Israel was maintaining a diplomatic silence Tuesday amid reports from the UK that the Liberal-Democrats, a rising force in British politics whose leader has taken highly critical positions on Israel, would seek control of the Foreign Office and several other senior positions if Thursday’s general elections give the party the balance of power in a hung parliament.

Arab countries sought to turn attention Tuesday to Israel as delegates from 189 countries debated how to stem the spread of nuclear weapons. On the second day of the month-long meeting at the United Nations, Arab countries were reiterating calls for a nuclear-free Middle East with criticism of Israel's unacknowledged nuclear arsenal and failure to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). U.S. officials have said they will be looking to isolate Iran at the conference and to produce an unofficial document calling for stricter enforcement of the NPT that could be signed by the overwhelming majority of signatory countries.

Faisal Shahzad, the man accused of attempting to detonate a car bomb in the middle of New York City, spent three years working as a financial analyst for Affinion Group Holdings Inc., a marketing and security firm that employs as its spokesman someone quite well known to fans of Steven Spielberg movies. AWIP: Arrest Made in Times Square Bomb Case. Al Jazeera: US suspect "admits" to NY bomb plot.

A court rejected Tuesday a government attempt to use secret evidence to defend alleged conspiracy in torture, in a ruling welcomed by former Guantanamo Bay inmates. Three Court of Appeal judges ruled that secret evidence cannot be used in civil proceedings brought by six ex-detainees of the notorious US prison camp, including high-profile former British resident Binyam Mohamed. "We applaud the Court of Appeal's excellent decision to keep our courts open, so that the British public may continue to see justice done in their name," said Clive Stafford Smith, head of legal charity Reprieve.

Dr. Dalil said that despite many vaccination campaigns around the country, only 37% children have been completely vaccinated and in the past one year. 22 children under the age of five and 15 children below the age of one die every hour. And every 30 minutes, a mother dies during childbirth. These statistics were announced by Dr. Suraya Dalil, Deputy Minister for Policy and Planning and Acting Minister of Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in a press conference in Kabul with Dr. Eric Laroche, Assistant Director-General Health Action in Crises, World Health Organization (WHO). She said that these statistics were obtained after a national survey carried out by MoPH and WHO about the losses and dangers a year ago. According to Dr. Suraya Dalil, the mortality rate of children and mothers in Afghanistan is higher than other countries. She elaborated that diarrhea, breathing diseases, tuberculosis, malaria, measles, unhygienic conditions and inabilities of mother and child to reach a health centre are the main reasons for the hiking mortality rates.

A short but informative video explaining the oil spill.

“At its current leak rate of 5,000 barrels of oil per day, the spill could surpass the size of the 1969 Santa Barbara spill by next week. If the leak cannot be contained, it could exceed the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska by mid June.” Paul Harrison, Environmental Defense Fund. Three scenarios lie ahead. They rank as bad, worse, and ugliest (the latter being catastrophic and unprecedented). There is no “good” here. + Some thoughts about markets and impacts. AWIP/Tom Eley: New York Times minimizes Gulf oil spill.

The fishing ban is threatening the livelihood of many fishermen in the US gulf region. The organisation that market gulf seafood say they fully support the fishing ban, because in the long term it would protect the good name of their product. But this is proven to be difficult for the small fishermen who are watching what may be a full season's income or more fall victim to the disaster. Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman reports.

Nobel Laureate Al Gore purchased a $9 million mansion in the luxurious hills of Montecito, California, recently, and with the exception of the Los Angeles Times and Fox News, America's media couldn't care less. You think it might be because the Gore-loving press wouldn't want people to consider the possibility that all of his global warming hysteria was really about lining his wallet and not saving the planet?

"So even if the effect on climate of CO2 is relatively small, the potential knock-on effect is vast. This is why the predictions of temperature rises made by the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports are so large and terrifying. But according to Spencer, these alarmists have got completely the wrong end of the stick. The mistake they have made is to confuse cause with effect. It’s not man-made global warming that is causing cloud cover to grow thinner, leading to a spiral of ever-rising temperatures. Rather, it’s natural variations in cloud cover that are helping to cause global warming."

World stock markets fell sharply on Tuesday, driven by fears that massive spending cuts in Greece will be insufficient to resolve the country’s debt crisis, which threatens to expand to other European countries. The financial elite is relying on the social democratic Papandreou government to push through the cuts in Greece, and the government is in turn relying on the trade unions and middle class organizations to contain and demobilize opposition. However, there is broad concern that the situation might get out of hand. PressTV: Nationwide strike paralyses Greece. PressTV: In Greece, attack on bank leaves 3 dead.

The UK refuses to accept a new representative of Israel's Mossad spy agency after Israeli operatives used fake British passports in the killing of a Hamas leader in Dubai. Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported Tuesday that despite a former agreement to replace a former agent expelled in March, London refused entry to a new operative. "We have had no approach from the Israelis about a replacement. However, we look to Israel to rebuild the trust we believe is required for the full and open relationship we would like," a Foreign Office spokesman told the daily. The Israeli diplomat -- believed to be a Mossad agent in London -- was expelled after Israeli operatives used British passports in the assassination of senior Hamas commander Mahmud al-Mabhuh in Dubai on January 19.

GOEBBELS IS BACK -don't even touch this "story" with a ten foot pole: [...] [Usama Bin Laden] wakes each morning in a comfortable bed inside a guarded compound north of Tehran. He is surrounded by his wife and a few children. He keeps a low profile, is allowed limited travel and, in exchange for silence, is given a comfortable life under the protection of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. The idea that Bin Laden is in Iran got a strong boost recently with the premiere of a documentary called “Feathered Cocaine.” In it, Alan Parrot, the film’s subject and one of the world’s foremost falconers, makes a case that Bin Laden, an avid falcon hunter, has been living comfortably in Iran since at least 2003 and continues to pursue the sport relatively freely. He is relaxed, healthy and, according to the film, very comfortable.

...Crying: "What did I do wrong?" This is his immediate panic even when he knows logically he hasn't done anything wrong. Here's an example of how ingrained that panic is: The two of you look on in horror as the dog you had ever since you were a kid gets run over by a city bus. He then notices that you have started crying. Even though it's so totally, ridiculously obvious why, there will be a sickening fraction of a second when he automatically starts mentally sifting through all of his recent misdeeds trying to figure out which one it was that started the waterworks. Why, you ask? One, because he's probably been at least indirectly responsible for a fair amount of the previous crying he's seen you do, so it's kind of a habit. Two, because even though he may not let on, the sight of you crying is so heartbreaking for him that it often short-circuits his brain.

In commemoration of Mother's Day, Save the Children is publishing its eleventh annual State of the World's Mothers report. The focus is on the critical shortage of health workers in the developing world and the urgent need for more female health workers to save the lives of mothers, newborn babies and young children. State of the World's Mothers (Report, .pdf) + Save the Children + State of the World's Mothers, 2009.