Six years after the intense fighting began in the Iraqi town of Fallujah between US forces and Sunni insurgents, there is a disturbingly large number of cases of birth defects in the town. Fallujah is less than 40 miles (65km) from Baghdad, but it can still be dangerous to get to. As a result, there has been no authoritative medical investigation, certainly by any Western team, into the allegations that the weapons used by the Americans are still causing serious problems. The Iraqi government line is that there are only one or two extra cases of birth defects per year in Fallujah, compared with the national average. AWIP/Abel Bult-Ito: Nothing depleted about 'depleted uranium'.

“US foreign policy is still too dominated by the military, too dependent upon the generals and admirals who lead our major overseas commands and not enough on the State Department.”

At least 60 people have died in a stampede after the gate of a Hindu temple collapsed in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, police say. Another 25 devotees were injured at the temple in Pratapgarh district, some 650km (400 miles) south-east of Delhi. Devotees had gathered for a ritual feast, police told the BBC. It is still unclear what caused the gate to collapse. Hundreds of people have been killed in stampedes at crowded Indian temples in recent years. In 2008, nearly 300 people were killed in stampedes and scores injured in two different Hindu temples in Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh states.

FROM THE LOONY BIN: Libya slapped a trade embargo on Switzerland on Wednesday and demanded an apology for caustic U.S. comments about Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's call for a jihad, or armed struggle, against the European state. The announcements, reported by the state news agency Jana, marked an escalation of a dispute between Libya and Switzerland and showed the sensitivity of Tripoli's ties with the West more than six years after its decision to abandon weapons of mass destruction led to a rapprochement with the United States. Reuters: U.S. stops short of offering apology to Libya. AfricaNews: Libyan leader dictator Muammar Gaddafi has called for a jihad, or holy war, against Switzerland.

For months, climate scientists have taken a vicious beating in the media and on the Internet, accused of hiding data, covering up errors and suppressing alternate views. Their response until now has been largely to assert the legitimacy of the vast body of climate science and to mock their critics as cranks and know-nothings. “I’ll let you in on a very dark, ugly secret — I don’t want trust in climate science to be restored,” Willis Eschenbach, an engineer and climate contrarian who posts frequently on climate skeptic blogs, wrote in response to one climate scientist’s proposal to share more research. “I don’t want you learning better ways to propagandize for shoddy science. I don’t want you to figure out how to inspire trust by camouflaging your unethical practices in new and innovative ways.” “The solution,” he concluded, “is for you to stop trying to pass off garbage as science.” AWIP/WUWT: The Final Straw.

The move follows an outcry over a series of attempts to detain high-profile figures during trips to London, including Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli foreign minister. Under the proposals, the Crown Prosecution Service will take over responsibility for prosecuting war crimes and other violations of international law. It will end the current system in which magistrates are obliged to consider a case for an arrest warrant presented by any individual. Gilad Atzmon: Bowing to Jewish Pressure by Gilad Atzmon. AlterInfo: Brown veut changer la loi pour éviter des mandats d'arrêt contre les Israéliens. AWIP/Norman Finkelstein: "This Time We Went Too Far" -Truth and Consequences in the Gaza Invasion.

[Editor's Comment:] Modern democracies have wisely adopted the principle of Separation of Powers. Under this model "the state is divided into branches or estates, each with separate and independent powers and areas of responsibility. The normal division of estates is into an executive, a legislature, and a judiciary." Britain has never fully adopted this model and its political system is characterized by a "fusion of powers." (Britain doesn't even have a constitution.) -But even for such a political system it is pretty remarkable that it lets itself be dictated to by a foreign power (and a lawless & criminal one, at that) and that it under pressure from Israel now rejects even a token separation of powers and ignores its international obligations. Needless to say, under international law Britain is required to prosecute war criminals and specifically, to act according to the principle of universal jurisdiction and of course also to act if & when war criminals come within reach of British jurisdiction (i.e. British territory). -In short, Britain has a duty to ensure that there is no hiding place for those suspected of the most serious international crimes. The umble Mr. Brown is indeed a sorry sight to behold. -Absolutely pathetic!

grovel, bow and scrape:
we kowtow, crawl and lick their boots,
fawn and flatter, curry favor
from morning until late at night.

We cater to their every need
and keenly heed their faintest call.
We will excuse their cruelest deeds
and blame their victims, one and all
(even babes killed in mother's arms.)

