A man touches the forehead of a loved one killed
in a US-NATO pre-dawn attack on Mehtar Lam,
in Laghman province. Photo: AP/Rahmat Gul

[Note: This photo is from an earlier US atrocity.] The official statement reads largely the same as the others do. “An individual with a weapon” is spotted during the raid and after being determined a threat “was shot and killed.” Other than a protest in Jalalabad nothing was unusual. Most of the time the story would end there. We would never hear who the “individual” was, we certainly would never hear that troops ransacked the home during the raid. In ordinary cases, this would be just another Afghan with a gun, killed by NATO troops and chalked up as a combat death.

But this time we do know the victim. Amanullah, a 30 year old auto mechanic and father of five, who made a panicked phone call to his distant relative, Afghan MP Safiya Sidiqi, that the family compound was being raided by what he assumed was a “gang of thieves.” He had no reason to think anything different [They were no different. They are a gang of thieves and murderers.]. After all, who figures that the US would launch a night raid against the family home of a member of parliament? Shot six times by the raiding US troops, including in the face and heart, Amanullah was slain on the spot. In the raid, the US troops handcuffed everyone in the compound and took fingerprints, they claimed they were looking for a “Taliban facilitator.” They never did find him.

The Democratic proposal includes increased money for border patrol and drug war agents, equipment, helicopters and unmanned drones. It would create a national ID -- which is dubbed a "biometric social security card." Though Democrats insist that it is not an ID card and can only be used for employment purposes.

In an effort to woo Israel after nearly a month of tense relations, Washington warns Iran and Syria against “making threats” to Tel Aviv's security. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an attempt to make amends with Tel Aviv officials after relations hit an unprecedented low last month over an Israeli settlement project on occupied Palestinian lands in East Jerusalem (Al-Quds). Clinton, who was addressing the annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee, struck a conciliatory tone when she stressed that the US commitment to Israeli security is “unshakable” in the face of threats posed by Iran and Syria. AWIP/Jeff Gates: When will Israel attack the USA – again? AWIP: AIPAC has "persuaded" more than three-quarters of the members of the US House of Representatives to sign a letter calling for an end to public criticism of Israel. + Clinton vows 'personal commitment' to Israel's security.

[Editor's Comment:] Please note that Ms Clinton (in principle) could have stated that she was personally committed to peace (in the Middle East). However this is not what she is committed to. -Peace essentially entails justice & dignity for everyone involved. Peace means peace and is different from the mere absence of hostilities. This is not, repeat, not what Israel wants and therefore it is not what Ms Clinton wants either. Her incessant assurances of a personal commitment' is coded politician's lingo and needs to be "translated". They need to be seen as a groveling oath of 'fealty' to the most belligerent state in the Middle East. Israel's "security", then, means billions of $$$, an endless supply of US military hardware and US soldiers fighting & dying for Israel. This is what Israel's "security" means. The long of it, that is. The short of it is simply: 'war'. -Endless wars for Israel. This is what she is personally committed to.

Insists Conference Must Focus on Iran's 'Violations' [not Israel's nukes] Despite repeated claims by the Obama Administration to that effect, neither the US nor any other nation has ever presented any evidence that Iran was in violation of the NPT, and the IAEA’s claims have strictly been limited to the additional demands imposed upon Iran through the UN Security Council, and not the treaty itself. Clinton expressed concern that the Iranian president would “disrupt” the conference from what she sees as its primary purpose, which is to rail against Iran’s civilian nuclear program.

The Nation: Crippling, Crushing, and Suffocating Iran:

On Wednesday afternoon, members of the House and Senate gathered for a conference committee meeting to discuss the bills passed by each house to impose sanctions on Iran. As I sat down at my desk to write this, I pulled out my Roget's Thesaurus to see how many synonyms for "crippling," 'crushing," "overwhelming," "suffocating," and so on there are. There are a lot. And many of them, including those just mentioned, were used by members of Congress competing to see strongly each one could condemn Iran. It wasn't pretty.

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) and Goldman Sachs Executive Vice President and CFO David Viniar, Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations hearing, April 27, 2010

Federal prosecutors have opened an investigation into trading at Goldman Sachs, raising the possibility of criminal charges against the Wall Street giant, according to people familiar with the matter. While the investigation is still in a preliminary stage, the move could escalate the legal troubles swirling around Goldman. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which two weeks ago filed a civil fraud suit against Goldman, referred its investigation to prosecutors for the Southern District of New York, which has now opened its own inquiry.

