Kony 2012 campaign star's naked video upclose

Jason Russell, co-founder of non-profit Invisible Children and director of "Kony 2012" viral video campaign. (Reuters / Brendan McDermid)



Video Link: TMZ
New Jason Russell Video - UP-CLOSE Naked Meltdown - Kony 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjdH2LDH5LM

Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/usa/news/russell-released-2012-kony-924/

New footage has been released showing the Christian filmmaker behind “Kony 2012” confronting a senior citizen walking back and forth crying out “Oh my God, What? F*c# that Sh!t, you’re the devil.”

TMZ released the video over the weekend in which the flamboyant Jason Russell is seen pacing the walkway at an intersection in Southern California.

It is unsure if this footage will be as viral as the Invisible Children campaign, but in the recording the Invisible Children co-founder is visibly naked as drivers pass the street corner honking at Russell hammering his palms against the concrete in a caveman like fashion.

Although Russell has not been charged with a crime, officials have insisted that he be committed to a hospital for treatment.

Russell, 33, who is responsible for the Internet’s biggest viral campaign was arrested last week by San Diego Police for allegedly fondling himself while under the influence of an unknown substance and vandalizing vehicles. According to reports, he is being held at a psychiatric ward in San Diego and is set to be released on Monday.

The reasoning behind his vulgar behavior was he was “suffering from exhaustion, dehydration and malnutrition," according to a statement issued by the Invisible Children CEO Ben Keesey.

His wife, Danica, said the harsh criticism over the film was to blame for her husband’s breakdown and she denied he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

And as if Russell’s actions weren’t enough of a blow to the “Kony 2012” campaign, the Prime Minister of Uganda, Amama Mbabazi, has publicly released a response to the controversial documentary alleging that the warlord is not in his country.

“As PM of Uganda I invite you to visit the Pearl of Africa and see the peace that exists in our wonderful country,” Mbabazi said in a tweet.

Mbabazi went on to say that the film gives a “false impression,” and that the “Kony 2012” video does no portray the current situation in the Eastern African country.

In the past Russell has described as a “grand storyteller and a dreamer.” And Russell has said “if Oprah, Steven Spielberg and Bono had a baby, I would be that baby,” he told a magazine last year.

This could explain why he was wearing his birthday suit.

Uganda says Kony 2012 campaign misinforms

Prime Minister of Uganda, Amama Mbabazi

Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/news/uganda-response-kony-2012-825/

The Ugandan government has launched an online response to the Kony 2012 viral video, seeking to correct “false impressions” created by the film.

Uganda’s Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi released a nine-minute video addressing those who had watched Kony 2012 video and back the subsequent campaign.

He said the fact that Jozeph Kony is a criminal is undeniable – but the film misses a key point.

“The Kony 2012 campaign fails to make one point clear: Joseph Kony is not in Uganda,” Mbabazi stated.

The minister said Kony has not been in the country since 2006, when the national troops forced the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) out of Uganda. He added that the LRA now consists of just a couple hundred fighters, who are based in Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and the Republic of South Sudan.

"Uganda is not in conflict. Uganda is a modern, developing country which enjoys peace, stability and security," Mbabazi assured viewers, inviting anyone who doubts it to come and see for themselves.

He also said that he had sent a personal invitation via Twitter to twenty international celebrities who back the Kony 2012 campaign.

Kony 2012 was created by Invisible Children, an organization aiming to raise awareness about the activities of the LRA in Uganda and to seek the arrest of Kony.

The video has gone viral, getting over 80 million views on YouTube with millions of people reposting it on Facebook and Twitter.

While awareness was definitely raised, the question now is: what was the actual motive behind the video reporting six-year-old events?

Some say simple greed, as skyrocketing YouTube figures resulted in skyrocketing donation figures. Others think big politics and recently-discovered Ugandan oil reserves might be involved.

Last October, the US deployed troops to Uganda to provide military assistance in capturing Kony.

Coincidentally, the mission came after Uganda had announced discovering some 2.5 billion barrels of crude oil.

The troops are still in the region and have no intention of leaving, the US State Department says

Ugandans hold demo against the film Kony 2012

Joseph Kony (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/232232.html

Ugandan women pressure groups have condemned the production of a film on militia leader Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), saying it brings back bad memories to the militia’s victims, Press TV reports.

