An Afghan man prays beside graves of people killed in
a US-led strike in the war-torn country.

A US-led air strike has reputedly left dozens of civilians dead in Afghanistan, raising concerns about the growing number of civilian casualties in the country. The late Friday bombardment took place in the city of Sangin in southern Helmand Province. Locals told Press TV that the attack has also injured seven children in Helmand Province. Those injure were taken to the city's Central Hospital. Foreign forces and Afghan officials have yet to comment on the incident. Civilian casualties are on the rise despite a promise by the new commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. General David Petraeus vowed earlier this month that protecting civilian lives would his top priority. The US-led forces launch attacks on alleged militant hideouts on a regular basis, but the strikes usually result in civilian casualties because of bad intelligence or flaws in the operations. Civilians have been the main victims of violence in Afghanistan, particularly in the country's troubled southern and eastern provinces. The US and NATO downplay the number of civilian casualties.

Republicans in the US House of Representatives have introduced a measure that would green-light a possible Israeli bombing campaign against Iran. Resolution 1553 provides explicit support for military strikes against Iran, stating that Congress backs Israel's use of 'all means necessary' against Iran, "including the use of military force," BBC Persian reported. The introduction of the measure coincides with a pattern of renewed calls for military strikes that have escalated since President Obama signed Congressional Iran sanctions into law. Neoconservatives who were instrumental in orchestrating the Iraq War, such as Bill Kristol and Reuel Marc Gerecht, have led the stepped up calls for military action. Hawkish former Bush administration official John Bolton recently laid out the game plan to prod Israel into attacking Iran, arguing that outsiders can "create broad support" for a strike by framing it as an issue of Israel's right to self-defense. Supporters for military strikes, Bolton says, should "defend the specific tactic of pre-emptive attacks" against Iran. He said that Congress can 'make it clear' that it supports such strikes and that 'having visible congressional support in place at the outset will reassure' Israel. In spite of support from the neocons, top US military leaders have warned of the many dangers of military strikes against Iran.

Depleted Uranium itself is a chemically toxic and radioactive compound, which is used in armour piercing munitions because of its very high density. It is 1.7 times denser than lead, giving DU weapons increased range and penetrative power. They belong to a class of weapons called kinetic energy penetrators. The part of the weapon that is made of DU is called a penetrator: this is a long dart weighing more than four kilograms in the largest examples: it is neither a tip nor a coating. The penetrator is usually an alloy of DU and a small amount of another metal such as titanium and molybdenum. These give it extra strength and resistance to corrosion.

In addition to armour-piercing penetrators, DU is used as armour in US M1A1 and M1A2 battle tanks and in small amounts in some types of landmines (M86 PDM and ADAM), both types contain 0.101g of DU in the resin cases of the individual mines. 432 ADAM antipersonnel landmine howitzer shells were used on the Kuwaiti battlefields during the 1991 Gulf War. Both M86 PDM and ADAM mines remain in U.S. stockpiles. Patents exist for the use of a ‘dense metal’ as ballast in large ‘bunker busting’ bombs; such weapons have been deployed but it is unclear whether they contain DU, tungsten or a third high density substance, as their contents remain classified.

■ Fallujah and the laws of war
■ Horrific scenes from the ashes of Fallujah
■ Nothing depleted about 'depleted uranium'
■ Depleted Uranium: A War Crime Within a War Crime
■ Iraq: U.S. depleted uranium and surge in cancer (Photos)

With the financial system on the verge of collapse in late 2008, a group of troubled banks doled out more than $2 billion in bonuses and other payments to their highest earners. Now, the federal authority on banker pay says that nearly 80 percent of that sum was unmerited. In a report to be released on Friday, Kenneth R. Feinberg, the Obama administration’s special master for executive compensation, is expected to name 17 financial companies that made questionable payouts totaling $1.58 billion immediately after accepting billions of dollars of taxpayer aid, according to two government officials with knowledge of his findings who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the report. The group includes Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and the American International Group as well as small lenders like Boston Private Financial Holdings. Mr. Feinberg’s report points to companies that he says paid eye-popping amounts or used haphazard criteria for awarding bonuses, the people with knowledge of his findings said, and he has singled out Citigroup as the biggest offender. Even so, Mr. Feinberg has very limited power to reclaim any money. He can use his status as President Obama’s point man on pay to jawbone the companies into reimbursing the government, but he has no legal authority to claw back excessive payouts.

