BAGHDAD – Teams of veterinarians and police shooters have killed some 58,000 stray dogs in and around the Iraqi capital over the past three months as part of a campaign to curb an increasing number of strays blamed for attacks on residents. The Baghdad provincial government said in a statement released Sunday that 20 teams have been moving around Baghdad and the outer-lying districts daily looking for and putting down the dogs. The operation, which was first announced in late 2008, only truly took off this April after funds were allocated for the project. The surge in strays — estimated by provincial officials to number around 1.25 million — is ironically linked to what officials say is an improvement in some elements of daily life in Baghdad, a city that for seven years has been struggling to return to normalcy after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein to occupy Iraq for Israel (+ the oil). Officials with the provincial veterinary directorate said that with open-air markets and bustling city life returning, the dogs are able to find more food and are having bigger litters. Figures for the number of attacks by packs of stray dogs were not available Saturday, the last day of the weekend in Iraq.

[Editor's Comment:] This is the new Middle East food chain: The US army kills Iraqis, the Shias kill the Sunnis and they all kill their dogs. They'd be better off if the aimed their guns at the US soldiers instead...58,000 stray Americans would after all make a real difference to the stricken country. But of course it would take more courage to do that. Not much, but a wee bit. Iraqi men obviously don't have what it takes to liberate their country. But dogs are dirty, you would say? -Not nearly as dirty as the US hired killers ("soldiers") that now occupy Iraq.

Shinnecock nation recovers ancestral lands in millionaires' Long Island playground after gaining federal recognition. Members of the Shinnecock nation outside court in Central Islip, New York, after filing papers claiming tribal ownership of land in the Hamptons. From a distance the teardrop-shaped peninsula looks just like any other bit of the famed Hamptons shoreline. Thick woods crowd down to the water's edge, and through the trees houses and roads can be glimpsed. But this land is not part of the Hamptons, neither is it really part of the United States any more. This patch – in the middle of the playground to Manhattan's social elite – is proudly and fiercely Native American country. Almost four centuries since their first contact with the white man and after a 32-year court battle that has just ended in victory, the tiny Shinnecock tribe has now been formally recognised by America's federal government. The decision means that the Shinnecock, numbering some 1,300 members, many of whom live in deep poverty compared with their wealthy neighbours, can apply for federal funding to build schools, health centres and set up their own police force. It means their tiny 750-acre reservation is now a semi-sovereign nation within the US, just like much bigger and more famous reservations in the west.

What more can Assad say that he hasn't already? How long must he knock in vain on Israel's locked door? It couldn't have been spelled out more explicitly, clearly and emphatically. Read and judge for yourselves: "Our position is clear: When Israel returns the entire Golan Heights, of course we will sign a peace agreement with it .... What's the point of peace if the embassy is surrounded by security, if there is no trade and tourism between the two countries? That's not peace. That's a permanent cease-fire agreement. This is what I say to whoever comes to us to talk about the Syrian track: We are interested in a comprehensive peace, i.e., normal relations." What more can Assad say that he hasn't already? How many more times does he have to declare his peaceful intentions before someone wakes up here? How long must he knock in vain on Israel's locked door? And if that were not enough, he also called on Turkey to work to calm the crisis with Israel so it can mediate between Israel and Syria. Israel does not want peace with Syria. Period. It prefers the Golan over peace with one of its biggest and most dangerous enemies.

More than a million people held a march in Barcelona to call for greater autonomy for the Catalan region. The demonstration comes a day after a constitutional court declared that there was no legal basis to recognise Catalonia as a nation. The ruling also said the Catalan language should not take precedence over Castilian Spanish. It followed a challenge to the region's statute by the opposition People's Party, which favours Spanish unity. The statute of autonomy was approved by Catalan voters in a 2006 referendum. It gave greater powers to the regional parliament in taxation and judicial matters.