The film Kony 2012, created by the US organization Invisible Children, depicts the atrocities of the LRA in Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic, and has been distributed worldwide through the YouTube website over the past few months.

Speaking to journalists in the Ugandan capital Kampala on Saturday, the activists said Kony 2012, which has been watched by over 100 million people worldwide, will traumatize LRA survivors.

"The film is demeaning the efforts of civil society organizations in Uganda, which is not true. We have done a lot in helping the war victims to resettle,” the activists said.

Ruth Ojiambo of Isis-Women's International Cross-Cultural Exchange said, “While the idea of this campaign against the LRA leader is welcome, the steam it has created overshadows the real concerns of the sufferers and survivors of this conflict in Uganda.”

Leah Chipepa, the executive director of the organization Akina Mama Wa Africa, said “Uganda [is] peaceful. Therefore, the campaigners of popular video should focus on countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan where Kony and his men still abduct children.”

The 30-minute film has caused an uproar among Kony victims living in northern Uganda, to the extent that the Ugandan police stopped its screening.

Kony, who has been fighting the Ugandan government for over 20 years, was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in 2005 but has evaded capture.

Man behind ‘Kony 2012’ arrested – for masturbating in public

Jason Russell, co-founder of non-profit Invisible Children and director of "Kony 2012" viral video campaign. (Reuters / Brendan McDermid)

Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/usa/news/kony-2012-arrested-masturbating-777/

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Christian filmmaker behind the Internet’s most recent famous activism campaign, “Kony 2012,” has been arrested. For masturbating. And being drunk. And vandalizing cars. In public. In the morning.

Jason Russell, 33, was arrested Thursday morning by the San Diego Police Department in Southern California and the earliest reports detailing the incident suggest it was one hell of a day already for the Invisible Children co-founder and proclaimed “mastermind” behind the Kony 2012 viral video.Police say he was described as "in his underwear" when the first 911 calls were made.

San Diego Police Department Lieutenant Andrea Brown tells a local NBC affiliate that Russell was found masturbating in public, vandalizing cars and possibly under the influence of an unknown substance at around 11:30 am on Thursday. Authorities detained him at the intersection of Ingraham Street and Riviera Drive in San Diego, only a stone’s throw from the Pacific Ocean.

When the Kony 2012 campaign was released earlier this month, Russell’s activism group, Invisible Children, described him on their website as being the “grand storyteller and dreamer” behind their operation. By Friday afternoon, however, the bio page of the Invisible Children website was unavailable.

Within minutes of the news of his arrest being released on Friday, the group issued a statement. Invisible Children CEO Ben Keesey published an one-paragraph press release, but did not touch on the topic of arrest. Instead, Keesey says, “Jason Russell was unfortunately hospitalized yesterday suffering from exhaustion, dehydration and malnutrition."

"He is now receiving medical care and is focused on getting better. The past two weeks have taken a severe emotional toll on all of us, Jason especially, and that toll manifested itself in an unfortunate incident yesterday," added Russell.

Speaking on behalf of the San Diego PD, Lt. Brown also made an announcment. NBC reports she described Russell as acting “very strange,” but when your charges include public masturbation and auto vandalism a few feet from the shores of the Pacific while stumbling incoherently on a Thursday night, that’s pretty much a given.

"He was no problem for the police department, however, during the evaluation we learned that we probably needed to take care of him," Brown explained to the media. "So officers detained him and transferred him to a local medical facility for further evaluation and treatment."

Answering allegations earlier this month that Invisible Children were profiting off of donations assumed to go towards ousting African warlord Joseph Kony, Russell defended the practices of his charity group by saying that their funds are funneled through an array of different endeavors.

"We're an unorthodox organization," Russell said at the time

US terror drones kill 35 in Yemen, Pakistan

A US Predator drone firing a Hellfire missile (file photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/230868.html

Thirty-five people have been killed in the latest non-UN-sanctioned US assassination drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan.

On Friday, US drones fired several missiles targeting areas in Yemen's southeastern province of al-Bayda, killing 20 people, while 15 people were killed in attacks in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a local security official said that the number of casualties announced in the Jabra area of Yemen’s al-Bayda governorate was based on an initial security report from the targeted area.

The official added that more than two US drones were still striking several areas in three villages outside al-Bayda city.

In Pakistan, at least 15 people were killed and three were injured in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan.

