Politics

According to newly released data from whistle-blower Edward Snowden, US and British spy agencies regularly hacked into live video feeds from Israeli drones and fighter jets during operations over Gaza. NSA and GCHQ were looking for signs of possible IDF strikess against Iran, in a classified top-secret operation code-named Anarchist. Russia Today reports: A new portion of Edward Snowden’s data reportedly obtained by the Intercept sheds light on Israeli drone operations over Gaza strip.

Just as we warned, and she must have known, it appears at least 22 of the emails found on Hillary Clinton's private email server have been declared "top secret" by The FBI (but will not be releasing the contents) according to AP.

Back in November, we took a look at the link between austerity and anarchy.

Courtesy of RBS’ Alberto Gallo, we showed the correlation between budget cuts and riots, assassinations, and attempted revolutions. Here’s a look at the frequency of “incidents” versus the scale of expenditure cuts:

Conor Friedersdorf wonders why Sanders’ better foreign policy judgment hasn’t mattered very much so far:

Bernie Sanders has exhibited much better foreign-policy judgment than Hillary Clinton. Yet for some reason, that’s made little difference so far in the Democratic primary race.

The main reason for oil's torrid surge over the past 2 days is that following yesterday's Russia-Opec "oil production cut" headline fiasco, crude traders - who as we previously reported already had a record net short position - scrambled to cover their exposure on the assumption that where there is oily smoke, there will be fire.