The US has authorised a sweeping expansion of covert military operations in the Middle East and Africa, aimed at destroying terrorist networks in the region, and preparing the ground ahead of any presidential decision to attack Iran. According yesterday's The New York Times, a directive, called the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order, was signed on 30 September by General David Petraeus, head of Central Command and in charge of US military operations in the Middle East, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. Under its provisions, units of the Navy Seals, the Army's Delta Force and other Special Forces will be able to operate both in friendly countries, and in hostile countries with which the US is not technically at war. AWIP: Secret order prepares new US wars in Middle East and Central Asia. + Criminal Empire: US to expand secret "operations" [state terrorism]

North Korea is to cut all relations with South Korea, Pyongyang's official news agency reports. KCNA said the North was also expelling all South Korean workers from a jointly-run factory north of the border. The move comes after an "international report" blamed North Korea for sinking a South Korean warship. Pyongyang denies it torpedoed the Cheonan near the inter-Korean maritime border on 26 March, killing 46 sailors.

[Media lies:] Since arriving in Afghanistan one year ago, Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staff have had their eye on one prize above all others: the southern province of Kandahar , the ancient fault line between civilizations where the Soviet Union lost its final battles, the Afghan Taliban was born, and where the group first reemerged after the U.S. invasion. Over the next few months the U.S. presence in Kandahar will crescendo into Operation Hamkari Baraye Kandahar -- "Cooperation for Kandahar" -- an attempt to protect residents from insurgents and provide them with a functioning government.

[Editor's Comment:] So there you have it. Kandahar (Afghanistan itself) is a "prize". ABC News can't even get its metaphors right. The truth about US intentions comes to the surface anyway. This war is not about protecting anyone (they alrady have killed thousands of Afghan civilians) or about providing Afghanistan with a "functioning government". (Translation: a corrupt government consisting of traitors & collaborators.) It's all about an imperial conquest. -Killing, maiming & stealing for profit. ABC News clearly is complicit in this criminal endeavour.

As anyone can see by clicking on the link to the live feed below this article, Obama's ineffective response to the Gulf spill is quickly turning into his Katrina.

The live feed is making it worse for Obama, giving people all over the country a first hand look at the oil being gushed into the gulf minute by minute and is serving as a constant reminder at how ineffectively Obama has handled the accident.

The spill is in its 36th day, gushing millions of gallons a day into the Gulf and BP is saying it could continue into August. Criticism of Obama's lackluster response has gotten so bad that former Bill Clinton political strategist James Carville, a Louisiana native and a fierce Democratic partisan, has joined a chorus of Democrats and independents, Louisiana residents and environmentalists, bashing Obama for his ineffective handling of the oil rupture. Some have even called it "lackadaisicle" which is perhaps the most devastating indictment. National Geographic: Oil "Spill" [Crime] to Wipe Out Gulf's Sperm Whales? -Just three dead whales could push the Gulf population over the edge, experts say. Think Progress: Underwater nightmare: ‘What BP does not want you to see.’ -Viedo

Boston.com: Oil reaches Louisiana shores: Over one month after the initial explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, crude oil continues to flow into the Gulf of Mexico, and oil slicks have slowly reached as far as 12 miles into Louisiana's marshes. According to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, more than 65 miles of Louisiana's shoreline has now been oiled. BP said it will be at least Wednesday before they will try using heavy mud and cement to plug the leak, a maneuver called a "top kill" that represents their best hope of stopping the oil after several failed attempts. Based on low estimates, at least 6 million gallons of crude have spewed into the Gulf so far - though some scientists have said they believe the spill already surpasses the 11 million-gallon 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska as the worst in U.S. history. (39 photos total)

Fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan: In the 1980s, the C.I.A. helped drug lords become mujahidin leaders. One was Gulbuddin Hekmatya who dominated the local drug trade and became the world’s most important heroin trafficker. Of course, these leaders were encouraged to finance their insurgency through drug sales. With the blessing of the Americans, the drug lords ordered the peasants to raise many poppies. The drug barons were also encouraged to spread heroin to the Russian forces, and this effort was largely successful. Within two years, Afghanistan was the world’s main heroin producer. Drugs moved from the drug lords to Soviet troops with the help of reputed Russian crime figures such as Vladimir Filin and Aleksei Likhvintsev. They were part of what Russians call “OPS,” an organized crime society. According to Indian observer Theruvath Raman, the C.I.A. controlled this flow.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Iran, like any other country in the world, is entitled to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. "If a country enriches uranium at low levels for peaceful purposes and not production of nuclear weapons, then this is its right … and this is what Iran is doing," Erdogan said in a meeting with the South African Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe in Ankara on Tuesday. "Now, Turkey has also signed a deal with Russia, according to which we will have launched our nuclear power plant within the next 6-7 years. We will also have the chance to enrich uranium at low levels, and having this chance is our right as long as it has peaceful purposes," Haber Turk newspaper quoted Erdogan as saying. PressTV: China still opts for diplomacy on Iran.

Hours after 16 people were wounded by Israeli warplanes; Israeli soldiers have opened fire on Palestinians, wounding three workers in the Gaza Strip. The incident happened in the northern parts of the coastal strip on Wednesday, a Press TV correspondent reported. The Palestinians were collecting scrap metal when Israeli forces opened fire from their check point on the Gaza border. Earlier, Israeli F-16 warplanes attacked the northern Gaza Strip, reportedly leaving 16 people, including civilians and police officers, wounded.

Israeli authorities said the cargo vessels would be stopped before they could reach the Gaza Strip. Any activists aboard the ships would be arrested, according to Israeli media. Despite the threat, all the activists are determined to complete their mission, reported Press TV correspondent Hassan Ghani, who is accompanying the convoy. "If Israel attacks any of these ships, they arrest anybody, it will be in breach of international law," the Press TV correspondent added. Bloomberg: Israel Says Gaza Aid Ships Are "Propaganda," Will Block Them From Docking. Gulf News: Ireland has urged Israeli restraint. Irish4Palestine: ISRAEL’S STRANGE BEHAVIOUR ON FLOTILLA TO GAZA.

Juan Cole: Turkish Govenment calls on the Israelis to lift their siege of Gazan civilians and warns them not to block the aid flotilla (Mercy Flotilla for Gaza About to Set Off -Israelis Threaten to Block it with War Ships). Since two of the 8 ships in the flotilla are Turkish-sponsored, any naval confrontationof Turkey’s vessels by an Israeli warship could turn ugly in the diplomatic realm.

The Rothschild banking family is pushing for the privatization of the UK’s motorway network that would force Brits, who already pay road tax, to enrich the coffers of private corporations intimately tied in with the Rothschilds by means of road tolls and pay-by-mile schemes enforced with spy cameras. A plan to privatize the UK's motorway network, giving toll firms access to large swaths of road, would take place under the guise of paying down the government's debt, British media reported Tuesday, citing a number of key officials who support the scheme, proposed to all major political parties by NM Rothschild, one of the world's oldest, most influential and little discussed investment banks, founded by the Rothschild family. Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said over a week ago that the scheme would be Britain's way forward. Business Secretary and UK Treasury Spokesman Vince Cable, quoted by The Daily Mail, said he was open to the idea. PrisonPlanet: Rothschilds Engineer Fire Sale Of UK Infrastructure To Offshore Corporations.

