Israeli training drives US police brutality: Analyst

Press TV - July 28, 2015 Police brutality in the United States is directly linked to the training some American officers receive in Israel, says a political commentator in Kentucky. John Miranda made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday when asked about the death of an African American woman while in police custody. Sandra Bland was found dead in a prison cell at the Waller County jail in Texas on July 13. Miranda pointed to the circumstances surrounding Bland’s arrest on July 10 by a Texas state trooper for failing to signal while changing lanes with her vehicle. “That these people are being taken out of their cars is 100 percent illegal. The only reason a person should be taken out of their car is if the officer thinks some other crime or something illegal has happened, but obviously as we can all see from dashboard camera from Sandra Bland that this is not what happened,” he said. Police said that an autopsy has confirmed an initial finding by a medical examiner that Bland’s death was a suicide. However, Miranda said “the story that police gave to the press conference just does not add up.” “As for the increase in police brutality within the United States,” Miranda said, “I think this definitely can be pointed towards the Israeli training that the Department of Homeland Security is giving all of American police officers.” “This is not a myth, this is actually happening. I know this first-hand from friends of mine that are police officers,” he continued. “Some police officers are actually being flown to Israel for the training, not all of them but some, and then those that are flown to Israel, they come back home and they train the head officers in the training that they’ve gotten in Israel,” he explained. “All these incidents, it is not just happening to African Americans,” Miranda said. “Police are literally being brutal with all Americans.” The deaths of Bland, as well as two others - Rexdale W. Henry and Kindra Chapman - who were both found dead in their prison cells a few days after they were arrested, are the latest in a series of suspicious police-involved incidents that have sparked protests in many cities across the US.

Beneath the Negotiating Endgame in Vienna: Hillary Mann Leverett and Seyed Mohammad Marandi

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By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | Going to Tehran | July 12, 2015

As the world waits to see if the P5+1 and Iran can, in fact, conclude a comprehensive nuclear deal, it is important to step back from the not just day-by-day, but minute-by-minute coverage of comings and goings at the Palais Coburg in Vienna and think about what is really at stake in the negotiating endgame.  To this end, we post here a very good discussion of these issues by Hillary and the University of Tehran’s Seyed Mohammad Marandi on CCTV’s The Heat, see here or click on videos above.  (Like Mohammad, Flynt is currently in Vienna for the nuclear talks.)

The most critical of the remaining issues to be resolved by the parties relate to the terms of a new United Nations Security Council resolution that would negate previous Security Council resolutions dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue, remove Security Council-authorized international sanctions against Iran, and formally start implementation of a comprehensive nuclear deal.  As both Hillary and Mohammad point out, underneath discussions about the modalities for removing international sanctions, whether and how to lift the conventional arms embargo against Iran, and related matters are more fundamental issues:

–Can the United States, for its own interests, abandon its increasingly self-damaging quest to dominate the Middle East and adopt a more reality-based strategy toward this critical part of the world?

–Can the United States, for its own interests, finally accept the Islamic Republic of Iran as a legitimate political order representing legitimate national interests, and genuinely come to terms with this already indispensable and still rising actor in the Middle East?

–In the process, can the United States, for its own interests, replace its longstanding reliance on Israel and Saudi Arabia as its key “partners” in the Middle East with a more balanced approach characterized by strategically-grounded diplomacy with all major regional players?

Let’s see what happens in Vienna.

Banking giant HSBC's scandal

April 3, 2015 Secret documents reveal that the global banking giant, HSBC, profited from doing business with arms dealers, who channeled mortar bombs to child soldiers in Africa, traffickers in blood diamonds and other international outlaws. The leaked files, based on the inner workings of HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm, relate to accounts holding more than $100 billion. They provide a rare glimpse inside the super-secret Swiss banking system, one the public has never seen before. On this edition of the Economic Divide, we examine how a banking giant HSBC broke the law, while sheltering billions in offshore accounts. http://presstv.ir/Detail/2015/04/03/404492/Banking-giant-HSBCs-scandal56a4-43d7-4ab6-9e63-07d3faadcfd4/