The reporter, who penned several articles on Israeli military war crimes based on Kam’s leaks of classified documents, fled to London amid a Shin Bet probe into the leaks, and remains there at the moment. Shin Bet insists that he is a “fugitive felon,” though so far it is unclear if Israel is even charging him with any felonies. Though all of Blau’s articles were legally cleared through Israel’s military censor, he is said to fear being forced to reveal every single source he has when subjected to interrogation should he return. Shin Bet already destroyed his computer, claiming its very existence was a threat to national security.

AWIP/Jonathan Cook: The dark underbelly of Israel's security state:

Blau said he had been warned “that if I return to Israel I could be silenced for ever, and that I would be charged for crimes related to espionage”. He concluded that “this isn’t only a war for my personal freedom but for Israel’s image”.

The whisteblower website WikiLeaks -- which exploded onto the national stage earlier this month after it released a video recording showing US servicemembers shooting two reporters and six others to death -- says they plan to release another, even more harrowing clip. The clip will show previously classified footage from US warplanes that had been tapped to bomb Taliban positions in Farah province, Afghanistan last year. AWIP: Wikileaks 'to release video of US strike on Afghan civilians'.

At least five people have been killed in a US drone attack in the troubled North Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan on the Afghan border. Several more people were injured when two missiles hit a nearby compound in Boya village, located about 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of Miranshah. Since last year, the US has carried out many such attacks on Pakistan's tribal areas. Washington claims its airstrikes target militants. Most of the attacks, however, have killed civilians. AWIP: 11th Drone Strike of 2010: Latest US Attack Kills Six in North Waziristan: AFP: 11 killed in US missile strikes in NW Pakistan: officials. AntiWar: US Drone Fired Missile Into a Crowd of "Suspects," Killing 13 Afghans. TANSW: Pakistan Taliban deny US drone strike killed top leader. This comes on top of this Nobel Peace Prize winner Kills at Least 15 in North Waziristan and this Civilians Slain as Latest US Drone Strike on North Waziristan, Kills Five and this US Drones Kill 12 in North Waziristan: Third TERROR Strike in 24 Hours in Tribal Area and this U.S. Drones Kill 15 People Near Border in Pakistan and summing up all of 2009, this: 44 US drone hits in Pakistan killed 700 civilians in 2009. + AWIP: No assent given to US drone attacks: Pakistan. The Guardian: The 'Obama doctrine': kill, don't detain -George Bush left a big problem in the shape of Guantánamo. The solution? Don't capture bad guys, assassinate by drone.

Bus Massacre Hits a Sore Spot in Restive Kandahar. The US was quick to take responsbility today, and NATO was quick to express regrets, but the attack earlier today on a civilian bus, leaving five civilians dead and 18 others wounded, sparking protests and later riots. Hundreds took to the streets, chanting “death to America,” burning tires, blocking the main road into town and generally causing a ruckus. Certainly such attacks have been a source of consternation for Afghans, but with their alarming regularity the US killing only five civilians in one go is for many just “another day in Afghanistan” and in many parts of the nation would’ve past barely acknowledged. AntiWar: US Troops Attack Civilian Bus in Kandahar, Killing Five -18 Others Injured as Troops Open Fire on Bus.

U.S. and allied forces storm an Afghan family’s home. They kill civilians. They lie about it. The public affairs officer denies it. Outraged community members are outraged. Violence spikes. More people die. This is an all-too-familiar pattern in Afghanistan, and it’s got to stop. AWIP: AFGHANISTAN Archive.

Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Khazaee describes the US threat of using nuclear weapons against other countries as state terrorism. "Threats of using nuclear weapons against a nation are a clear sample of the state terrorism," Khazaee said at the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC). He called for a frank fight against terrorism, saying, "Certain countries should not use the case as a political instrument to promote their expansionist goals and dispatch troops to remote parts of the world and to the Middle East in particular."

President Barack Obama opened the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington Monday, a two-day event that, in the guise of promoting disarmament and opposing terrorism, seeks to line up international support for the US campaign to isolate, pressure and ultimately overthrow the governments of Iran and North Korea. Far from representing a break from the aggressive approach of the preceding Bush administration, the Obama policy is an effort to accomplish the same goal—US military domination of the Middle East. PressTV: 'West has no evidence against Iran'. + Iran says US summit political show. AFP: Egypt: Press both Iran, Israel on nukes. Fars News Agency: Afghan Official: US Moves [in Afghanistan] to Increase Military Threat against Iran. Haaretz: Medvedev: Israeli strike on Iran could spark global catastrophe. DprogramNet: ‘Israel may drag US into new war’.

AWIP/Edward S. Herman & David Peterson: The Iran Threat in the Age of Real-Axis-of-Evil Expansion:

The real threat that Iran poses to the United States and Israel is that of a local rival to Israel which might hamper Israel's dispossession and expansion program in the Palestinian Territories, as well as U.S. domination of this region of the world. From a global viewpoint, the real threat is that Iran's independence and refusal to grovel might lead to a war of aggression against it by Israel and/or the United States, and such a war could in turn spark an even larger conflagration.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, called for a UN probe into September 11, 2001 attacks in a bid to find major factors behind the issue. "At least, you are expected to form an independent fact-finding committee trusted by regional countries on major elements behind September 11 attack which was carried out as the main pretext to attack the Middle East," Ahmadinejad said in his letter. The Iranian president also asked for investigation into NATO intention for presence in Afghanistan and Iraq and results of nine-year presence and conflict.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Sunday defended the soldiers shown firing on a group of people near Baghdad in a classified military video released last week, saying the troops were caught in a "split-second" situation and the video doesn't show the "broader picture." Gates acknowledged that the grainy, black-and-white video showing men on the streets running from gunfire while U.S. troops appear to make playful remarks, is a "hard thing to see," but said he doesn't anticipate the footage will hurt the U.S. image abroad...AWIP: U.S. Atrocities: Collateral Murder. + U.S. pilot seen firing on people in Iraq.

