The evidence is now overwhelming. The United States government has facilitated the theft of trillions of dollars of national wealth and 99% of the US population no longer has political representation.

After terrorist conspirator and “former” U.S. government agent David Coleman Headley received promises of leniency and extradition protection from American prosecutors for his role in the 2008 Mumbai massacre, speculation about his true masters was set ablaze as outrage erupted across India. Headley — a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent and the son of a Pakistani diplomat — pled guilty to various criminal charges on March 18 in connection with his terrorist activities in India, Pakistan and Denmark. He is reportedly “cooperating” with investigators.

In exchange, the government vowed not to allow foreign authorities to question him or subject him to trial. Prosecutors also agreed not seek the death penalty, and he may not even serve a life sentence. Links to U.S. intelligence agencies will remain classified. And his guilty plea ensures that there will be no drawn-out trial that could publicly reveal any relationships with various intelligence agencies — most notably, the Central Intelligence Agency-linked Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence.

Headley admitted in the plea bargain that he helped plan the bloody massacre by conducting surveillance and selecting targets, gathering GPS coordinates for the terrorist team’s boat landing along the coast, and more. He was also helping to plan an attack on a Danish cartoonist. And while the Federal Bureau of Investigation was given almost 10 hours to question the only surviving attacker in India, a team of Indian investigators who traveled to the U.S. to interrogate Headley was turned away.

Admits 'Vast Fraud' in August Vote, Claims UN Conspiracy Against Him. For the first time since the vote, Afghan President Hamid Karzai admitted today that there was “vast fraud” in the August election which gave him a second term as president. Despite the fact that the vast majority of the fraudulent votes were cast on his behalf, however, Karzai maintains innocence. Instead he claims there is a UN conspiracy behind the fraud that was intent on denying him reelection. The claim is perplexing since then-UN official Kai Eide was reported to have tried to cover up the extent of the fraud. The allegation comes as Karzai is locked in a battle with the Afghan parliament over his attempts to seize unilateral control over the UN electoral watchdog, a move which is poised to lead the international community to deny funding for the parliamentary election later this summer.

According to just released EU figures, CO2 emissions from industry sectors covered by the ETS have dropped by 11 percent over last year. This, we are told, is on top of a six percent fall the previous year, leaving industry users with a massive surplus of EU CO2 emission permits. The effect is mainly due to the recession, although the increased use of gas rather than coal and fuel oil for electricity generation has contributed to the downturn in emissions.

The International Monetary Fund reacted positively to the creation of NAMA. Ireland’s financial position in the world is now more credible following the transfer of so-called ‘toxic loans’ to the state owned bank, the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA). This credibility is not shared by the some Irish citizens and is in stark contrast to the protests seen outside Anglo Irish Bank in Dublin. Anglo Irish Bank is in the most precarious financial position and is expected to need bailout funds of €22 billion. At a news briefing held in Washington DC, IMF Deputy Director of External Relations Department, said the Irish government’s support “has been vital to maintain financial stability" and is the right thing to do. He said the government is providing extensive and ongoing support and is an important step on the road to economic recovery.

Today, the Real Economy Project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released an assessment of the total cost to taxpayers of the Wall Street bailout. CMD concludes that multiple federal agencies have disbursed $4.6 trillion dollars in supporting the financial sector since the meltdown in 2007-2008. Of that, $2 trillion is still outstanding. CMD’s assessment demonstrates that the Federal Reserve has provided by far the bulk of the funding for the bailout in the form of loans amounting to $3.8 trillion. Little information has been disclosed about what collateral taxpayers have received in return for these loans. CMD also concludes that the bailout is far from over as the government has active programs authorized to cost up to $2.9 trillion and still has $2 trillion in outstanding investments and loans.

[Carlos Latuff] The Israeli deputy prime minister has warned that Tel Aviv would soon launch another large-scale military operation against the Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip. Silvan Shalom made the remarks on Friday after Israel carried out a series of airstrikes, injuring three Palestinian children, aged two, four and 11.

The deputy premier said that the new offensive will be launched in the near future. He added that the military attack is a response to rocket fire from Gaza. A single rocket landed near the Israeli town of Ashkelon on Thursday, causing some damage but no casualties. Hamas did not claim responsibility for the attack. Israel responded by carrying out six waves of air raids overnight. Tel Aviv holds Hamas responsible for the ineffective and occasional attacks with home-made rockets that carry little or no explosive warhead.

Israeli planes have carried out 13 air strikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip where Hamas was democratically elected. Four of the strikes took place near the town of Khan Younis, where two Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Palestinian fighters last week. Israel says the operation was targeting four weapons factories. Several minor civilian casualties were reported. The latest violence is the most serious since the end of Israel's assault on Gaza in January 2009. Palestinians and rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans died in the conflict, while Israel puts the figure at 1,166. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were killed.

A top-ranking, highly decorated officer in the U.S. Army says he's now refusing all orders until President Barack Obama finally releases his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate to prove his eligibility to serve as commander in chief. "I feel I have no choice but the distasteful one of inviting my own court martial," said Lt. Col. Terry Lakin, an active-duty flight surgeon charged with caring for Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey's pilots and air crew. "The Constitution matters. The truth matters."

"For the first time in all my years of service to our great nation, and at great peril to my career and future, I am choosing to disobey what I believe are illegal orders, including an order to deploy to Afghanistan for my second tour of duty there. I will disobey my orders to deploy because I – and I believe all servicemen and women and the American people – deserve the truth about President Obama's constitutional eligibility to the office of the presidency and the commander in chief.

New York forensic experts will start a major new search Monday through debris from the World Trade Center for remains of people killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack, officials said. About 844 cubic yards (645 cubic meters) of material recovered from the reconstruction site at Ground Zero will be combed for bones and other remains of the 2,752 people killed when hijacked airliners slammed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. "That material is going to be sifted to see if there are any human remains," said Jason Post, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "We're taking every step we can to recover the remains of 9/11 victims." [They should take samples of the thermite that's there too...]

The files, obtained by Freedom of Information Act request, detail hundreds of cases in which families of the dead filed for compensation after their loved ones were killed by or as a result of coalition forces. "The files made public today comprise over 800 claims for compensation or condolence payments submitted to the U.S. Foreign Claims Commissions and the Commander's Emergency Response Program by surviving family members of Afghan and Iraqi civilians said to have been killed or injured or to have suffered property damages due to actions by Coalition Forces," the group announced in a media advisory. "Many of the claims were denied under the so-called "combat exemption" to the Foreign Claims Act (FCA), which provides that harm inflicted on residents of foreign countries by U.S. soldiers during combat cannot be compensated under the FCA, even if the victims had no involvement whatsoever in the combat. The documents reveal that, due to the claim denials, many innocent civilians were not compensated for their harm or were referred to the Commander's Emergency Response Program for a discretionary condolence payment that is subject to an automatic $2,500 limit per death." The complete log of documents is available in two parts: here and here. PressTV: 800 complaints filed over civilian casualties of US wars.

The late Tucson Bishop Manuel D. Moreno, often characterized as a poor advocate for sexual abuse victims, struggled with both canon law and Vatican mandates in his efforts to defrock two local priests, documents obtained by the Arizona Daily Star show. In one case, Moreno pleaded with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, for help in removing the Rev. Michael Teta, who was convicted by the church in 1997 of five crimes including sexual solicitation in the confessional. Belfast Telegraph: Vatican was warned about paedophile priests in 1963.