We're goyim; they're the Chosen ones.
Lest we incur their righteous wrath,
we cower and demean ourselves
and keep note: be umble. Always.

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday in a speech made during a Knesset session marking the one-year anniversary of Netanyahu's ascension to power. "You worked hard to get to that seat, you waited, you sat in the opposition, you made crafty plans," Livni said, addressing the premier. "Surely you had an idea of where you wanted to lead the country. But nothing."

Reporting from Washington - Ronald Reagan is honored by, among other things, an airport, a freeway, an aircraft carrier and -- ironically for a critic of big government -- one of the biggest federal buildings in Washington. Now, some of the late president's admirers are launching a new effort to add another honor: printing his likeness on a $50 bill in place of Ulysses S. Grant's. In polls of presidential scholars, Reagan consistently outranks Grant, said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), who introduced legislation to make the change. But at least one Democrat who serves on the House Financial Services Committee, where the proposal has been sent, isn't ready to jettison Grant for "someone whose policies are still controversial." "Our currency ought to be something that unites us," said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks).

A measure to give some 57 million elderly people, veterans and persons with disabilities a $250 check was rejected by the Senate on Wednesday, a setback for the powerful seniors' lobby. President Barack Obama has called for Congress to approve the payments to make up for their benefits not increasing this year, but the Senate defeated it 50 to 47. The payments would have added $13 billion to a $108 billion job-creation package pending in the Senate. Congress approved payments last year as part of the $862 billion stimulus package. Social Security payments for the elderly and disabled will stay flat this year for the first time since 1975 because they are tied to consumer prices, which decreased amid the worst economic recession in 70 years.

For 50 years the American Behavioral Scientist has been a leading source of behavioral research for the academic world. Each issue offers comprehensive analysis of a single topic. The six papers in the February 2010 issue are devoted to the recent concept of "State Crimes Against Democracy (SCAD's)," with emphasis on 9/11 and on how human behavior has failed to recognize its reality. "SCADs differ from earlier forms of political corruption in that they frequently involve political, military, and/or economic elites at the very highest levels of the social and political order." The papers extensively quote the independent academic researchers who have been studying the 9/11 problem for years, including Dr. David Ray Griffin; Dr. Niels Harrit, Dr. Steven Jones, Chemist Kevin Ryan, and the rest of the team that studied nanothermite in the World Trade Center dust; and Dr. Peter Dale Scott, Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, Barrie Zwicker, Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, and The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

When Henry Kaiser arrived 55 years ago, this place was no place — "a rural problem area," the government called it, so poor and isolated that the population had dropped 15% since 1940. That all changed after Kaiser, the industrialist who'd turned out ships and planes at a record pace in World War II, built the nation's largest consolidated aluminum works here on the banks of the Ohio River. The plant paid Tim Shumaker his first living wage, and he won the right to keep it two decades ago after his union was locked out for 19 months. Today, that victory seems hollow.

A feminist movement has accused the Israeli government of adopting a racist policy towards the country's Ethiopian Jews. Activists believe black women are deliberately being given a controversial contraceptive drug to bring about a drop in the population – a claim the government denies. Thousands of Ethiopians have immigrated to Israel since the 1980s, but their Jewish heritage has been questioned, while their social status continues to suffer.

Extradition 'unlikely'
French police have arrested Agathe Habyarimana, the widow of Rwanda's assassinated former president, who is wanted in her home country in connection with genocide charges. The authorities made the arrest at Habyarimana's home in Paris on Tuesday, but later freed her on bail. Her detention comes just a week after Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, visited Rwanda where he admitted that Paris had made serious errors of judgement over the 1994 genocide. Rwandan authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Agathe Habyarimana last year, calling on France to pursue genocide suspects living there.

Rwandan authorities welcomed the arrest, with Tharcisse Karugarama, Rwanda's justice minister, saying: "At long last the long arm of the law is finally taking its course." Agathe Habyarimana has steadfastly denied involvement in the genocide. The death of her husband, Juvenal Habyarimana, Rwanda's former president, in April 1994 when his aeroplane was shot down, marked the beginning of the Rwandan genocide. In less than 100 days, 800,000 people were killed, most of them Tutsis, while most of those who perpetrated the violence were Hutus. Agathe Habyarimana left Rwanda three days after her husband died and moved to France, but Rwandan authorities are convinced she played a key role in plotting the killings. WikiPedia: Hutu Power. Rwanda Development Gateway: Habyarimana’s wife bailed out of court.