TV News LIES

The US lobbied Russia this year on behalf of Visa and MasterCard in an attempt to ensure the payment companies were not "adversely affected" by new legislation, according to American diplomats in Moscow. A state department cable released this afternoon by WikiLeaks reveals that US diplomats intervened to try to amend a draft law going through Russia's Duma. Their explicit aim was to ensure the new law did not "disadvantage" the two US firms, the cable states.

The revelation comes a day after Visa – apparently acting under intense pressure from Washington – announced it was suspending all payments to WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website. Visa was following MasterCard, PayPal and Amazon, all of which have severed ties with the site and its founder Julian Assange in the last few days.

According to Gallup's 2010 poll of the most popular U.S. president of the last 50 years, John F. Kennedy, murdered in 1963, was top of the list with a 85 per cent approval rating.

Next came former actor Ronald Reagan with 74 per cent and Bill Clinton, Mr Bush's predecessor, who is the most popular living ex-president with 69 per cent, despite being caught up in a sex scandal.

George H. W. Bush, who Mr Clinton defeated in the 1992 election, was next with 64 per cent approval while behind him were Gerald Ford (61 per cent) and Jimmy Carter (52 per cent).

One of the women accusing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of sex crimes appears to have worked with a group that has connections to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Swedish prosecutors told AOL News last week that Assange was not wanted for rape as has been reported, but for something called "sex by surprise" or "unexpected sex."

One accuser, Anna Ardin, may have "ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups," according to Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett, writing for CounterPunch.

Fresh doubts have been raised over how Dr David Kelly died after police admitted no fingerprints were found on the packs of pills he supposedly overdosed on.

The public inquiry into Dr Kelly’s death found the weapons expert killed himself by slashing his wrist with a pruning knife and taking ‘an excess amount of co-proxamol tablets’.

Three blister packs of the painkiller, each able to hold ten pills, were retrieved from Dr Kelly’s coat pocket when his body was found in woods near his home.

Top U.S. officials have grown frustrated over the resistance of allies in the Middle East to help shut the financial pipeline of terrorists, the New York Times reported on Sunday, citing secret diplomatic dispatches. Internal State Department cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to news organizations, indicate that millions of dollars are flowing to extremist groups, including al Qaeda and the Taliban, despite U.S. vows to cut off such funding.

A classified memo sent by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last December made it clear that residents of Saudi Arabia and its neighbors were the chief supporters of many extremist activities, the newspaper said.

Nigeria will file charges against former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and officials from five foreign companies including Halliburton Co. over a $180 million bribery scandal, a prosecutor at the anti-graft agency said.

Indictments will be lodged in a Nigerian court “in the next three days,” Godwin Obla, prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said in an interview today at his office in Abuja, the capital. An arrest warrant for Cheney “will be issued and transmitted through Interpol,” the world’s biggest international police organization, he said.