[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.

Everyone is an "Illegal Immigrant" -IMAGE. AntiWar: South of the Border.

Between 1947 and 1973, the typical American family’s income grew 200% in real terms. Between 1973 and 2007, it grew by only 22%. In mid-2008 the typical family’s income was lower than in 2000 while the richest 10% earned half of all income, surpassing their previously highest share in 1928.

Seeing definitely is believing for a group of 15 religious explorers who claim to have uncovered a jaw-dropping glimpse into biblical times. And, following the discovery of seven large wooden compartments on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey, it’s being argued that the quest to find remnants of ancient history’s most famous ship could now be over. Apparently, the legendary Ark that housed Noah, his family and a menagerie of creatures during a global flood some 4,800 years ago, has finally docked.

Bethlehem – Ma'an – A 19-year-old Hebron resident was detained by Israeli forces Tuesday night, removed from the West Bank and expelled into Gaza, security sources confirmed. Representative of the Wa’ed Prisoners Society Abdulla Qandil said the expulsion was carried out using Israel's controversial military order number 1650. He demanded a task force be created with Palestinian officials from the West Bank and Gaza to "counter this threat which has now become a terrible reality." AWIP: The West Bank expulsion order is merely the latest step in a long process.

(Baghdad) - Detainees in a secret Baghdad detention facility were hung upside-down, deprived of air, kicked, whipped, beaten, given electric shocks, and sodomized, Human Rights Watch said today. Iraq should thoroughly investigate and prosecute all government and security officials responsible, Human Rights Watch said. The men's stories were credible and consistent. Most of the 300 displayed fresh scars and injuries they said were a result of routine and systematic torture they had experienced at the hands of interrogators at Muthanna. All were accused of aiding and abetting terrorism, and many said they were forced to sign false confessions. BBC: Routine torture, including electric shocks and sexual abuse, was inflicted on detainees held in a secret prison in Baghdad -Video. AWIP/Stephen Lendman: Iraq Today: Afflicted by Violence, Devastation, Corruption, and Desperation.

WASHINGTON — Goldman Sachs reaped "billions and billions of dollars" in profits by secretly betting in 2006 and 2007 that the U.S. housing market would crash, a strategy that conflicted with the interests of its clients who were still buying the firm's risky mortgage securities, Senate investigators said Monday. "The evidence shows that Goldman repeatedly put its own interests and profits ahead of the interests of its clients," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich, the chairman of the Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, told a news briefing. "I think they've been misleading to the country." AWIP: Palin on Goldman. You Tube: Carl Levin: "How much of that shitty deal did you sell to your clients?" Goldman Sachs Hearing

International investors fear Ireland will be the next country to seek financial bailout from the IMF. Following Greece’s application for financial aid of €45bn from the IMF and the Eurozone countries, Ireland is now under the spotlight. A former IMF economist and Harvard economics professor, Ken Rogoff said Ireland was "conspicuously vulnerable" to defaulting on its debt. It was announced late last week that Ireland had the largest deficit in the Eurozone at 14.2 per cent of gross domestic product. This is primarily the result of the government’s bailout of the banking sector and, in particular, Anglo Irish Bank in June 2009. The investment of €4bn in Anglo Irish Bank was reclassified as debt by Europe last week putting the country in a precarious position.

Stock markets in Europe, the US, and other regions closed sharply lower yesterday after ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded its sovereign credit rating for Greece to “junk” status and also lowered Portugal by two notches. The downgrades reflected growing fears that the southern European governments will prove unable to implement promised austerity measures in the face of determined domestic opposition, raising the danger of the sovereign debt crisis spreading to the world’s major economies. “The biggest risk now is that the market speculates against every single indebted peripheral country, and that could lead to a sovereign debt crisis,” Axel Botte, a fixed- income strategist at AXA Investment Managers in Paris, told Bloomberg. “The contagion risk is real.” TimesOnline: German tabloids campaign for Greece to leave the euro. IJSR: Greece: Driven into crisis. Al Jazeera: Greek downgrade sparks stocks slide. WaPo: As stocks slump, European, IMF officials push Germany on Greece.

