US drones fired at least three missiles against a home near Miramshah, North Waziristan today, killing at least nine people described by the Pakistani government as “suspected militants.” The target’s affiliation remains unclear, as do the identities of the people inside, but the death toll has risen throughout the day and may rise further going forward. Originally, Pakistani officials identified the house as a “compound” used by the Haqqani family. They later revised this, saying the house belonged to the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Now some officials say a group calling itself the “Punjabi Taliban” used the house, while some others are saying it was al-Qaeda’s.

A night-time raid in eastern Afghanistan in which eight schoolboys from one family were killed was carried out on the basis of faulty intelligence and should never have been authorised, a Times investigation has found. Ten children and teenagers died when troops stormed a remote mountain compound near the border with Pakistan in December. At the time, US/Nato claimed lied, saying that the assault force was targeting a “known insurgent group responsible for a series of violent attacks”.

When the record 2009 civilian death toll began to emerge, NATO was quick to brag that they had actually killed fewer civilians than the Taliban. This appears to be the case still, though UN reports suggested the difference wasn’t nearly as dramatic as NATO initially claimed. There is one thing the Taliban can’t compete with NATO on, however, and that’s the killing of children. AWIP: Many Thousand Gone.

Human Rights Watch has blasted US President Barack Obama's change in "rhetoric" rather than "policies" as US transfers more Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Europe. Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, says that vows of change in the US administration have been limited to presidential rhetoric, US media said Wednesday. When it came to promoting human rights, there has undoubtedly been a marked improvement in presidential rhetoric, Roth said. However, he added, the translation of those words into deeds remains incomplete.

Key US lawmakers passed legislation Thursday extending three key provisions of the PATRIOT Act, the sweeping intelligence bill enacted after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Backing a White House request, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the measure 11 votes to 8 to extend until 2013 three clauses that would have expired by 31 December. The bill now heads to the full Senate for a vote. The provisions include the "roving wiretap" clause, used to monitor mobile communications of individuals using multiple telephone lines, and the "lone-wolf" provision, which enables spying on individuals suspected of terrorist activity but with no obvious connection to extremist groups.

CIA officials briefed at least 68 U.S. lawmakers between 2001 and 2007 on enhanced interrogation methods like simulated drowning that were being considered or used against captured al Qaeda members, according to declassified documents released on Tuesday. The once-secret CIA papers, obtained in a lawsuit by the conservative legal foundation Judicial Watch, shed new light on which lawmakers knew the details of the controversial interrogation program and when. Human rights groups have argued the harsh interrogation methods torture were forms of torture and violated U.S. obligations under the Geneva Conventions on treatment of war prisoners. President Barack Obama banned the techniques shortly after taking office in January 2009.

Reality television often ends in humiliation and ridicule for those taking part. But who would be prepared to take part in a game show which featured torture and even death? The answer is most of us, judging by the results of a French experiment which involved asking people to inflict electric shocks on a fellow contestant in what they thought was a new reality TV concept. Eighty per cent of the participants ignored pleas to stop and shrieks of pain as they continued increasing the voltage in response to wrong answers on Zone Xtreme. ''Is he dead?'' asked one contestant when the voltage reached 400 and the victim fell silent.

We, the undersigned, object to the dismissal of Baroness Jenny Tonge from her post as health spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats simply because she suggested that Israel investigate charges made against it. AWIP: British politician Jenny Tonge sacrificed (again) to appease Zionists.

The US has bashed Israel for jeopardizing the Middle East peace process by designating two shrines in the occupied West Bank as Israeli "national heritage sites." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that Tel Aviv was planning to include Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron Al-Khalil in a "national heritage plan." US State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Wednesday said Washington viewed the move as provocative and unhelpful to the goal of getting the two sides back to the negotiation table. Toner said Washington had conveyed its displeasure with the move to senior Israeli officials. AWIP/Irish4Palestine: Israeli "Heritage Sights": Hamas lawmaker Samira Al-Halaiqa warned Sunday that Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to annex the Ibrahimi Mosque in Al-Khalil and Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque in Bethlehem to the list of Jewish religious sites is a declaration of war on Muslims. + One Friday Morning in Occupied Palestine – The Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre 25.02.1994.

In Hurricane Katrina's chaotic aftermath, police shot six people – killing two – as they crossed a bridge in search of food. For years the case was a shocking symbol of the confusion and violence that swept through the flooded city. On Wednesday it became a mark of shame for the police department. As victims' relatives watched from the courtroom gallery, a retired lieutenant who supervised the department's probe of the shootings pleaded guilty to orchestrating a cover-up to conceal that police gunned down unarmed civilians.