Some sources said missiles fired from the US aircraft landed on a vehicle, while others said they targeted a house.

Dozens of people have lost their lives in CIA-operated assassination drone attacks in Pakistan since the beginning of 2012.

Washington claims that its airstrikes target militants crossing the Afghanistan border, but local sources say civilians have been the main victims of the non-UN-sanctioned strikes.

Pakistanis have held many demonstrations to condemn the United States’ violations of their national sovereignty.

Israeli attacks kill 13 Gazans

Hamas policemen inspect the wrecage of a vehicle after it was attacked by an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip on March 9, 2012.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/230881.html

At least 13 Palestinians have been killed and many more wounded in Israeli aerial and land attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip, Press TV reports.

In the first attack, missiles fired from an Israeli drone struck a car in the Tel El-Hawa neighborhood, west of Gaza City, killing both its passengers and severely injuring another person on Friday.

The Israeli army has confirmed the attack, saying it was a targeted assassination.

An Israeli military spokesman said that Zohair al-Qaisi, the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), and PRC member Mahmoud Hanini were killed in the attack, adding that Israeli officials ordered the assassination because they had allegedly received reports that al-Qaisi was planning attacks against Israeli targets.

Hanini had been freed from an Israeli jail last year as part of a prisoner swap deal to gain the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Islamic Jihad of Palestine said in a statement issued on Friday that Obeid al-Gharabli, Mohammed Harara, Hazem Qoureqa, and Shadi Seqali of the al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of Islamic Jihad, were killed in a second airstrike on the east side of the city.

Palestinian security officials said that a third airstrike on Zeitoun, east of the city, caused no casualties.

In addition, at least four other Palestinians were killed and over 20 injured by Israeli tanks, which pounded areas in the west and north of the besieged coastal enclave.

Three other Palestinians were also killed in additional airstrikes across Gaza.

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has condemned the attacks, describing them as barbaric.

Israeli war planes and ground forces have frequently attacked Gaza since the end of the December 2008-January 2009 war on the people of the Gaza Strip. Most victims of the attacks are civilians, including women and children

US media cover up AIPAC’s global threat

US President Barack Obama delivering a speech at the AIPAC conference

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/230862.html

Journalist Alison Weir says that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a threat the world, Press TV reports.

“AIPAC is very dangerous because it is working on American foreign policy, and currently it is trying to push the United States into an outright attack on Iran or assisting an attack on Iran by Israel,” the executive director of the US website If Americans Knew said in an exclusive interview with Press TV.

Weir also believes that AIPAC is behind the United States’ decision to impose economic sanctions on Iran.

AIPAC is “a special interest lobby” in the United States, which is working on behalf of a foreign country -- Israel -- and not on behalf of Americans, or on behalf of peace or justice, she stated.

“The American media are extremely Israel-centric in their reports, leaving out a great deal of information that Americans need to know to have rational successful policies, which results in the ignorance of the American public about the Israeli lobby,” Weir said, adding that most US citizens do not even know what the Israeli lobby is.

AIPAC is the one of the most powerful lobbies in the United States. It works to influence US foreign and domestic policy for the interest of Israel.

Bahrainis hold mass anti-government rally in capital

Bahraini protesters march in an anti-government demonstration in the capital, Manama (File Photo).

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/230778.html

Bahrainis have held a mass anti-government demonstration outside the capital, Manama, to demand an end to the rule of Al Khalifa dynasty.

Tens of thousands of Bahrainis took the streets west of Manama on Friday in response to a call from the country’s top Shia cleric Sheikh Issa Qasim. Images coming from Bahrain show protesters filled up the main Budaiya highway in Diraz and Saar.

"We are here for the sake of our just demands that we cannot make concessions over and we stick with them because we have sacrificed for them," Sheikh Qasim said before the march in his weekly sermon in the village of Diraz.

Demonstrators also called for the immediate release of political prisoners and denounced the Bahraini dictatorship in.

"No to dictatorship and no to sectarianism. We want an elected government that represents all Bahraini citizens without any discrimination," main opposition bloc al-Wefaq said in its statement.

"Time has come for real implementation of the principle of ' people are sources of all powers' as stipulated in the National Action Charter, the constitution, and international conventions on civil and political rights," al-Wefaq stated.

Similar protest rallies were also held across the country. Activists say over 50 percent of the Bahraini population took part in the protests.