President Barack Obama on Thursday nominated three new Federal Reserve Board members whose confirmation would appear to give Fed chief Ben Bernanke a firmer grasp on the course of interest rates.

● Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, to be vice chairman of the Fed's board of governors. She is nominated for a full 14-year term expiring in 2024.
● Peter Diamond, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for a term ending in 2014.
● Sara Bloom Raskin, the Maryland state banking regulator, for a term ending in 2016.

Average Americans today aren’t hurting because the economy has stopped generating wealth. Average Americans are hurting because the wealth the economy is generating continues to cascade disproportionately to the top. Between 1983 and 2007, the nation’s richest 1 percent took in over one-third of the nation’s total gain in marketable wealth, over triple the 11.2 percent that went to the bottom 80 percent of the nation’s households. And since 2007 the top 1 percent of the nation’s households have seen their overall share of the nation’s wealth increase from 34.6 to 37.1 percent.

The Hamas Interior Ministry later said in a statement the gas used to try to clear the tunnel was poisonous. Besides those killed, six people were injured, it said. "This is a terrible crime committed by Egyptian security against simple Palestinian workers who were trying to earn their daily bread," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum to The Associated Press. "It was a killing in cold blood. Hamas and all the Palestinian people condemn it strongly." PressTV: Hamas: Egypt kills Gazans with gas.

Dozens of men corroborate extensive torture toward false confessions during their prolonged, indefinite detention in a Baghdad prison—kept secret for months—after village raids from September through December 2009 by the Iraqi government, interviews with Human Rights Watch (H.R.W.) reveal. The men were kidnapped during raids in Sunni Arab areas in Nineveh.

Last month, while the American media were distracted by the health care vote in Congress, the British Parliament published the results of its investigation into East Anglia University's Climate Research Unit (CRU) that has been at the center of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) controversy. It seems that many were hoping that no one would read this report, at least not beyond the milquetoast executive summary. Buried deep within the report is a compelling piece of evidence. In volume two, there is a memorandum submitted as evidence from Lord Lawson of Blaby, chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which was in response to four very significant questions from the investigating committee. This memo confirms the claims by many global warming skeptics that the scientists at CRU were trying to hide data and silence the skeptics. Climate Realists: Is Michael Mann Seriously Off his Head? Cfact: Top UN scientist complains about YouTube video, claims defamation. Marc Morano argues that everything in the video about Mann's unscientific methods is true. AWIP: Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding -VIDEO.

Workers along the Mississippi River try to con-
tain the hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel
oil from a barge and ship collision on Wednesday.
The river is now closed to the Gulf of Mexico.
Eliot Kamenitz / The Times-Picayune

Oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico from the well beneath where a British Petroleum (BP) drilling rig exploded at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day, a rate five times greater than earlier estimates, the US government reported late Wednesday night. US Coast Guard officials said a scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had reached the conclusion based on aerial surveys of the slick.

The spill, which is expected to hit land Friday near the mouth of the Mississippi River, threatens an ecological and economic disaster, imperiling beaches, estuaries, marshlands and wildlife. Gulf Coast fishing and tourism industries could be crippled.

Eleven workers died and four more were critically injured in the April 20 explosion on the oil rig operated by BP contractor Deepwater Horizon as it neared completion of drilling. A blowout caused by cementing operations was the likely cause.

At the current rate of leakage, some 210,000 gallons daily, the Gulf oil spill will exceed the volume of the Exxon Valdez disaster by the third week of June. By some time next week the spill will likely surpass the magnitude of the 1969 oil spill in the Santa Barbara Channel off the coast of California. That disaster led to the moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling along wide portions of the US coast that President Obama now wants lifted.

