Headlines:

• BRICS Countries Build New Internet to Avoid NSA Spying
• Saudi Arabia Warns of Shift Away from U.S. over Syria, Iran
• US Drawdown in Afghanistan Sees World's Biggest Garage Sale
• Secret Memos Reveal Explicit Nature of US-Pakistan Agreement on Drones

Details:

BRICS Countries Build New Internet to Avoid NSA Spying

BRICS countries are close to completing a brand new Internet backbone that would bypass the United States entirely and thereby protect both governments and citizens from NSA spying.  In light of revelations that the National Security Agency hacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone, in addition to recording information about 124 billion phone calls during a 30-day period earlier this year, the fallout against the NSA has accelerated. Brazil is set to finalize a 34,000-kilometre undersea fiber-optic cable by 2015 that will run from Vladivostok, Russia to Fortaleza, Brazil, via Shantou, China, Chennai, India and Cape Town, South Africa. According to the Hindu, the project will create, "a network free of US eavesdropping," which via legislative mandates will also force the likes of Google, Facebook and Yahoo to store all data generated by BRICS nations locally, shielding it from NSA snooping. "The BRICS countries have the muscle to pull this off," notes Washington's Blog. "Each of the BRICS countries is in the top 25 largest economies in the world. China has the world's second largest economy, India is 3rd, Russia 6th, Brazil 7th, and South Africa 25th." However, some privacy experts fear that this will do little to stop the NSA, given that it has tapped undersea cables since the Cold War era. Others are more positive. "Any alternative would be a positive thing," writes Michael Dorfman. "The more choice you have, the better. Yet no-one can say for sure whether this new Internet will be safer than its US counterpart and will be able to protect the rights of regular users, including the privacy of personal data and free access to resources, more effectively." The BRICS cable was already in development months before the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden first became public in June.[Source: Infowars]

Saudi Arabia Warns of Shift Away from U.S. over Syria, Iran

Upset at President Barack Obama's policies on Iran and Syria, members of Saudi Arabia's ruling family are threatening a rift with the United States that could take the alliance between Washington and the kingdom to its lowest point in years. Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief is vowing that the kingdom will make a ‘major shift' in relations with the United States to protest perceived American inaction over Syria's civil war as well as recent U.S. overtures to Iran, a source close to Saudi policy said on Tuesday. Prince Bandar bin Sultan told European diplomats that the United States had failed to act effectively against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was growing closer to Tehran, and had failed to back Saudi support for Bahrain when it crushed an anti-government revolt in 2011, the source said. [Source: Reuters]

US Drawdown in Afghanistan Sees World's Biggest Garage Sale

The armoured trucks, televisions, ice cream scoops and nearly everything else shipped to Afghanistan for the U.S. war against the Taliban are now part of the world's biggest garage sale: Every week, as the American troop drawdown accelerates, the U.S. is selling 5.4 million to 6.4 million kg of its equipment on the Afghan market. Returning that gear to the United States from a landlocked country halfway around the world would be prohibitively expensive, according to American officials. Instead, they're leaving behind $7 billion worth of supplies, a would-be boon to the fragile Afghan economy. But there's one catch: The equipment is being destroyed before it's offered to the Afghan people - to ensure that treadmills, air conditioning units and other rudimentary appliances aren't used to make roadside bombs. "Many non-military items have timing equipment or other components in them that can pose a threat. For example, timers can be attached to explosives. Treadmills, stationary bikes, many household appliances and devices, etc., have timers," said Michelle McCaskill, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency. That policy has produced more scrap metal than Afghanistan has ever seen. It has also led to frustration among Afghans, who feel as if they're being robbed of items such as flat-panel televisions and armored vehicles that they could use or sell - no small thing in a country where the average annual income hovers at just over $500. In a nation nicknamed the "graveyard of empires," foreign forces are remembered for what they leave behind. In the 1840s, the British left forts that still stand today. In the 1980s, the Soviets left tanks, trucks and aircraft strewn about the country. The United States is leaving heaps of mattresses, barbed wire and shipping containers in scrap yards near its shrinking bases. "This is America's dustbin," said Sufi Khan, a trader standing in the middle of an immense scrap yard outside Bagram Airfield, the U.S. military's sprawling headquarters for eastern Afghanistan.[Source: Japan Time]

Secret Memos Reveal Explicit Nature of US-Pakistan Agreement on Drones

Despite repeatedly denouncing the CIA's drone campaign, top officials in Pakistan's government have for years secretly endorsed the program and routinely received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts, according to top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos obtained by the Washington Post.  The files describe dozens of drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal region and include maps as well as before-and-after aerial photos of targeted compounds over a four-year stretch from 2008 to 2011 in which the campaign intensified dramatically. Markings on the documents indicate that many of them were prepared by the CIA's Counterterrorism Center specifically to be shared with Pakistan's government. They tout the success of strikes that killed dozens of alleged al-Qaida operatives and assert repeatedly that no civilians were harmed. Pakistan's tacit approval of the drone program has been one of the more poorly kept national security secrets in Washington and Islamabad. During the early years of the campaign, the CIA even used Pakistani airstrips for its Predator fleet. But the files expose the explicit nature of a secret arrangement struck between the two countries at a time when neither was willing to publicly acknowledge the existence of the drone program. The documents detailed at least 65 strikes in Pakistan and were described as "talking points" for CIA briefings, which occurred with such regularity that they became a matter of diplomatic routine. The documents are marked "top secret" but cleared for release to Pakistan.  Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif reiterated his country's objections to the drone campaign this week during his first visit to Washington since taking office this year. CIA strikes "have deeply disturbed and agitated our people," Sharif said in a speech Tuesday at the U.S. Institute of Peace. "This issue has become a major irritant in our bilateral relationship as well. I will, therefore, stress the need for an end to drone attacks." He raised the issue in a meeting Wednesday with President Barack Obama, "emphasizing the need for an end to such strikes." Sharif did not publicly elaborate on how Pakistan would seek to halt a campaign that has tapered off but remains a core part of the Obama administration's counterterrorism strategy. [Source: The Independent]