The British leader said he was unaware that a television microphone was still live. Asked by an aide about his conversation, Brown said "she was just a bigoted woman." He suggested Duffy had questioned the number of eastern European migrants in Britain. Duffy then asked for an apology from Brown and said she would no longer vote for his Labour Party in Britain's May 6 election. Brown later apologized "profusely." Daily Mail: Brown caught describing disgruntled life-long Labour voter as a 'bigoted woman'.

When Dina Khiry is feeling a bit down, she reaches for chocolate. "I like Reese's peanut butter cups, Hershey's bars, and chocolate cake batter," says the 24-year-old public relations associate. "I feel better in the moment -- and then worse later on, when I realize that I just consumed thousands of calories." Khiry's emotional relationship with chocolate isn't uncommon, new research suggests. According to a study published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine, people who feel depressed eat about 55 percent more chocolate than their non-depressed peers. And the more depressed they feel, the more chocolate they tend to eat. AIM: Chocolate and Depressive Symptoms in a Cross-sectional Analysis [Please scroll down...].

Downtown Toronto will essentially be on lockdown with rights and liberties severely restricted. The G20 summit will be held on June 26-27 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre preceded by the G8 summit which will take place in Huntsville, Ontario. The secretive meetings will be attended by world leaders, finance ministers, central bank governors, along with thousands of other delegates. It will be the largest security event in Canadian history exceeding the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Downtown Toronto will be turned into a security fortress with fences, barricades, checkpoints and street closures thus greatly affecting local residents. While the G8/G20 summits will attract their share of peaceful protesters, other more radical and fringe elements may try to capitalize on the event. Agent provocateurs might also be used whose actions could then justify a police crackdown and as a means to demonize all demonstrators. The G20 summit will deepen police state measures, as well as further integrate local, provincial, federal law enforcement agencies and the military.

"All the countries of the world are equally entitled to conduct research programs in nuclear energy fields but their moves should not trespass the framework of peaceful uses," Nazarbayev said, addressing the inauguration ceremony of the Eurasian Media Forum (EAMF). He further said that around 20 world countries are seeking to access nuclear weapons, and called for the establishment of nuclear free zones across the globe, including the Near East. "It is important that the nuclear armed states provide the countries of this region with security guarantees and that these countries are given some privileges to use nuclear energy (for peaceful purposes)," Nazarbayev added.

Mexico warned its citizens living in or traveling to Arizona that they could be "harassed" there after the state passed one of the toughest immigration laws in the United States last week. Arizona's Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed a bill into law last week that makes it a crime to be in the state illegally and requires police to check the status of people they reasonably suspect to be illegal immigrants. The law, decried by critics as discriminatory, will force immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times once it takes effect 90 days after Arizona's current legislative session ends. Mexico's foreign ministry issued a statement saying that Mexicans in Arizona should be aware of the new law and contact their consular representatives if they are unlawfully detained.

For details go HERE.

This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that “bravely” trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force. Happily, today’s would-be totalitarians are probably too marginal to take full advantage. This isn’t Weimar Germany, and Islam’s radical fringe is still a fringe, rather than an existential enemy. For that, we should be grateful. Because if a violent fringe is capable of inspiring so much cowardice and self-censorship, it suggests that there’s enough rot in our institutions that a stronger foe might be able to bring them crashing down.

KATHMANDU - A South Korean climber has become the first woman to scale 14 of the world's highest mountains. Seoul broadcaster KBS television showed live coverage last night of Oh Eun Sun, 44, reaching the summit of Annapurna in Nepal and affixing a South Korean flag to the peak. It was the final hurdle of a fiercely contested race against a Spanish rival to conquer all 14 Himalayan peaks more than 8000m above sea level.

So today is the big day. Lloyd “God’s Work” Blankfein and Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre are going to be dragged before the Senate and formally introduced to America via the medium of a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. It’s hard to get a read on just exactly what this is all about. The Guardian: Will Goldman Sachs prove greed is God? -The Lunatics Who Made a Religion Out of Greed and Wrecked the Economy. AWIP/Ellen Brown: Computerized Front Running: Another Goldman-dominated Fraud.