Efforts to cap the leak, at a depth of 5,000 feet, have so far failed. Proposed solutions, such as drilling an offset well to relieve pressure or dropping a dome over the leak at the seafloor, are untested and could take weeks or months to implement. A large-scale mobilization is now under way to try to contain the spill, but major damage appears inevitable. Globe & Mail: New leak found in Gulf Spill. -Incompetent drilling leads to environmental catastrophe (about 210,000 gallons a day). The Star: Halliburton said it did a variety of work on the rig and was assisting with the investigation ["Oil slick approaches U.S. wildlife reserve"]

Back in January last year, David Bond packed a rucksack, kissed his pregnant wife Katie and toddler Ivy, climbed into his Toyota Prius and drove away from home. Nobody knew where he was going – he didn’t even know himself. One thing he was sure about was this: “I’m going to leave my life behind and disappear,” he said. Katie remembers, about the amount of information on him and his family that was already out there. As he looked into it, he found that the UK, once a bastion of freedom and civil liberties, is now one of the most advanced surveillance societies in the world, ranked third after Russia and China. The average UK adult is now registered on more than 700 databases and is caught many times each day by nearly five million CCTV cameras. Increasingly monitored, citizens are being turned into suspects. Within 100 yards of Bond’s home, he discovered, there were no fewer than 200 cameras.

Hillary Confirms America Will Go To War For Israel - The Obama administration is warning Iran and Syria that America's commitment to Israel's security is unshakable and that they should understand the consequences of threats to the Jewish state.

Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi has criticized Western powers for spewing Iranophobic propaganda in the Middle East. He made the remarks during a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Thursday, ahead of the 12th session of a joint Syrian-Iranian commission aimed at strengthening diplomatic and economic ties. Rahimi dismissed the anti-Iran agitprop as ineffective in light of Iran's cordial relations with the region's nations. The First Vice President also stressed that Tehran is committed to pursuing its right in developing civilian nuclear technology for peaceful purposes despite pronounced threats from the United States and its allies. [PressTV: UN's Ban shows bias on nuclear issue.]

Kuwait Wont' Allow Obama To Bomb Iran From Its Soil - "Kuwait will express to the US its support for a diplomatic solution over Iran's nuclear file to avoid any action that may transform the region into a volcano."

A senior Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri has held Egypt responsible for the death of four Palestinians killed in a border tunnel and has demanded for an impartial investigation. Speaking at a press conference in Gaza on Thursday, Abu Zuhri strongly condemned Cairo's application of gas against Palestinian citizens. The Hamas official also demanded Egypt to conduct an immediate probe into the incident and to prosecute the perpetrators, the International Middle East Media Center reported. "This is not the first time Egypt launches poison gas attacks against tunnel workers. At least 40 tunnel workers have been poisoned by toxic gasses since the siege on Gaza began. A total of 145 have lost their lives in various events," Abu Zuhri pointed out.

Aaron Russo, a Film Director interviews the makers of the Bio Chip.

Special US envoy George Mitchell has visited the area, armed with a special letter from President Barack Obama to the Palestinian president reiterating what seems to have been a US-Israel understanding that the proximity talks will take place soon. The Palestinian side is keen this time not to waste time on talking for the sake of talking, or based on the idea of incremental negotiations. Palestinians are determined to tackle the issue of borders first and walk back from that to how to implement the establishment of the Palestinian state. In meantime the Israeli tourism ministry (in its most recent maps) has unilaterally annexed Palestine to Israel and has omitted the existence of many Palestinian communities. While the West Bank is not demarked nor mentioned as the West Bank, the general southern area is listed as Judea and in the north the area is listed as Samaria (both Biblical names). The Gaza strip, however, is demarked with the words “Azza (Gaza) strip.”

For most people, one time being killed by the United States is plenty. Even the most hardened insurgent can rarely claim to have been killed more than a couple of times before it takes on an air of permanence. But Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has them all beat with the apparent confirmation of his latest survival, his seventh overall. According to a senior member of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency Hakimullah, who was “confirmed” killed in January and then assumed to be gravely wounded, and who was “confirmed” the have died of his injuries in February, is alive and “basically ok.” Hakimullah has not been seen publicly since a late February video was released, though with the Pakistani military attacking the TTP in several agencies across the tribal areas and with so many threats against his life it is perhaps unsurprising that he is keeping a low profile. Hakimullah took power of the TTP in August after the US successfully assassinated his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, in an air strike. Baitullah’s death was initially thought to be a serious blow to the group but the aggressive and charismatic Hakimullah has made the group arguably far more dangerous, launching several major attacks and orchestrating the bombing of a CIA base in neighboring Afghanistan.