Israel has issued a warning against a Libyan aid ship en route to the Gaza Strip as part of its bid to hinder pro-Palestinian relief efforts. Tel Aviv lied, saying allowing the ship to go ahead with its mission will have serious consequences for "Israel's security," [nonsense] adding that it will stop [attack] the Libyan aid vessel from entering the impoverished enclave. Al Jazeer/You Tube: New aid ship leaves for Gaza.

Tucked away out of sight in his backyard are the signs of his preparations for doomsday, a catastrophic societal collapse that Erwin, 45, now believes is likely within his lifetime.

"I've got, under an awning, stacks of firewood, rain catching in barrels, I've got a shed with barbed concertina wire, like the military uses," he told AFP. He and his wife also have also stockpiled thousands of rounds of ammunition and enough food for about six months. "Several years ago I worked on paying off the house, replacing all the windows, and just very recently, I'm proud to say, we've replaced all our exterior doors with more energy-efficient ones, with as much built-in security features as I could get."

Psychologists in the United States have been warned by their professional group not to take part in torturing detainees in U.S. custody. Now the American Psychological Association has taken the unprecedented step of supporting an attempt to strip the license of a psychologist accused of overseeing the torture of a CIA detainee. The APA has told a Texas licensing board in a letter mailed July 1 that the allegations against Dr. James Mitchell represent "patently unethical" actions inconsistent with the organization's ethics guidelines. If any psychologist who was a member of the APA were found to have committed the acts alleged against Mitchell, "he or she would be expelled from the APA membership," according to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. APA spokeswoman Rhea Farberman confirmed its contents. AP/Google: Psychology group backs CIA detainee abuse claim.

Egyptian archaeologists unveiled on Thursday two rock-hewn painted tombs belonging to a man who had a supervising role in the construction of pyramids -- and his son. It's considered among the most distinguished Old Kingdom tombs. Dating from around 4,300 years old, the burials feature vividly colored wall paintings -- as fresh as if they were just painted. They were found in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara near Cairo by an Egyptian team working in the area since 1986. Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the leader of the excavation, said that the tombs belonged to a father, Shendwa, and his son, Khonsu. Consisting of a false door with paintings depicting scenes of the deceased seated before an offering table, Shendwa’s tomb featured inscriptions with the different titles of the tomb’s owner. According to the inscriptions, Shendwa was a top governmental official during the Sixth Dynasty (2374-2191 B.C.). He was the head of the royal scribes and the supervisor of the missions managing the materials used for pyramid construction. Beneath the false door, 20 meters below the ground level, the archaeologists found the burial chamber. “When Dr. Hawass descended into the tomb he realized that it was intact and had not previously been plundered by tomb robbers. Unfortunately Shendwa’s wooden sarcophagus had disintegrated due to humidity and erosion,” Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement.

There's mounting evidence that central bankers have little faith in the greenback these days. Can we blame them? There are those who would argue that the financial crisis was caused by over-enthusiastic worship of the Almighty Dollar. Call it brutal financial karma, but that church is looking pretty empty these days. A new report from Morgan Stanley analyst Emma Lawson confirms what many had suspected: the dollar is firmly on its way to losing its status as the reserve currency of the world. We already knew that central banks have preferred gold to dollars, and that they're even selling their gold for cash; now, according to Lawson's data, it seems that those central banks prefer almost anything to dollars. Lawson found that central banks have dropped their allocation to U.S. dollars by nearly a full percentage point to 57.3% from 58.1%, and calls this "unexpected given the global environment." She adds, "over time we anticipate that reserve managers may reduce their holdings further."

Oil and water samples were taken from both the Shores of Grand Isle and from 20 miles out. The preliminary analysis was done at an academic analytical chemistry laboratory. Looking for the likely pollutants from the deep water Horizon Oil spill. It was focused on the detection of benzene and propylene glycol. Benzene and other highly toxic contaminants were very low however the concentration of propylene glycol was between 360 and 440 parts per million. Just 25 parts per million is know to kill most fish and propylene glycol is just one of many ingredients found in Corexit. In short, the Gulf is being poisoned by BP's usage of the dispersants even after the EPA asked them to stop back in May. We are willing to provide ANY respected/known laboratory these samples or provide them with more. This is very serious to all people and marine life in and around the Gulf. NWOR: Exclusive photos of the BP Oil Spill that is still leaking, world's largest environmental disaster to date. AWIP: Gulf toxicologist: Shrimpers exposed to Corexit "bleeding from the rectum" -Video. [More on this HERE.]