[Looking Back: January 23, 2009]

AWIP/Stephen Lendman: University of Ottawa Activist Student Persecutions: The Case of Marc Kelly

[As of now, the hearings] won't be open to the public ... Almost certainly, the investigative interviews will occur behind closed doors. Members of the press and the public will be shut out from this terribly important government task. Despite the efforts of the Salt Lake Tribune, which has sued unsuccessfully in federal court previously to try to open such proceedings, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration has staunchly insisted on secrecy in these proceedings. Why not Web cast the interviews? Why not quickly make transcripts available publicly on the Internet. And why not hold periodic press briefings where detailed information about what has been found so far is made public? AWIP: Miners doomed by collusion between regulators and coal companies.

“Marital rape” a shocking combination of words because once you are married and if your husband wants to enjoy his right for sex it is not treated as rape even if you are an unwilling partner in the act,he has full freedom to exercise his marital rights.

More than 200,000 people have fled Pakistan's latest offensive against Taliban militants in the northwest, the United Nations said Monday, as fresh clashes in the remote region killed 41 insurgents and six soldiers. Elsewhere in the northwest, a suspected U.S. missile killed five alleged militants in a house in North Waziristan, the latest in a series of strikes in the region, Pakistani officials said. North Waziristan is home to al-Qaida and Taliban commanders, many of whom play a role in the insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan. AntiWar: Pakistan’s Orakzai Offensive Drives Another 200,000 Civilians From Home. Yahoo: U.S. military playing expanded role in Pakistan.

The self-declared interim government in Kyrgyzstan has warned Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the deposed president, that he could face arrest if he does not surrender by the end of the day. Azimbek Beknazarov, the interim security minister, said on Tuesday that his administration had issued a decree removing Bakiyev's immunity. Bakiyev has remained defiant since he was forced to leave the capital, Bishkek, on Wednesday following violent protests against his government, which left more than 80 people dead. About 5,000 people turned out in his southern power base of Jalal-Abad on Tuesday to show their support for his return to power. "My power is in the people, not in me," he told the crowd. The rally came after a smaller gathering of about 500 people in his home village on Monday, during which he challenged the interim government to attempt to arrest him.

You know you’re being conned when the FBI reports that banks were responsible for 80% of the sub-prime criminal lending fraud, and then those same banks are rewarded with trillions of dollars from taxpayers with future guarantees of trillions more. You know you’re being played when the US Senate confirms that taxpayers lose $2 to $4 TRILLION every year from price manipulation yet continue to allow it. You know that you’re a sucker when the pinnacle con men from Goldman Sachs and the Fed rotate through the US Treasury Department’s “leadership.”

A new form of calculus has been invented by the authors of the the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), in order to create the false impression that global warming is accelerating. Here’s how it works.

Scientists say the skeletons of a woman and boy could be one of the most important finds of recent times. A discovery by a 9-year-old led to finding the pair, dubbed Australopithecus sediba. The middle-aged woman and the young boy, perhaps her son or simply another member of her tribe, were out hunting on the African plains or maybe looking for water in the midst of a drought when they fell into a sinkhole, dying almost instantly. Shortly thereafter, a monsoon or a flood washed them into a deeper basin, where they were covered with mud and rapidly fossilized. In 2008, nearly 2 million years later, another boy, 9-year-old Matthew Berger, discovered part of their skeletons outside the Malapa cave north of Johannesburg, South Africa, a find that experts have dubbed one of the most important of recent times.

At least nine people were killed and 28 injured in northern Italy when a landslide derailed a local train carrying commuters and students near the Alpine city of Bolzano. Scores of rescue workers dug bodies by hand from the wreckage after tonnes of rock and mud swept the front carriage of the train into a steep gorge between the towns of Castelbello and Laces at around 0700 GMT. Only a line of trees prevented the train from being swept into the River Adige below. The injured were ferried to local hospitals by helicopter. "There are nine confirmed victims, while 28 people have been injured, seven of them seriously," said Luis Durnwalder, governor of the German-speaking Bolzano-Bozen province, adding that the death toll could rise. Investigators are studying a data recorder recovered from the wreckage. The line was one of the most modern in the wealthy Trentino-Alto Adige region, and was inaugurated in 2005.

The revolution in Bishkek last week, which left dozens dead, the President ousted and an uncertain future for Kyrgyzstan, has set off warning bells across Central Asia. The Central Asian "Stans", all of which were formerly part of the Soviet Union, have been run as dictatorships since their independence. Most of the region's people live in poverty, but the elites have been courted by the West for their strategic location close to Afghanistan, and the vast oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Sea. Scoop: Kyrgyzstan: first ICRC relief flight arrives.

The 230-metre Chinese vessel, the Shen Neng 1, ran aground on Douglas Shoal off Rockhampton on April 3, spilling at least two tonnes of oil. A spokesman for Maritime Safety Queensland (MSQ) said yesterday the vessel had been refloated around 8pm (10pm NZT) and so far there were no signs of any more oil spilling. "They have moved it to a position off the shoal. Quadrant: Farce on the Reef.