US Death Squads in Afghanistan - From the attack on a bridal shower in Gardez on February 12, 2010 that killed numerous civilians, including two pregnant women, to the growing list of executions of insurgents in the Kandahar area, Special Forces have become the US military version of death squads.

When Palestinians violently react to Israels criminal behavior they're murdered by Israel, when they peacefully react they're murdered by Israel but with much less coverage.

Records of Afghan detainee transfer orders showing whether Canadian military commanders took the risk of torture into account are buried in sea shipping containers and "may take years" to locate, the Military Police Complaints Commission was told Tuesday. The revelation by Maj. Denis Gagnon emerged when he was closely questioned by lawyer Paul Champ, who said the commission is on the verge of deciding whether it has to suspend public hearings, partly because of missing and delayed documents from the Defence Department. Gagnon said the documents are "all thrown together in a storage bin, a sea container" and an assessment of how long it would take to catalogue documents and identify the records requested by the commission may take years. The hearings are into a complaint by Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association that Canadian military commanders ordered the transfer of detainees to Afghan custody despite a high risk of torture and that military police failed to investigate. Such transfers are illegal under international law.

The Obama administration is seeking to compel a writer to testify about his confidential sources for a 2006 book about the Central Intelligence Agency, a rare step that was authorized by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The author, James Risen, who is a reporter for The New York Times, received a subpoena on Monday requiring him to provide documents and to testify May 4 before a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., about his sources for a chapter of his book, “State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration.” The chapter largely focuses on problems with a covert C.I.A. effort to disrupt alleged Iranian nuclear weapons research. Mr. Risen referred questions to his lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg, a partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel L.L.P., who said that Mr. Risen would not comply with the demand and would ask a judge to quash the subpoena.

The North Korean military has recently altered its wartime contingency plans against South Korea to concentrate on attacking the Seoul metropolitan region, a military source said yesterday. South Korean commanders will meet next month to discuss the change and their response to it. According to the high-ranking source, the North’s military recently decided to do away with the so-called “Five-to-Seven” plans dating from the 1980s to adopt a new plan in which it would occupy only a part of South Korea and start negotiating a cease-fire. “We believe the North made the change to better deal with the upgraded weapons systems of the U.S. and South Korean forces,” the source explained.

An Iranian maritime patrol aircraft buzzed the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower at sea in the Middle East last week, passing within 1,000 yards of the ship, but American defense officials sought to downplay the encounter as relatively common. There was no information about exactly where the encounter took place — for example, in the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Oman — but the official said it happened in “international waters.”

AntiWar: "Papering" the War Against Iran.

Currently, the search for a piece of paper that will seal the fate of Iran is underway, with considerable pressure from the White House to come up with a document that can be used to justify war.

A senior Iranian lawmaker says the United States is held in contempt for its status as the only country to have used nuclear weapons in the past. Chairman of Iran's parliamentary (Majlis) Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Wednesday that Washington should apologize for its failure to abide by its obligations under international law and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). He noted that Iran's sharp criticism against Washington's lack of commitment has further intensified “the global wave of revulsion and disdain” against US policies.

A solidarity caravan travelling to the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala in the Triqui Region of Oaxaca has been attacked by UBISORT paramilitaries. Two are confirmed dead, with at least 15 injured and three missing.

A soldier caught driving at 143mph has been allowed to keep his licence so he can train for a life-saving role in Afghanistan. Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineer Kameron Edmondson admitted going twice the speed limit on the M40 in his Ford Focus ST, believing he was being persued by a Subaru Impreza. He said did not realise it was an unmarked police car.

[Craig Murray:] Jack Straw and the Rule of Law -You would expect Jack Straw as "Justice Minister" to support the rule of law. But not only has he personally just flagrantly breached the criminal law on treating in elections, he has supported the astonishing idea that troops serving in Afghanistan should be exempt from law while off duty in the UK. Minister of Justice Jack Straw commented: "It seems to me that the judge has shown appropriate mercy for someone risking his life for the rest of us.” Anyone driving at 143mph on the public highway is a real threat to kill members of the public. So the Justice Minster believes soldiers should be exempt from such laws? What else will the principle be extended to? Rape? "Yes, he raped her, but he is doing important work protecting the nation in Afghanistan". -Straw is an absolute disgrace.