[Here's what the Beeb left out:] "Nine Turkish activists" and one United States Citizen carrying an American passport! One of the nine activists killed by Israeli commandos aboard a Gaza-bound aid flotilla was a teenager who held U.S. citizenship, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. His name was Furkan Dorgan. She said that another U.S. citizen was injured on one of the ships and that a third -- later identified as Emily Henochowicz, 21, of Potomac -- was hurt during a subsequent protest of the incident. According to Israeli media reports, Henochowicz lost an eye after being hit by an Israeli tear-gas canister. "We have made no decisions at this point on any additional specific actions that our government should take with respect to our own citizens," Clinton added, but she renewed her call for "a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation that conforms to international standards."

Despite the high temperature of 103 degrees (Fahrenheit), Bibi’s ‘welcome’ to New York was quite a cold one as he was greeted by the following….

Hezbollah warned on Saturday that Israel was preparing "something" in Lebanon and that the organization has been on high alert since Israel released aerial images to highlight the militant group's activities close to the Israeli border earlier this week, the London-based Arabic language daily Asharq al-Awsat reported.

Angry Afghans have taken to the streets of Mazar-e-Sharif to protest against the rising number of civilian casualties at the hands of US-led troops. Hundreds of protesters chanted slogans against foreign forces and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The demonstration followed the killing of two civilians by US troops on the outskirts of the northern Afghan city on Wednesday. NATO soldiers also killed one Afghan and arrested nine others in Paktia province. The Western military alliance had earlier admitted to killing six other civilians in the same province while accepting responsibility for taking the lives of five Afghan soldiers in Ghazni province. NATO blames the deaths on bad targeting and communication errors.

The theft of fish from Western Saharan waters should be damned by the European commission, not encouraged. There is one surefire way of allowing the internet to damage your sanity: spend too much time reading politicians' blogs. Take a recent post from Maria Damanaki, whose career has taken her from agitating against the Greek dictatorship in the 1970s to being the European commissioner for fisheries today. "Blue should become green," she declared in her blog on EU efforts to lessen the ecological destruction wrought by illegal fishing. Those efforts might have some credibility if the Brussels bureaucracy was not actively encouraging European vessels to act unlawfully in the waters off Western Sahara.

Whitehall officials were urgently scrambling last night to find ways to prevent 'femme fatale' Anna Chapman from returning to the country after she admitted spying for Russia. They are looking at whether they have the power to strip her of her citizenship before she can carry out her threat to come back to live in Britain. The battle over Chapman emerged on a day of high drama yesterday as the biggest spy swap since the end of the Cold War was underway in Vienna.

It could hardly be said to be the most dignified of send-offs. Undertakers in Belgium plan to eschew traditional burials and cremations and start dissolving corpses instead. The move is intended to tackle a lack of burial space and environmental concerns as 573lbs of carbon dioxide are released by each cremated corpse.

Six American soldiers have been killed in separate incidents in Afghanistan, as militants step up their attacks against the foreign forces stationed in the country. NATO said in a statement that three of the troops died in the country's east and two more were killed in the south. The US-led military alliance says the soldiers were battling the Taliban but no more details are available. A sixth US serviceman died as a result of an accidental explosion. Over 350 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year.

As environmentalism becomes mainstream, corporations and well funded environmental organizations work hand in hand to divert the public's efforts into market driven solutions. With runaway climate change looming in the horizon, we must ask ourselves what are the tactics we are going to use to stop the destruction and take us beyond symbolic gestures.