WASHINGTON—U.S. "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg on Friday declined to request 17 financial firms that doled out $1.6 billion in "ill advised" executive compensation to return the excessive payouts, saying to do so would be unfair to the companies and could trigger private lawsuits and additional Congressional investigation. Mr. Feinberg released a report that found 17 firms—including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc.—made the bonus-like payouts to top executives in late 2008 and early 2009 even as the companies were receiving taxpayer assistance. [Subscription]

British energy giant BP is trying to silence scientists and academics involved in the oil titan's spill response in the Gulf of Mexico, the American Association of Professors says. The British company, which faces more than 300 lawsuits for the April disaster that lead gallons of oil to gush into the Gulf, has reportedly offered scientists a contracts preventing them from publishing all research done for BP. Speaking to the BBC, Cary Nelson, the head of the association on Thursday said BP is trying to "buy" the best to help its defense against litigation after the spill. "This is really one huge corporation trying to buy faculty silence in a comprehensive way," Nelson added.

In Israel, an Arab man has been sentenced to 18 months for 'rape by deception'. Sabbar Kashur tricked a woman into having sex with him, by claiming to be Jewish. He plans to appeal the decision. And as RT's Paula Slier reports, even couples who choose to have interfaith relationships face hostility.

Uncovered: Britain's secret rendition programme - Until now, this country has been guilty only by association in the illegal transfer of prisoners. But the covert rendition of a Moroccan man by MI5 agents suggests that the practice was central to Britain's 'war on terror'. MI5 was directly involved in the rendition of a Moroccan national, illegally taken from a Belgian prison to work for Britain's Security Services in London, an investigation by The Independent has discovered. The man, now aged 29 and who cannot be named for his own safety, was secretly transferred from a Brussels jail in April 2004 and then further held and interrogated by senior MI5 officers at a secret base near London. Documents seen by The Independent show that in September 2003 a Belgian court sentenced the man to four years in prison for the use of false documents and association with terror suspects. Yet less than a year later Home Office papers reveal that the Moroccan, who was born in Rabat, was in Britain and had been granted leave to remain in the UK by the British Government.

The federal government has censored approximately 90 per cent of a secret document outlining its controversial plans to snoop on Australians' web surfing, obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws, out of fear the document could cause "premature unnecessary debate". The government has been consulting with the internet industry over the proposal, which would require ISPs to store certain internet activities of all Australians - regardless of whether they have been suspected of wrongdoing - for law-enforcement agencies to access. All parties to the consultations have been sworn to secrecy.

Scientists trying to explain the universe’s accelerating expansion usually point to dark energy, which seems to be pushing everything apart. But an Indiana University professor has a new theory, reports New Scientist: We’re inside a black hole that exists in another universe. Specifically, a black hole that rebounded, somewhat like a spring. Some fairly mind-blowing physics is involved here, but the gist is that Nikodem Poplawski of IU-Bloomington used a modified version of Einstein’s general relativity equation set that takes particle spin into account. Including this variable makes it possible to calculate torsion, part of the geometry of space-time. It also gets rid of the black hole singularity, a phenomenon that general relativity cannot explain.

In a study published earlier this year, Poplawski said when the density of matter reaches epic proportions, torsion counters gravity. This prevents matter from compressing indefinitely to a singularity of infinite density. Instead, matter rebounds like a spring, and starts expanding again. In Poplawski's latest study, his calculations show that space-time inside the black hole expands to about 1.4 times its smallest size in as little as 10-46 seconds -- two orders of magnitude faster, for lack of a better word, than the Planck time. This brisk bounce-back could have been what led to the expanding universe that we see today. But here's the real kicker: as Poplawski says, we may not be living in our universe at all; we might be living inside a rebounded black hole that exists in a different universe.