Gordon Brown was fighting for his political life today after he delivered a potential knockout blow to his own election hopes just hours before the crucial final live television debate. The Prime Minister will desperately try and draw a line under the 'bigotgate' scandal when he is expected to apologise again for insulting grandmother Gillian Duffy in tonight's debate. In a tumultuous day for Labour, the Prime Minister tore up his plans and returned to Mrs Duffy's terrace house to beg for forgiveness after he was caught calling her a bigot because she questioned him about immigration.

An oil spill caused by last week’s deadly explosion on a British Petroleum (BP) oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico is spreading toward the coast of Louisiana, threatening fisheries, beaches and numerous species. The April 20 explosion on the BP-contracted rig, Deepwater Horizon, took the lives of 11 workers and critically injured four more. It was caused by a blowback when a mud sealant applied to the drill hole on the seabed likely failed to seal. Oil then forced its way up the drill bore blowing apart machinery and igniting a fire that lasted two days, eventually collapsing the rig, which was operating in 5,000 feet of water. Louisiana’s coastal waters and its vast Mississippi Delta contain about 40 percent of US wetlands and are home to nesting and spawning areas for hundreds of species of birds and fish. The area of the spill is also the habitat for a pod of sperm whales. “If some of the weather conditions continue, the Delta area is at risk,” said Charlie Henry of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This Can't Be Happening!: Murphy's Law and the Stupidity of Obama's Drill-Drill-Drill Offshore Oil Policy.

The pilots waging America’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan could be liable to criminal prosecution for “war crimes,” a prominent law professor told a Congressional panel Wednesday. Harold Koh, the State Department’s top legal adviser, outlined the administration’s legal case for the robotic attacks last month. Now, some legal experts are taking turns to punch holes in Koh’s argument. It’s part of an ongoing legal debate about the CIA and U.S. military’s lethal drone operations, which have escalated in recent months — and which have received some technological upgrades. Critics of the program, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have argued that the campaign amounts to a program of targeted killing that may violate the laws of war.

Four Palestinians were killed and another 10 injured after Egyptian security forces blew up four tunnels under the border with Gaza. The Palestinian police blame the Egyptian security forces for killing the Palestinians by destroying the tunnels while they were working in them, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Egyptian security officials have admitted they destroyed four tunnels north of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. Three people died of smoke inhalation and a fourth died due to injuries received from flying debris. Palestinians have largely relied on the tunnels for importing food and other vital assistance into the Gaza Strip since Israel imposed a tight blockade on the coastal enclave after Hamas took control of the region in June 2007.

An Israeli border police officer sprays colored pepper spray in the eyes of a handcuffed Palestinian youth as Israeli security forces scuffle with Palestinians during a demonstration against the construction of Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank village of Walajeh, outside occupied Jerusalem, Tuesday. Haaretz: Israeli soldiers Wednesday opened fire on a group on non-violent protesters in Gaza killing a 20-year old Palestinian.

WMR has learned from two El Al sources who worked for the Israeli airline at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport that on 9/11, hours after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded all civilian domestic and international incoming and outgoing flights to and from the United States, a full El Al Boeing 747 took off from JFK bound for Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport. The two El Al employee sources are not Israeli nationals but legal immigrants from Ecuador who were working in the United States for the airline. The flight departed JFK at 4:11 pm and its departure was, according to the El Al sources, authorized by the direct intervention of the U.S. Department of Defense. U.S. military officials were on the scene at JFK and were personally involved with the airport and air traffic control authorities to clear the flight for take-off. According to the 9/11 Commission report, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta ordered all civilian flights to be grounded at 9:45 am on September 11. The El Al flight took off two days before commercial flights were permitted to resume on September 13.

The U.S. GIVES Israel over 3 BILLION DOLLARS a year in aid.
The U.S. turns a blind eye on every atrocity committed by Israel.
The U.S. vetos every UN Resolution condemning Israel.
The U.S. supplies Israel with the arms used to commit the genocide against the Palestinian people.

BUT……Foxman: US shift in Israel policy “deeply distressing”

Nancy Schaefer "The Unlimited Power of Child Protective Services" (Part 2 of 2)

"After 4 years of viewing the ruthless and unsparing actions of CPS... I wrote a scathing report, entitled 'The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services." The report cost me my senate seat."

