Robert Parry, a journalist who was not afraid to report on government-related crime and abuse of power, died peacefully earlier this month. Read the tribute by his son Nat Parry.

Listen to the documentary Fyra minuter från kärnvapenkrig in Swedish. Some translated excerpts from the introduction on the web page of Swedish Radio:

25 times we have been close to nuclear war. Each time due to misunderstandings or technical breakdowns. How long can the luck last?

One chance in three

So large is the risk of dying in a nuclear war, the physics professor Max Tegmark assesses.

Read more in English why Tegmark has called on the research community to support a ban on nuclear weapons and about countries like Russia refusing to join.

Guantanamo detainees must either be charged or released – and then this illegal prison should be closed for good.

Sign at Reprieve

The UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer has appealed to the United States to end a pervasive policy of impunity for crimes of torture. He highlighted a case at Guantanamo Bay, where torture and ill-treatment are reported to continue. Read more,

As we have earlier reported, it is even suspected that inmates have been tortured to death there.

Watch Daniel Elsberg explaining the planning of a hundred holocausts on Democracy Now and read more about nuclear weapons on ICAN. There is also more related information on this site.

Today, the 6 December 2017, Finland is celebrating one hundred years of independence. But how independent is Finland really? Finland’s special relationship with the Soviet Union during the cold war has been debated for many years. However, not many are aware that the CIA has run a secret army in Finland, which was linked to NATO. This is obviously one of Finland’s most guarded secrets. We can read about one of the denials in an article by Daniele Ganser and Mats Deland:

Finland’s Defence Minister, Elisabeth Rehn, called these revelations “a fairy-tale”

In the early 1940s Finland cooperated with Nazi Germany, but seems to have learned very little from that mistake. Finland has signed a Host Nation Support Agreement with NATO. Some Finns are arguing for a full NATO membership. They may see this as necessary to preserve their independence, but the reality is that Finland is step by step giving up independence and again advancing their cooperation with suspects of very severe crime.

Yesterday, Carol Rosenberg reported in the Miami Herald:

The USS Cole case judge Wednesday found the Marine general in charge of war court defense teams guilty of contempt for refusing to follow the judge’s orders and sentenced him to 21 days confinement and to pay a $1,000 fine.

Air Force Col. Vance Spath also declared “null and void” a decision by Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker, 50, to release three civilian defense attorneys from the capital terror case. The lawyers resigned last month over a covert breach of attorney-client privilege involving something so secretive at the terror prison that the public cannot know.

Apparently the military judge wants the three defence attorneys be forced to participate in show trials to “provide unethical legal services to keep the façade of justice”, as one of them puts it in the Miami Herald.

“The military commissions are willing to put people in jail for defending the rule of law,” Jay Connell, who represents another Guantanamo detainee facing a military commission, told The Daily Beast.

Earlier, the governments of Iran and Sudan have been found liable. A few defendants have also been convicted in Yemen, but all of them escaped or were freed, according to an article by Kevin Ryan published 2012 in the Foreign Policy Journal: The USS Cole: Twelve years later, no justice or understanding. Perhaps the title of that article is the most accurate summary, now seventeen years after the bombing of USS Cole.

The photo shows the USS Cole towed away from the port city of Aden, Yemen, into open sea, after the bombing that killed 17 crew members and injured 39 others on 12 October 2000. Photo source: Wikipedia, Sgt. Don L. Maes.

Santiago Maldonado was recently found dead at a river in southern Argentina, close to where he was last seen being detained by the federal police. This appears to be a case of “forced disappearance” where the government tries to prevent things from being clarified. Argentina is a country with a sad history of impunity, that unfortunately seems to repeat itself.

However, don’t make the mistake to think that impunity is a problem that just occurs in Argentina. We actually need to face that it may be happening in our own country, as pointed out in the article Murder with impunity in Russia … and the U.S.

When impunity even happens in a country like Sweden (see for example the Swedish book Spår, by Lena Sundström), we must realize that impunity is a global problem.

If you want to join our protests against impunity, we can be contacted at info@accoun.org

Read the shocking article at The Intercept about the possible presence of a German intelligence agent at a neo-nazi murder, and how senior intelligence officials ordered that the truth should be hidden from public view for 120 years. It reminds of the connections between terrorism and Stay Behind, described by Daniele Ganser and others.

Internet freedom is increasingly under threat and China appears to be leading the way in censorship. According to CNN, popular messaging apps like WeChat and even pictures of Winnie the Pooh are nowadays censored in China.