A suicide blast at a political gathering in north-west Pakistan has killed 38 people, while the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the deaths of two guards at a Pakistani checkpost near the US consulate in nearby Peshawar.

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

Brave New Foundation’s Rethink Afghanistan project has been following the story about a night raid in Gardez by U.S. and Afghan forces (see the video above), and today those forces made a major admission about their responsibility for civilian deaths. In a press release issued on Easter (gee, I wonder if they hoped people would be distracted today), the U.S. and allied forces under General McChrystal’s command, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), admitted they killed two innocent civilians and three women, two of them pregnant. PressTV: US-led forces admit killing Afghan civilians. AWIP/Chris Floyd: An Unaccustomed Truth: American Commander Admits Afghan Atrocities.

TimesOnline: US special forces 'tried to cover-up' botched Khataba raid in Afghanistan:

US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened.

TPM: Gen. McChrystal: We've Shot 'An Amazing Number Of People' Who Were Not Threats:

"[N]ot a single case where we have...hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it... We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force."

[Editor's Comment:] Considering this extremely low level of respect for human life plus the fact that the US intends to occupy Afghanistan for an indefinite amount of time, it would seem that the US army & air force will kill an indefinite number of people. -Is there any deeper level of depravity to which the US will not stoop?

The speech appears to have centered chiefly on attacking the US and its NATO allies, and parliament itself, warning that if they didn’t assent to his takeover of the Electoral Complaints Commission it would give the impression that Afghanistan was Western dominated and grant legitimacy to the Taliban. The MPs present say that Karzai even threatened to join the insurgency at one point. One Afghan official called Karzai’s comments “shocking,” and US officials, still irked by Karzai’s claims last week that the massive vote fraud in his favor was a Western conspiracy against him, are complaining that the Afghan president is becoming increasing[ly] erratic headstrong and difficult to "work with" [less subservient].

These figures translate to about 100 million Americans that question or find fault with the official 9/11 story, far from a trivial number and far too many to dismiss as conspiracy nuts and part of the lunatic fringe. Consistent with this is that two-thirds of Americans (67 percent) agree with the government commission that investigated the events of Sept. 11, 2001, which concluded that an attack was carried out by 19 hijackers who were members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, led by Osama bin Laden. Though 12 per cent of respondents reject the commission's findings, one-in-five Americans (21 percent) are undecided. In particular, 35 percent of Independents and 34 percent of Democrats do not accept the official version, compared to just 20 percent of Republicans.

Four in 10 Tea Party members are either Democrats or Independents, according to a new national survey. The findings provide one of the most detailed portraits to date of the grassroots movement that started last year. The national breakdown of the Tea Party composition is 57 percent Republican, 28 percent Independent and 13 percent Democratic, according to three national polls by the Winston Group, a Republican-leaning firm that conducted the surveys on behalf of an education advocacy group. Two-thirds of the group call themselves conservative, 26 are moderate and 8 percent say they are liberal.

BBC One Panorama investigates claims that as much as $23 billion may have been lost, stolen or not properly accounted for in Iraq. Congressional candidate Alan Grayson is interviewed in the program because of his work successfully prosecuting war profiteers.

Salvage experts and a tugboat crew struggled on Monday to save a large Chinese freighter that slammed into the Great Barrier Reef off Australia over the weekend, trying to prevent the vessel from breaking apart as some of the 1,075 tons of engine fuel in its tanks began oozing from the hull, threatening the world’s largest collection of coral.

ISLAMABAD: The United States appears to be ‘forewarning’ Pakistan, about continuing with the billion dollar gas pipeline from Iran into Pakistan, but officialdom here, is relaxed, saying that China and Russia were bound to veto any further stringent measures against Iran in the United Nations Security Council, which would want to see this ambitious project wrapped up.

In a busy internet cafe in the centre of Gaza City, lots of people, mostly young, are typing and clicking away. Some of them are engrossed in the world of Facebook. "I use it 10 hours a day," says Mohammed who owns the shop. "I have over 200 Facebook friends."

But Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip, believes the population's love of social networking websites is making it easier for Israel to recruit spies. Israel has long maintained networks of informers in the West Bank and Gaza in its effort to derail the activities of militant groups. Historically, collaborators have often been killed if discovered, and this week Hamas announced it would execute anyone caught acting as an agent for Israel.

Wikileaks has a mission of bringing hidden information to light, when it’s in the public interest. Wikipedia outlines their greatest hits, including Gauntanamo Bay procedure documents, scientology secrets, and net censorship lists. They come under fire sometimes for hosting material that probably isn’t much in the public interest, but overall they have contributed some compelling information to some fractious global arguments.

MARTINSVILLE, Ind. -- One officer called to a home day care to help control an unruly 10-year-old used a stun gun on the boy and another slapped him in the face when he wouldn't listen to them, a central Indiana chief police said Thursday. The child suffered no significant injuries. Both officers have been placed on administrative duty while the Tuesday confrontation is being investigated.

More than 400 French climate scientists want science minister Valérie Pécresse to take a clear stand against the country's most vocal climate skeptic, geochemist Claude Allègre of the Institute of Geophysics of Paris (IPGP). On Wednesday, the group sent Pécresse a letter denouncing Allègre's latest book, L'imposture climatique (The Climate Fraud), and asking her to express confidence in the climate research community. Allègre was science minister from 1997 until 2000.

The book—a series of interviews with journalist Dominique de Montvalon—includes a harsh attack on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which Allègre calls a "mafia-like system" that propagates a "baseless myth." Climate scientists and journalists at several newspapers have argued that the book is riddled with errors, distortions of the data, and outright lies. WUWT: Climate Craziness of the Week – Greenpeace posts threats.

Nael Al-Barghouthi, who is known to be the oldest serving Palestinian prisoner in Israel, remains behind bars. Sunday was the 33rd anniversary of his detention in Israel. Barghouthi, born in 1957, was arrested in 1978 and was sentenced to life in prison. He has not been allowed to meet any family members or any other person during his time in prison.

The higher national committee in support of prisoners on Sunday said that the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) had detained more than 1,400 Palestinians in the first quarter of 2010 including 90 from the Gaza Strip. Riyadh Al-Ashkar, the head of the committee's information office, said in a press release that the number of detainees from Jerusalem and the West Bank was on the rise, noting that 400 citizens were rounded up in Jerusalem alone. Ashkar said that 18 fishermen were among the 90 detainees from Gaza Strip along with many other workers who were detained while collecting scrap near the northern crossing.

Racism: "A group of Swedes who were on their way to Israel for a field trip with a peace initiative was stopped at the airport in Tel Aviv on Friday.3 persons with Palestinian background was interrogated for 8 hours before they were rejected - but the 4 with jewish background were admitted."

When scandal hits Israel, the Israeli government muzzles the entire press Iran-style. A reporter is jailed and Israeli press risks being shut down simply for reporting on the story. The IDF chose to disobey a court order and Israeli law by killing instead of arresting a Palestinian.

[Homo habilis lived 2.0-1.6 million years ago and had a wide distribution in Africa] The new species of hominid, the evolutionary branch of primates that includes humans, is to be revealed when the two-million-year-old skeleton of a child is unveiled this week. Scientists believe the almost-complete fossilised skeleton belonged to a previously-unknown type of early human ancestor that may have been a intermediate stage as ape-men evolved into the first species of advanced humans, Homo habilis. Experts who have seen the skeleton say it shares characteristics with Homo habilis, whose emergence 2.5 million years ago is seen as a key stage in the evolution of our species. The new discovery could help to rewrite the history of human evolution by filling in crucial gaps in the scientific knowledge.

Most fossilised hominid remains are little more than scattered fragments of bone, so the discovery of an almost-complete skeleton will allow scientists to answer key questions about what our early ancestors looked like and when they began walking upright on two legs. Palaeontologists and human evolutionary experts behind the discovery have remained silent about the exact details of what they have uncovered, but the scientific community is already abuzz with anticipation of the announcement of the find when it is made on Thursday.