As we now know, Nancy Schaefer lost more than her senate fighting CPS. Let's keep her spirit alive, and keep fighting against the "ruthless and unsparing" gang of thugs known as CPS. This video is Part 1 of a 2, a powerful speech, given by Nancy Schaefer in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, August 15, 2009.

A new government report says global warming could lead to an increase in both cancer and mental illness worldwide, and it calls for more federally funded research to determine how that might happen. The report, A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change, was published by the Interagency Working Group on Climate Change and Health – a combination of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NIH, State Department, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Agriculture, the EPA, and the Department of Health and Human Services. The report's overall thrust is for more federally funded research to investigate the alleged links between global warming and public health, including the potentially negative effects from warming and the potentially negative side-effect of green technologies.

NEW YORK - The only man ever to admit involvement in the assassination of Malcolm X was freed on parole yesterday, 45 years after he helped gun down the civil rights leader. Thomas Hagan was the last man still serving time in the 1965 killing, part of the skein of violence that wound through the cultural and political upheaval of the 1960s. He was freed from a Manhattan prison where he spent two days a week under a work-release programme. Hagan, 69, has repeatedly expressed sorrow for being one of the gunmen who fired on Malcolm X, killing one of the civil rights era's most polarising and compelling figures. One of the groups dedicated to Malcolm X's memory condemned Hagan's parole.

The US military has announced the death of an American soldier after a roadside bomb went off in Iraq's northeastern province of Diyala. "A United States Division-North soldier was killed Tuesday by a bomb explosion in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad," US military said in a statement issued on Wednesday. According to the statement, the incident is currently under investigation. Meanwhile, the name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. The latest death raises to seven the number of fatalities among American soldiers in war-ravaged Iraq during the month of April. The death also brings to 24 the number of US soldiers killed so far this year in the country. The US army has lost 4,394 soldiers in Iraq so far.

Ekaterina Gerasimova has piercing blue eyes, an innocent girl-next-door face, and likes to do a little amateur modelling. But if her "victims" are to be believed, she is the Kremlin's most effective secret agent and a latter-day Mata Hari. Her mission, it is claimed, is to discredit prominent Kremlin critics by luring them into compromising situations using vintage KGB honey trap techniques. Offering her own body, sex, and drugs from cocaine to marijuana as an inducement, "Katya" as she is usually known has tried and often succeeded in bedding at least half a dozen high-profile Kremlin critics. The reputational damage she has inflicted has varied from serious to negligible depending on her victim's marital status and response. Her latest victim was Viktor Shenderovich, a journalist and the script writer on Russia's now defunct version of the Spitting Image TV satire. Mr Shenderovich, who is married and has a daughter, admits that he slept with Ms Gerasimova but claims he was set up by the Kremlin. Sydney Morning Herald: Modern Mata Hari leaves Kremlin critics exposed.

Today’s Senate hearings, carried on CNBC, Bloomberg, and C-SPAN, represent the first major exposure of the American people to the scandalous frauds of the derivatives casino, including synthetic collateralized debt obligations (synthetic CDOs or CDO²). These are things most people have heard very little about. They begin to open up the shocking reality behind such shopworn euphemisms like “toxic assets,” “exotic instruments,” and “troubled assets.” Reactionaries in general and Republicans in particular have done everything possible to hide the role of derivatives, which must be considered the main cause of the financial panic of September 2008 which brought down Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and AIG, after felling Bear Stearns in March of the same year. The reactionary legend, repeated yesterday on the Senate floor by financier minion GOP Sen. Gregg of New Hampshire, is that the crisis was caused by poor people taking out subprime mortgages and then defaulting, bringing down the entire Anglo-American banking system and triggering the bailouts. Either that, or too much government spending was too blame.

Palin on Fox News refers to something the "lamestream media" did. Turns out it was Fox News. On last night's Hannity, Fox News contributor Sarah Palin did what she does best-complain about the "lamestream media throughout our country." This time, the media's "lame[ness]" was revealed through their coverage of Arizona's new controversial immigration law. Palin sniffed: "One of the media outlets the other day just-was killing me on this one, Sean, where they had a caption across their screen that said Arizona law will make it illegal to be an illegal immigrant? Some bizarre type of headline like that where it was just this illustration that they just don't get it."

