At least 14 people have been killed in two US-led airstrikes in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand, according to a provincial statement. In the first airstrike, two civilians and six militants men have been killed in Sangin district in the east of the province, the provincial governor's office said in the statement on Saturday. The report added that another US-led airstrike targeted an area near Sangin district, leaving six more militants men dead, a Press TV correspondent reported. NATO has yet to comment on the incident.

Most of the NATO forces in Helmand are British and American service members. Loss of civilian lives at the hands of foreign forces has increased anti-American sentiments and provoked great anger among Afghans. Thousands have taken to the streets in recent months, protesting against rising civilian deaths by US-led forces in the war-torn country.

AWIP: US-led attacks kill 16 Afghan civilians.

Described by Pakistan’s government as the worst disaster in the nation’s history, the floods that have wracked the country since late July have claimed at least 1,600 lives and left millions more homeless. In this exclusive photo essay from Sindh Province by photographer Komail Naqvi, The Diplomat presents a timeline of events as they unfolded.

Bigotry is bigotry but it seems that the New York Times now reserves a special word, anxiety, for anti-Islam bigotry. Can you imagine if the paper labels anti-Semitism as "anxiety"? And notice how this bigotry is justified: "Nearly nine years after the Sept. 11 attacks ignited a wave of anxiety about Muslims, many in the country’s biggest and arguably most cosmopolitan city still have an uneasy relationship with Islam. One-fifth of New Yorkers acknowledged animosity toward Muslims. Thirty-three percent said that compared with other American citizens, Muslims were more sympathetic to terrorists. And nearly 60 percent said people they know had negative feelings toward Muslims because of 9/11."

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has described the US-brokered talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel as “illegal” and “unacceptable.”

Speaking at an International Quds Day rally in Kashan on Friday, Mottaki said the primary legal flaw of the talks is the fact that the term in office of one of the negotiators has expired. “On what basis does Mr. Mahmoud Abbas participate in the talks as the representative of the Palestinian nation, while his tenure has ended?” IRNA quoted the Iranian foreign minister as saying on Friday. “As clearly expressed by the Palestinian people and most Palestinian groups, these negotiations are unacceptable,” he added.

Mottaki called the talks puppetry and propaganda and noted that Tel Aviv never met the three conditions set in what is referred to as the Arab Initiative. The only path that can lead to the realization of the aspirations of the Palestinian nation is resistance, and the Palestinians are well aware of this fact, he added.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) acknowledges that the nuclear watchdog can not monitor and assess Israel's undisclosed nuclear sites. The IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said on Friday that Tel Aviv had restricted the agency in examining its nuclear potentials. Amano's comments were made public in a report to the Vienna-based watchdog's Board of Governors. In his visit to Israel last month, Amano called on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Tel Aviv, however, refuses to confirm it possesses a nuclear arsenal, estimated to be between 200 and 400 nuclear warheads. Israel is considered to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East. Amano also said he has asked Israel to "place all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards," AFP reported. Meanwhile, the report expressed "concern about the Israeli nuclear capabilities," and linked it to "concern about the threat posed by the proliferation of nuclear weapons for the security and stability of the Middle East." Tel Aviv has rejected Amano's comments, arguing that his report is "politically motivated". Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the IAEA intended to divert attention from Iran and Syria.

Activists clashed with Irish police as they tried to push down a security barrier outside the bookshop. Eggs and shoes have been thrown at the former prime minister Tony Blair as he attended a book signing in Dublin. It happened as he arrived at Easons on O'Connell Street in the city to sign copies of his autobiography. The missiles, which were thrown by anti-war protesters, did not hit Mr Blair. Four people were arrested as activists clashed with Irish police at a security barrier outside the bookshop. Around 200 protesters demonstrated at Mr Blair's role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on one side of the street on Saturday morning.

Gilad Atzmon: Bloody Memoir
Belfast Telegraph: Dublin protester tries to make citizen's arrest on Tony Blair.

[Please don't Buy 'A Journey' by Tony Blair. You'd just make him richer. -He came from nowhere and has become very rich because of his 'Journey into War Crime & Evil'

Please email the Waterstone’s bookshop and ask them to cancel Tony Blair's book-signing. It will take you only a minute or two using a model letter – please spare the few moments. You can find the model letter, and a web interface to send the email, HERE Please also consider joining the protest at Waterstone's in London on Wednesday 8 September. For further details, click HERE.]

The scientist who prompted an evacuation of Miami International Airport for carrying what screeners believed was a pipe bomb is known to federal authorities and was charged in 2003 for illegally transporting 30 vials of the deadly bubonic plague. Officials said Dr. Thomas Butler, 70, a U.S. citizen, who teaches in the Caribbean and Saudi Arabia, was released after questioning. Authorities said the metal canister in his luggage tested negative for dangerous materials and was related to a legitimate experiment. Butler, a renowned infectious disease expert who spent more than 20 years working on cures for cholera and bubonic plague at Texas Tech, lost his job after he was found guilty of exporting the vials, lying to federal officials, and embezzling research funds. He was charged with 47 counts smuggling biohazard materials. He spent two years in prison but was later acquitted of smuggling plague

People & Power examines dangerous conflicts between the US and NATO strategies in the fight against the Taliban.

A 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation into the purchase of child pornography online turned up more than 250 civilian and military employees of the Defense Department -- including some with the highest available security clearance -- who used credit cards or PayPal to purchase images of children in sexual situations. But the Pentagon investigated only a handful of the cases, Defense Department records show. The cases turned up during a 2006 ICE inquiry, called Project Flicker, which targeted overseas processing of child-porn payments.