For what is believed to be the first time ever in England, an audience of university undergraduates has decisively rejected the notion that “global warming” is or could become a global crisis. The only previous defeat for climate extremism among an undergraduate audience was at St. Andrew’s University, Scotland, in the spring of 2009, when the climate extremists were defeated by three votes. Serious observers are interpreting this shock result as a sign that students are now impatiently rejecting the relentless extremist propaganda taught under the guise of compulsory environmental-studies classes in British schools, confirming opinion-poll findings that the voters are no longer frightened by “global warming” scare stories, if they ever were. AWIP/Lord Monckton

Aiyana’s parents, Charles Jones and Dominika Stanley,
center

Several thousand people attended the viewing and funeral service for Aiyana Stanley-Jones, the seven-year-old girl killed by Detroit police during a May 16 raid on her east side Detroit home. The events—held on Friday and Saturday—were attended by hundreds of workers and young people from Detroit and outlying areas who were shocked and angered by the brutal murder of the second grader.

Aiyana was killed by a police SWAT team seeking to arrest a homicide suspect who lived in a separate, upstairs apartment at the home on Lillibridge. Even though they were warned there were several small children in the downstairs apartment, the police threw an incendiary device into the home and opened fire, striking the young girl in the head and neck while she was sleeping on a front room couch. In order to conceal their crime, they claimed the gun went off accidentally after a “scuffle” with the young girl’s grandmother.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Detroit Mayor David Bing defended the police and said it was “unfortunate” people were focusing on the young girl’s death instead of violent crime in the city.

The United States military is in the process of taking bids from private war contractors to secure and ship massive amounts of US military equipment through sensitive areas of Pakistan into Afghanistan where it will then be distributed to various US Forward Operating Bases and other facilities. According to the contract solicitation [PDF], "There will be an average of 5000" import shipments "transiting the Afghanistan and Pakistan ground lines of communication (GLOC) per month, along with 500 export shipments." The solicitation states that, "This number may increase or decrease due to US military transportation requirements," adding, "The contractor must maintain a constant capability to surge to any location within Afghanistan or Pakistan" within a 30-day period. Among the duties the contractor will perform is "intelligence, to include threat assessments throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan."

A front-page article in Tuesday’s New York Times reveals the existence of a secret directive signed by Gen. David Petraeus, chief of the US Central Command, ordering the expansion of covert military operations throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa. The seven-page document, entitled “Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order,” essentially provides the US military with a blank check to carry out aggressive acts against virtually any country. Issued in September 2009, the order calls for the creation of a network of covert task forces and intelligence-gathering units which will “penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy” any target within any country designated by the US military. These forces will carry out clandestine operations which “cannot or will not be accomplished” through other military means. AWIP: Criminal Empire: US to expand secret "operations" [state terrorism]

On this edition of Peter Lavelle's CrossTalk, he asks his guests whether the current "indirect talks" between the Israelis and Palestinians are a waste of time. Benny Morris is extremely rude to interrupt Norman Finkelstein in a sustained and very destructive manner.

“Promised Land”– news and opinion from Israel – Ma’ariv (p. 12) by Arik Bender, wrote an article dated April 29th 2010 entitled Knesset moves to outlaw human rights organizations in Israel, “Something very troubling is happening to “the only democracy in the Middle East”.

“More than 20 MKs, including members of opposition party Kadima, proposed a new bill which will make it possible to outlaw important human rights groups in Israel. Among the organizations mentioned in the proposed bill are Doctors for Human rights, The Coalition of Woman for Peace, The Public Committee against Torture in Israel, and Adalah: the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights. All these organizations receive funds from the New Israeli Fund.

The article proceeded by saying: “According to a report in Maariv, the new bill will outlaw any organization “which is involved in activity intended to lead to the prosecution or arrest of IDF officers and government officials for war crimes.” The word “involved” gives it a very broad definition.

US Military warns of impending oil shortages. How many of us are aware that your way of life is soon going to change dramatically and permanently? The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact. The energy crisis outlined in a Joint Operating Environment report from the US Joint Forces Command, comes as the price of petrol in Britain reaches record levels and the cost of crude is predicted to soon top $100 a barrel. "By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day," says the report, which has a foreword by a senior commander, General James N Mattis.