[Photo: Young Israelis enjoying an afternoon up in the the hills overlooking Gaza. They're smiling and having a good time watching the the Israeli air force dropping bombs on Palestinian civilians in Gaza, presumably enjoying every minute of it.] More than half of Jewish Israelis think human rights organizations that expose immoral behavior by Israel should not be allowed to operate freely, and support punishing journalists who report news that reflects badly on the actions of the Israeli military establishment. Another 82 percent of respondents said they back stiff penalties for people who leak illegally obtained information exposing immoral conduct by the defense establishment. The survey, commissioned by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University, will be presented Wednesday at a conference on the limits of freedom of expression. The pollsters surveyed 500 Jewish Israelis who can be considered a representative sample of the adult Jewish population. PressTV: Gaza and the rise of the Fourth Reich.

[Editor's Comment:] This shocking disconnect between accepted, normal and civilized standards & values, on the one hand, and the callous, unempathic Zionistic mindset on the other, is typical of Israel's Jewish population. When around 82% of them take the notion that it's ok for their own military to commit immoral acts because the army in question is their own, then this would point to a very deeply ingrained tribalism and amorality on a collective level. -No wonder it has proven almost impossible to achieve some measure of peace in the region!

One soldier has reportedly been killed and several people have been injured in fierce clashes between security forces and anti-government red shirt protesters in the Thai capital, Bangkok. The clashes on Wednesday came after police and soldiers opened fire with rubber bullets and live ammunition in an attempt to halt a convoy of red shirts headed for a rally on the outskirts of Bangkok. The confrontation on a main highway in the city's north as the red shirts defied government warnings not to try and escalate their protests out of the centre of the city.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Racing against a threat to environmentally sensitive marshlands, authorities planned to begin Wednesday burning some of the thickest oil from a rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana. A Coast Guard spokesman says the burn was expected to begin in the morning. Petty Officer 2nd Class Prentice Danner says fire-resistant containment booms will be used to corral some of the thickest oil on the water's surface, which will then be ignited. It was unclear how large an area would be set on fire or how far from shore the first fire would be set. The slick is the result of oil leaking from the site of last week's huge explosion of the rig Deepwater Horizon that left 11 people missing and presumed dead. Oil continues to spill undersea at an estimated rate of 42,000 gallons a day.

PARIS -- A lawyer for former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega says he is sick and struggling to settle into a French prison, but is in fighting spirits. Noriega, who is in his 70s, spent his first night in Paris' La Sante prison after being extradited from the United States. He was deposed in a U.S. invasion in 1989, then spent 20 years in a Miami prison on drug trafficking charges. He arrived in France on Tuesday to face money laundering charges here.

Former First Lady Laura Bush suggests in her new, soon-to-be-published memoir, 'Spoken from the Heart,' that she and President George W. Bush, as well as several members of their staff, may have been poisoned during a trip to Germany for a G8 Summit. A copy of the book scheduled for release in May was obtained by The New York Times. "They all became mysteriously sick," reveals the NYT, "and the president was bedridden for part of the trip. The Secret Service investigated the possibility they were poisoned, she writes, but doctors could only conclude that they all contracted a virus. After noting several high-profile poisonings, she wrote, “we never learned if any other delegations became ill, or if ours, mysteriously, was the only one.”'

Defence spent more than $6M at controversial U.S. security firm. The National Defence Department has spent more than $6-million having its troops trained by the controversial Blackwater security company, whose own employees have been accused of needlessly killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, documents show. The department sent a succession of personnel to Blackwater's Moyock, N.C., training compound from 2005 to as recently as April 2009, some of them learning tactics for working in dangerous settings, records obtained through access-to-information legislation indicate. AntiWar: Canada’s ‘Whole Freaking Government’ Approach in Afghanistan.

Egypt has declared that turning the Middle East into a nuclear weapons-free zone is the key to solving the dispute over Iran's nuclear program and said Israel must sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). "Success in dealing with Iran will depend to a large extent on how successfully we deal with the establishment of a nuclear-free zone" in the Middle East, Egypt's Ambassador to the UN, Maged Abdel Aziz, told a luncheon briefing with reporters in New York on Tuesday. "We refuse the existence of any nuclear weapons in (the Middle East) whether it is in Iran or whether it is in Israel," AFP quoted Abdel Aziz as saying.