 people dead. The women and children were around the sites at the moment of the attack and were taken hostage and only finally released on Friday.

The conflict is estimated to have cost 3,600 lives since 2009, including killings by the security services.

Kerry added that “to their credit the government has acknowledged that there have been some problems, they’re working to try to control it.”

Obama Justifies Use of Drone Strikes

Before an audience at the National Defence University on Thursday, US President Barack Obama defended the controversial use of drones by the country as an important weapon in the war against terrorism.

In a speech where he was expected to address the audience on a secretive program run by the government, he explained that he is haunted by those civilians who were caught in the attacks and tried to assure listeners that there must be “near certainty” that no more civilians will be killed in such strikes in a near future.

“We are at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first,” he said. “So, this is just a war – a war waged proportionally, in last resort , and in self-defense.”

He added, “So America is at crossroads. We must define the nature and the scope of the struggle, or else it will define us.”

The speech also addressed the issue of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay which the Obama Administration had promised Americans it would shut down in its 2008 campaign promise

“When I ran for president the first time, John McCain supported closing Gitmo. No person has ever escaped from one of our super-max or military prisons in the United States,” Obama said.

“Our courts have convicted hundreds of people for terrorism-related offences, including some who are more dangerous than most Gitmo detainees….there is no justification beyond politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been opened,” the president added.

While been interrupted by a woman protesting the use of drones and the current situation with the hunger strike at the prison, he pressed further, saying that he would lift a moratorium on prisoner transfers to Yemen and ensure the complete shutdown of the prison, urging Congress not to interrupt his efforts to ensure that the prisoners are transferred to American secured maximum prisons.

Although, a good number of lawmakers are of the opinion that the US authorities support for drone strikes be limited, the President has promised to share with the general public concerning matters about the drone strikes.

His speech came just a day after a letter was released by the attorney-general on behalf of the Obama Administration, revealing for the first time that four American citizens had been killed in covert drone strikes oversea.

It coincides with the signing of new “presidential policy guidance” on when drone strikes can be used, according to the White House.

Attorney-General Admits Deaths of Four Americans in Drone Attacks

The Obama Administration has formally admitted killing four of its citizens in authorized drone attacks in Yemen and Pakistan since 2009, according to a letter from US attorney-general Eric Holder.

The letter, which was addressed to congressional leaders on Wednesday, named three US citizens – Samir Khan, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, and his father, Anwar al-Awlaki, the intended target of a drone strike in September 2011.

However, the fourth citizen, Jude Kenan Mohammed, was regarded as a victim of America’s efforts to combat terrorism through drone strikes.

The letter reads, “Since 2009, the United States, in the conduct of US counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda and its associated forces outside of areas of active hostilities, has specifically targeted and killed one US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki.”

“The decision to target Anwar al-Awlaki was lawful, it was considered and it was just,” he wrote.

“The United States is further aware of three other US citizens who have been killed in such US counterterrorism operations over that same time period,” Holder added, after which he named three citizens.

Holder refused to explain why Jude Mohammed and 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki were killed. “These individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States,” he said.

“The administration is determined to continue these extensive outreach efforts to communicate with the American people. To this end, the president has directed me to disclose certain information that until now has been properly classified. You and other members of your committee have on numerous occasions expressed a particular interest in the administration’s use of lethal force against US citizens.”

“In light of this face, I am writing to disclose to you certain information about the number of US citizens who have been killed by US counterterrorism operations outside of areas of active hostilities.”

The letter came just a day before US President Barack Obama was scheduled to deliver a speech on the use of drones, and was addressed to Senator Patrick Leahy and the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Apparently, it was released with the purpose of defending the Obama Administration over allegations that it wasn’t holding up to its promise of utmost transparency as Obama’s campaign plans has stated.

Only a few months earlier, Senator Rand Paul led a marathon filibuster in an effort to criticize the drone program of the CIA, demanding the administration stand before lawmakers and justify the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in the execution of suspected enemies of the state while turning a blind eye to the innocent civilians killed in the process.

Erdogan Meets with Obama in Washington

At a scheduled meeting with US President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington on Thrusday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is looking to find ways to end the two-year civil war ongoing in Syria.

During their joint news conference held in the Rose Garden of the White House, Obama said that his government will continue to increase the pressure on the Syrian regime. He explained that Assad will be out of office “sooner rather than later”, adding that he would do everything in his power to assist the Syrian opposition, while helping Turkey with the huge number of refugees coming in from Syria.

Turkish Minister for EU Affairs Egemen Bagis believes that, in as much as stopping Assad from violating human rights is a priority, the partnership between the US and Turkey can only make it happen if the UN Security Council officials are convinced that measures have to be taken.

In his own words, Bagis said, “I think President Obama and Prime Minister Erdogan will be able to discuss new challenges and opportunities to convince the international community in terms of taking the necessary measures to stop the bloody Assad regime.”

The visit comes just days after a series of car bombs killed dozens in Turkey, with no one claiming responsibility for the attack. However, with Turkish officials pointing accusing fingers at Syrian intelligence, Obama’s government remains skeptical about taking certain actions against Syria that would benefit Turkey.

Only recently, the administration negotiated a deal to repair ties between Turkey and Israel, whose feud began when an Israeli raid on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza led to the deaths of eight Turks and a Turkish-American.