Taliban has released a new video said to be of US soldier Bowe Robert Bergdahl begging the US government to intervene and win his release after nine months in captivity in Afghanistan. Looking lean, but fit, Bergdahl, who said his duty station was in Fort Richardson, Alaska, appeared in combat fatigues in the 7m 55sec video released today which was picked up and distributed by the SITE monitoring service.

Israel has lifted censorship on reports that a former soldier is under house arrest for leaking more than 2,000 classified military documents to an Israeli newspaper. An Israeli court had ruled that local media could not report Anat Kamm's detention since December for allegedly taking the documents when on mandatory military service between 2007-9. However, information concerning the 23-year-old's arrest had been reported in international newspapers and websites over the past couple of weeks prompting the easing of the ban on Thursday, subsequently raising discontent over press freedom in Israel.

Kyrgyzstan's opposition says it has seized power in the impoverished and strategically important Central Asian state after an uprising forced President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to flee the capital. Roza Otunbayeva, leader of the interim government, demanded the resignation of the president, whom she helped propel to power five years ago. She said Mr Bakiyev, who fled while security forces fired on protesters besieging government buildings in bloody clashes in Bishkek, was trying to rally supporters in his power base in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Missile strikes by French forces have reportedly killed at least five school children and injured three others in eastern Afghanistan, a local official says. The fatal incident took place in Sofian region of Kapisa Province on Tuesday, a Press TV correspondent reported. Member of Kapisa's Provincial Council Najibollah Rahmani said the incident happened after French troops and armed Taliban were engaged in an exchange of fire. Authorities have confirmed civilian casualties but they say it is not clear whose missiles they were. NATO says the deaths resulted from clashes between its troops and armed fighters. Civilian casualties in Afghanistan caused by attacks carried out by coalition forces have fueled anti-US sentiment in the country.

You Tube: US Tank crushes Iraqi civilian's car AWIP: U.S. Atrocities: Collateral Murder -VIDEO

Israeli police arrested six men suspected of trafficking organs in northern Israel Tuesday, Haaretz reports. And IDF brigadier-general and two lawyers number among the suspects. Police conducted their investigation through the Department for Fraud and Misappropriation in northern Israel. They began the investigation following a complaint from a 50-year-old Nazareth resident. The woman said she replied to an Arabic ad looking for a kidney in exchange for $100,000. Gilad Atzmon: The Shylocks meet the Fagins by Gilad Atzmon.

At this point the brothers were approached by an El Al security officer, Ilan Or, who demanded Abd al-Wahab apologizes to the guard, or he won't be allowed onto the flight. "I walked away, sat down on a bench and began crying," Abd al-Wahab said in his affidavit. "I was crying over the humiliation I was put through, despite being a law-abiding citizen all my life, over being humiliated in front of all the other passengers and colleagues, and over being treated differently just because of our national and religious origin. People walked over to me and tried to cheer me up, but I was in shock. I cried like I never cried before in public."

In an analysis of the past 1.2 million years, UC Santa Barbara geologist Lorraine Lisiecki discovered a pattern that connects the regular changes of the Earth's orbital cycle to changes in the Earth's climate. The finding is reported in this week's issue of the scientific journal Nature Geoscience. Lisiecki performed her analysis of climate by examining ocean sediment cores. These cores come from 57 locations around the world. By analyzing sediments, scientists are able to chart the Earth's climate for millions of years in the past. Lisiecki's contribution is the linking of the climate record to the history of the Earth's orbit.

So what do the majority of bankers have to fear from a break up? Nothing. It would bring management closer to the customer and the employee, create a better customer experience, more equitable pay, better teamwork, and a return to values oriented banking.

This Empire has lost what little of its mind that it had left after the syphilitic Bush years. The Empire is literally living on borrowed time. The expensive occupations, the expansion of Empire into South America, the new threats of sanctions against Iran, the continued and unwavering support of Israel, the increase (66% over the Bush years) in drone bombings, hellfire missiles raining down in Yemen, presidential targeting of American citizens abroad, yadda, yadda, yadda—will lead to the eventual downfall of the American Empire. It always happens and it will happen this time, too.

"The US is working on a new generation of nuclear bombs. It also defends Israel that has tens of nuclear warheads but it opposes Iran's peaceful use of nuclear energy. This shows a double-standard in their nuclear policies," ISNA quoted Vahidi as saying on Wednesday. The Iranian minister also rejected the possibility of a military strike against Iran's nuclear sites by Israel or the United States. "The Zionist regime of Israel is too weak to attack Iran," he added. "No trace of Israel will remain if the Zionist regime declares a war on Iran," he warned.

