A group of US soldiers is facing accusations of randomly targeting and killing Afghan civilians for sport, The Washington Post reported Sunday. Citing army legal documents and interviews with people involved in the case, the newspaper said the case involved rogue members of a platoon from the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

The game started last winter, when one Afghan man approached the soldiers in the village of La Mohammed Kalay, the report said. As the man neared, one soldier created a ruse that they were under attack, tossing a fragmentary grenade on the ground, the paper noted. Then others opened fire, killing the man. According to The Post, the unprovoked attack on January 15 was the start of a months-long shooting spree against Afghan civilians that resulted in some of the grisliest allegations against American soldiers since the US invasion in 2001. Members of the platoon have been charged with dismembering and photographing corpses, as well as hoarding a skull and other human bones, the report said.

A US drone strike has killed at least four militants and wounded several others in the troubled northwestern tribal belt in Pakistan. According to Pakistani security officials, the drone fired two missiles at a vehicle in the North Waziristan region on Sunday.

"It was a US drone attack. Four militants were killed. The vehicle was hit by two missiles," a regional security official said.

The US frequently carries out such attacks on Pakistan's tribal areas. Attacks by unmanned American planes have left dozens of people dead in the volatile region over the past weeks. The aerial attacks, initiated by former US President George W. Bush, have been escalated under President Barack Obama. The New York Times recently ran a report, saying the US government has ordered the CIA to step up air attacks in Pakistan. Washington claims the strikes target militants, but civilians often bear the brunt of the attacks. Islamabad has frequently slammed the US over the drone strikes, saying they violate its sovereignty.

US won’t accept "slackness" by Pak Army in "war on OF terror. ISLAMABAD: US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke said on Friday that his country would not accept any “slackness” on part of the Pakistan Army in the fight against the Taliban due their engagement in flood relief efforts. “Neither the security situation has changed fundamentally, nor the Taliban threat has receded and with the Americans placed in a difficult situation in Afghanistan, we certainly will not like to see slackness on part of the Pakistan Army in the war on terror,” he told reporters in Islamabad. “I don’t believe that the Americans are losing any battles or war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, rather a recent surge of troops would certainly improve situation in Eastern Afghanistan soon,” the US envoy said while referring to the situation in Afghanistan.

The Netherlands on Sunday cancelled a tour of the country by a forum of Israeli mayors because their group included representatives of West Bank settlements. The professional delegation, funded by the Joint Distribution Committee, a US Jewish charity, was supposed to fly to the Netherlands next month to study public policy and local governance. But when the Dutch Foreign Ministry found out that regional council heads from the Judea and Samaria regions, including from the West bank settlements Efrat and Kiryat Arba, were due to participate, they decided to cancel the tour.

Flaherty: During Katrina police murdered and covered up - a continuation of systemic abuse of the poor

We probably all know that a passionate new relationship can leave you little time for others, but now science has put some numbers on the observation. Oxford University researchers asked people about their inner core of friendships and how this number changed when romance entered the equation. They found the core, which numbers about five people, dropped by two as a new lover came to dominate daily life.

"People who are in romantic relationships - instead of having the typical five [individuals] on average, they only have four in that circle," [explained Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford.] "And bearing in mind that one of those is the new person that's come into your life, it means you've had to give up two others."

The research, which has only recently been submitted for publication, was presented to the British Science Festival at Aston University.

A human rights organization has planned to present a peace prize to the whistleblower of Israel's secret nuclear program. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said it would give the award to former Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported on Sunday. Vanunu will receive the 2010 Carl von Ossietzky medal. German journalist Ossietzky won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935 for speaking out against the Nazi Party. Vanunu learned about Israeli's secret production of plutonium for nuclear weapons while working at the Dimona nuclear power plant from 1976 to 1985 as a technician. In 1986, he disclosed details of the nuclear program during an interview with the Sunday Times.

Vanunu said Israel was fast developing nuclear weapons after he showed 60 photographs of Israeli plutonium spheres used for triggers in nuclear warheads. Vanunu's data showed that Israel possessed over 200 bombs with boosted devices, neutron bombs, F-16 deliverable warheads, and Jericho warheads.

George Galloway speaking in London this morning at the start of the latest Viva Palestina convoy to attempt the Gaza run.

Former Guantanamo Bay inmate Binyam Mohamed has been barred by United States judges from suing over his alleged torture. They ruled that his claims against the CIA cannot be aired in an American court because it could compromise "national security".

Critics blasted the decision as shutting out torture victims from justice, while providing 'complete immunity to their torturers'. British resident Mr Mohamed was secretly flown to Morocco by the CIA where he claims he was horribly tortured with a razor blade, before being taken to Guantanamo for four years.

Often at seminal historical junctures the need to venture “outside the box” and think the unthinkable becomes critical. Such a moment is now upon the Palestinians. At stake is whether they will survive as a people or dissolve into the oblivion of the banished: ethnically cleansed from their homeland, the world’s new gypsies, a second-class diaspora, third-class inhabitants of isolated reservations.

About one third of Afghanistan's eligible voters came to polling stations on Saturday to elect a new parliament, the head of the Afghan Independent Election Commission said. According to preliminary data, a total of 3.6 million people out of 11,4 million [numbers corrected by this editor] eligible for voting casted their ballots to elect the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of the country's parliament, Fazil Ahmad Manawi said. Taliban fighters launched dozens of attacks across the country to prevent people from voting in the polls, Afgnanistan's second general elections since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.

WaPo: Afghan turnout low amid violence
Reuters: Fraud concerns weigh on early Afghan vote count
Tom Peters: Another rigged election in Afghanistan
RAWA: Fraud casts doubt over Afghan election

A majority of Americans would oppose joining Israel in a war should it strike Iran, a poll showed. The Chicago Council on Public Affairs poll, released Thursday, shows 56 percent of respondents answer "No, it shouldn't" to the statement, "If Israel were to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, Iran were to retaliate against Israel, and the two were to go to war, the United States should or should not bring its military forces into the war on the side of Israel." Those responding, "Yes, it should" amounted to 38 percent. In other findings, a majority -- 58 percent -- favored "making a major effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" as a measure to fight terrorism, with 39 percent opposing.