Blackwater personnel appear to have gone to exceptional lengths to obtain weapons from U.S. military weapons storehouses intended for use by the Afghan police. According to the committee, at the behest of the company's Afghanistan country manager, Ricky Chambers, Blackwater on at least two occasions acquired hundreds of rifles and pistols from a U.S. military facility near Kabul called 22 Bunkers by the military and Pol-e Charki by the Afghans. Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of all U.S. military forces in the Middle East and South Asia, wrote to the committee to explain that "there is no current or past written policy, order, directive, or instruction that allows U.S. Military contractors or subcontractors in Afghanistan to use weapons stored at 22 Bunkers." TimesOnline: Blackwater guards stole weapons in Kabul and went on deadly rampage.

Straight from the loony bin: A prominent Saudi cleric has issued an edict calling for opponents of the kingdom's strict segregation of men and women to be put to death if they refuse to abandon their ideas. Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak said in a fatwa the mixing of genders at the workplace or in education "as advocated by modernisers" is prohibited because it allows "sight of what is forbidden, and forbidden talk between men and women."

Australia has warned Israel it is "gravely concerned" about the use of Australian passports in an alleged assassination in Dubai and demanded full co-operation into an investigation into the incident. The Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, today said that preliminary analysis by Australian officials indicated the passports had been duplicated or altered. The passports were issued in 2003, before enhancements were made to Australian documents. Daily Telegraph: Six more Britons had identities stolen by Mossad assassins. Haaretz: Australia warns Israel: Forging passports isn't an 'act of a friend'. The Drum: They've used biologically-infected chocolate, silencer-fitted pistols and bombs concealed in mobile telephones. Who would have thought the latest weapon of choice of Israel's assassins would be the humble hotel pillow? ABC News: Fourteen of the suspects purportedly used American credit cards from META Bank, a regional bank, to pay for hotel rooms and travel arrangements.

Brzezinski: According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention. AWIP/Washington's Blog: Governments ADMIT That They Carry Out False Flag Terror.

Gordon Brown repeatedly shouted at Tony Blair "you ruined my life" in the final confrontation that forced Blair to agree to announce a date by which he would stand down as prime minister, according to Andrew Rawnsley's new book. The revelations in the Observer journalist's book, The End of the Party, raised fresh questions this week about the Brown's character and prompted him to deny at prime minister's questions today he had ever sanctioned briefings against his chancellor, Alistair Darling.

Maariv reported on February 23 that the Tel Aviv municipality launched a “counselling program” to “help” Jewish girls who date and/or marry Arab boys. Grassroots and governmental campaigning against interfaith mingling is nothing new in Israel. RT: Racist birth control? Claims Israel culling Ethiopian Jews -Video.

It was a Friday in the month of Ramadan, so hundreds of Palestinians had gone to the Ibrahimi mosque for the dawn prayer. At around 5 am, and as the worshippers were kneeling in prayer, Zionist colonist Baruch Goldstein, a leader of the fanatic terror movement Kach, who was hiding behind one of the pillar, started shooting randomly at the worshippers. He was also armoured with a number of hand grenades which he threw amongst the dying and the wounded. The shooting lasted 10 minutes during which 29 worshippers were massacred, including many children, and over 300 were wounded, leaving some handicapped for life. Goldstein would have gone on with his butchering were it not for a group of young men who were finally able to subdue him. During this time, and despite the sounds of shooting coming from the mosque, the IOF soldiers stationed outside did not intervene to stop the massacre, instead they locked up the doors of the mosque and prevented worshippers from escaping. Juan Cole: Harvard Professor's Modest Proposal: Starve the Gazans into Having Fewer Babies.

It seems that Paul may have been onto something...or at the very least raised legitimate questions that deserve investigation. A few minutes on google news produced this 1982 story from the Milwaukee Sentinel by Richard Bradee of the paper's Washington Bureau: "Police who searched the room the Watergate burglars used found $4,200 in $100 dollar bills, all numbered in sequence. Proxmire asked the Federal Reserve Board where the money came from. As he explained in a letter to the late Rep. Wright Patman (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Banking Committee: "I got the biggest run-around in years. They ducked, misled, lied, and gave me the idiot treatment." Economic Policy Journal: Fed Chairman Bernanke Should Apologize to Ron Paul. Washington's Blog: Economist With Financial Services Committee For Eleven Years, Assisting With Oversight of the Fed, Lends Support to Ron Paul's Questions.

The strike takes place within the context of growing working class resistance across Europe to austerity measures now being imposed by governments across the continent—irrespective of whether they are nominally social democratic or conservative. WSWS: The social situation in Greece.