Obama has now authorized what Bush began, assassinating targeted individuals including Americans on US soil, confirming that the new global Phoenix Program recommended by General Patraeus in 2009 is now officially operational. It has been tested and used on an untold and growing number of innocent citizens since 2001's mass murder. "Revelations that the Central Intelligence Agency launched a world-wide assassination program, and then concealed its existence from the U.S. Congress and the American people for eight years, carries an implication that death squads may have been employed against political opponents." Chris Floyd: The Accomodationists: Memo to Liberals on the White House Death Warrants.

Salon/Glen Greewald: Obama authorizes assassination of U.S. citizen: The NYT and WP both report that the President has taken a step beyond where even George Bush would go:

No due process is accorded. No charges or trials are necessary. No evidence is offered, nor any opportunity for him to deny these accusations (which he has done vehemently through his family). None of that. Instead, in Barack Obama's America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens -- and a death penalty imposed -- is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone's guilt as a Terrorist.

AWIP/Tom Eley: Obama orders assassination of US citizen :

The public justification for killing Awlaki is based on bald assertions and hearsay from intelligence sources who refuse to even identify themselves. The executive branch arrogates to itself the powers of judge, jury, and executioner, and those targeted for liquidation have no right to question the supposed evidence against them.

The main opposition groups in Kyrgyzstan claimed yesterday to have assumed power, with President Kurmanbek Bakiyev reportedly fleeing the capital, Bishkek. “We have reached an agreement that the government will resign,” said Galina Skripkina, a spokesperson for the opposition Social Democratic Party. “For now we have only achieved the government’s resignation… The president himself has not resigned. He must resign and formally submit his resignation to parliament so we can appoint a caretaker government,” Skripkina told Reuters news agency. AWIP: Kyrgyzstan clashes 'leave four dead' -Video Al Jazeera: Kyrgyz opposition 'seizes power'. Daily Mail: Kyrgyzstan President 'flees country' after up to 100 killed in bloody revolution.

Reports emerging earlier in the day that President Obama was considering submitting a new peace proposal by the fall were met with consternation by the Israeli government and a quick reassurance by the State Department that all American proposals are strictly optional for the Netanyahu government. [-Pathetic!]

After years of suffering what amounts to “corporate feudalism” at the hands of agbiotech giants like Monsanto, farmers are now fighting back as the US government launches an unprecedented anti-trust enquiry. A major grievance is that the required seed licence forces farmers to relinquish their right to plant, harvest and sell their own seeds.

[The Performance Coal company mine in Montcoal, West Virginia] Rescuers continued to drill bore holes to release explosive methane gas Wednesday, but officials said the air remained too toxic to resume the search for four missing miners at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia. Officials acknowledge that hope is dwindling that the men—believed to be 1,100 feet below ground—will be found alive two days after a massive explosion killed at least 25 miners. The present death toll at the mine, owned by Massey Energy, is the highest since a 1984 fire took the lives of 27 miners at Emery Mining Corporation’s pit in Orangeville, Utah. The Upper Big Branch explosion will likely be the worst disaster since the 1970 blast that claimed the lives of 38 miners at Finley Coal in Hyden, Kentucky. Adding to the misery and anguish of family members and friends is the fact that the bodies of many of their loved ones remain unidentified. Rescuers were unable to recover all of the bodies before being forced to leave the mine early Tuesday morning because of rising gas levels.

Fruit importer Chiquita Brands International "knowingly provided material support to a terrorist organization" by paying protection money and providing weapons to a Colombian rebel group, a lawsuit filed in a Florida court this week alleges. Three US citizens who survived a five-year hostage ordeal at the hands of Colombia's notorious FARC paramilitary group, along with the family of a fourth man who was killed by FARC rebels, say Chiquita owes them damages because it paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to FARC for a decade beginning in 1989.

A newly released letter to then-Pope Paul VI indicates the Vatican was aware of clergy abuse in the U.S. nearly five decades ago. In the 1963 letter released Wednesday, the head of a Roman Catholic order that oversaw treatment of pedophile priests tells the pope he recommends removing pedophile priests from active ministry.

At the pace of a fast bicycle, a solar-powered plane took to the skies for its maiden flight yesterday, passing an important test on the way to a historic voyage around the world - a journey that would not use a drop of fuel. The Solar Impulse lifted off from a military airport in Switzerland at a speed no faster than 45km/h after briefly accelerating down the runway. It slowly gained altitude as villagers watched from the nearest hills. "There has never been an airplane of that kind that could fly - never an airplane so big, so light, using so little energy. So there were huge question marks for us," said Bertrand Piccard, who is leading the project. In 1999, he co-piloted the first non-stop, round-the-world balloon flight.