But new Project Flicker investigative reports obtained by The Upshot through the Freedom of Information Act, which you can read here, show that DCIS investigators identified 264 Defense employees or contractors who had purchased child pornography online. Astonishingly, nine of those had "Top Secret Sensitive Compartmentalized Information" security clearances, meaning they had access to the nation's most sensitive secrets. All told, 76 of the individuals had Secret or higher clearances. But DCIS investigated only 52 of the suspects, and just 10 were ever charged with viewing or purchasing child pornography. Without greater public disclosure of how these cases wound down, it's impossible to know how or whether any of the names listed in the Project Flicker papers came in for additional scrutiny. It's conceivable that some of them were picked up by local law enforcement, but it seems likely that most of the people flagged by the investigation did not have their military careers disrupted in the context of the DCIS inquiry.

Raised on the holocaust narrative and the inundation of media fear mongering towards Muslims, young American jews who 'say' they are fearful of their own communities are forming militia training groups. Just exercising their 2nd amendment rights as all patriotic Americans should they proclaim. I checked the ADL "militia movement" page to see if these jewish groups are listed but it looks as though they're not. SPLC ... ditto. Probably the FBI and ATF haven't infiltrated them yet and Abe and his teammates are waiting for more information. Are the Uzi's they have fully automatic? Unless these guys, some former IDF employees, begin to bulldoze their surrounding communities and drive out the locals to build their own settlements, I doubt if they're in any danger. Maybe if they're bankers ... then some might say that in the long run all bets are off.

Why does everything Al Qaede do only help Israel? Is Al Qaeda another Mossad front? Today, 43 Pakistanis were killed in a terror attack, killed for supporting Palestinians in Gaza. The signs had been there, the Wikileaks attempt to put responsibility for the Taliban on Veterans Today editor General Hamid Gul. This was debunked in a heartbeat. This attack was vicious and clearly the work of Israel. This was a terror attack meant as a message to the people of the world telling them that if they rally in support of those imprisoned in Gaza, they will be murdered.

This is far from the first time Israel has been caught. The PKK, the Kurdish terrorist group, communists, who have been attacking Turkey from their mountain “caves” in Iraq for over 40 years have long been trained, funded and even recruited by Israel’s Mossad. Now the partnership between India and Israel, helped along, not only by the CIA, the Kazrai brothers “corporation” and MI -6 is becoming difficult to ignore.

Only when the oil has run out will they leave. Or is it just one more base in the plan to dominate the whole world.

Aid groups and U.N. agencies are raising the alarm over the vulnerability of pregnant women and babies in flood ravaged Pakistan.

Over the past month the unprecedented monsoon-induced floods have affected nearly 18 million people - 1,600 lives have already been lost, according to U.N. estimates.

"We know that mothers are giving birth in flimsy or crowded shelters, steps away from stagnant water and debris," said Sonia Kush, director of emergency preparedness and response at Save the Children. "And we know the dangers for newborns are extreme - the first hours and days of a child’s life in the developing world are the riskiest, even without the added complications posed by a disaster of this scope. Displacement, increased impoverishment, crowded living conditions, disease and infection are further imperilling the lives of mothers and their newborn babies in Pakistan."

Save the Children says that 100,000 women are due to give birth in the next month and according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately 500,000 flood-affected pregnant women are currently in their second or third trimesters. Nearly 500,000 newborns are expected to be born in the coming half year.

"We must ensure the health and safety of all these women and their babies," U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Pakistan Martin Mogwanja said. "This disaster has already affected almost 18 million people. We don’t want it to also affect half a million babies who are not born yet."

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Twelve militant groups held a meeting in the Gaza Strip last week, and agreed to form a joint operations room to coordinate resistance activities, Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades spokesman told reporters Thursday. Speaking shortly before US Middle East Envoy George Mitchell delivered an update on the peace talks in Washington, Abu Obeida, flanked by representatives of the 12 groups, announced a "new phase of advanced joint efforts" for the resistance. The Al-Qassam Brigades claimed to have orchestrated and carried out two attacks on Israeli settlers in the West Bank over the past three days, the first killing four - two men, two women, one of the latter pregnant - near Hebron, and the second injuring two near Ramallah. According to the spokesman, the participating brigades included:

Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades
Islamic Jihad's Al-Quds Brigades
Popular Resistance Committees' Salah Ad-Din Brigades
Fatah's Al-Aqsa Brigades
The Al-Sa’eqa forces, also linked to Fatah
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's Abu Ali Mustafa brigades,
Jihad Jibril Brigades, also linked to the PFLP
Saif Al-Islam Brigades
Al-Ansar Brigades
Humat Al-Aqsa (Al-Aqsa protectors)

AWIP: Hamas claims responsibility for the killing of 4 Israeli settlers.

Talks aimed at forming a right-wing minority government in the Netherlands have collapsed. Sharp divisions in the Christian Democrat CDA party about working with the anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders finally boiled to the surface, forcing Mr Wilders to pull out of negotiations. The liberal VVD party were prepared to continue negotiations.

When George Bush launched the Iraq War, it was obvious to any observer that we were in that country because they had oil, and our government wanted that oil. But this isn't the only time that our military has been used to help businesses take control of the natural resources of a country. In fact, it's happened a lot more than you might think. Mike Papantonio talks about our war addiction, and how US corporations are helping to make these wars self-perpetuating, with David DeGraw, a founding member of the Amped Status blog.