In a rough style, by way of unique footage, the brutal consequences of modern wars are exposed. The film also depicts the ability of women and children to handle their everyday life after a dramatic war experience. Many of them live in tents or in ruins without walls or roofs. They are all in need of money, food, water and electricity. Others have lost family members, or are left with seriously injured children. Can war solve conflicts or create peace? The film follows three children through the war and the period after the ceasefire.

Norwegian Film Institute: "Tears of Gaza"
Yahoo: "Tears of Gaza" a moving look at Palestinian plight

President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him, according to secret meeting notes and documents cited in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward. Obama rejected the military's request for 40,000 troops as part of an expansive mission that had no foreseeable end. "I'm not doing 10 years," he told Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting on Oct. 26, 2009. "I'm not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars."

At least eight people were killed and two others injured in a U.S. drone strike launched Monday afternoon in Pakistan's northwest tribal area of North Waziristan, reported local media. According to the report, the U.S. drones fired four missiles in the area of Tehsil Shawa in Miranshah of North Waziristan which borders Afghanistan. One of the missiles reportedly hit a vehicle carrying five local welfare workers and all of them were said to be killed.

PNN: Israeli Security Guard kills two Palestinians.
Antiwar: At Least 28 Killed in Latest Series of US Drone Strikes Against Pakistan.
AWIP: US State Terror on a Defenseless People

The end of Kim Jong-il's dictatorship in North Korea could be signalled next week at the first leadership conference in nearly 45 years, but the world's only remaining Stalinist state has insisted the "revolution" will continue. North Korea has announced it will hold a conference of its ruling Workers' Party next week, for the first time since 1966, to elect its "supreme leadership body". The country has announced a "great revolutionary surge" as it prepares for a regime change which could see Mr Kim's son, Kim Jong-un, appointed as his successor.

Ostensibly the conference will appoint new blood into the North Korean bureaucracy, but the rarity of the event has convinced experts that Mr Kim, 68, could use the event to unveil his third son as his successor. The elder Mr Kim travelled to China last month and may have sought China's rubber-stamp over the transfer of power. China remains North Korea's most important trading power and political ally. If Mr Kim does hand over power, North Korea will continue to enjoy the apparent contradiction of being a centrally-planned Communist state with a hereditary dynasty in charge.

It is against Israel's interests to join a global anti-nuclear arms treaty [Correct] and the UN atomic watchdog is overstepping its mandate in demanding it to do so, its nuclear chief said Tuesday. [Nonsense!]

Antiwar: Israel Rules Out Signing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The incident occurred after clashes broke out between Jewish settlers and a number of local Palestinians in the Silwan neighbourhood, Al Jazeera's Dan Nolan reported from Jerusalem. Israeli policemen fired rubber-coated bullets and teargas at stone-throwing Palestinian protesters after the shooting, leaving several Palestinians wounded.

PressTV: Palestinian shot dead in East al-Quds.

The massive unpopularity of the prospective partial settlement freeze is severely straining Israel’s right-far-right coalition government. If there is one thing the far right factions like its settlements in the occupied territories. But they’re also big fans of spying. Which is the genesis of the latest cockamamie scheme by the Netanyahu government to make the peace talks in the West Bank about everything but the occupation of the West Bank. According to Israel’s state-run Army Radio, the Netanyahu government is “discreetly and unofficially” approaching the Obama Administration about the trade: spy for freeze.

Jonathan Pollard, to be exact. The US Naval anaylst who has been in prison since 1987 of spying for Israel. Though US-born and a US citizen at the time of the crime, Israel granted Pollard citizenship in 1995, and Prime Minister Netanyahu has been trying to secure his release for over a decade. Which is where we are now, with the prospect of “trading” a continued settlement freeze, which might keep the peace talks going a little longer, for a confessed spy. The deal might not make much sense, for anyone, but with people trying seemingly anything and everything in this peace process it is perhaps unsurprising.

Justin Raimondo: The Pollard Principle Yes, in Israel they’re counting the days until this traitor is released, and their message – hand the traitor over – is now being projected by Israeli negotiators, who are pressing the US for Pollard’s release in exchange for yet another temporary halt to their aggressive “settlement” building campaign. The settlements have become a big sticking point obstructing the peace process, with unelected Palestinian “President” Mahmoud Abbas threatening to walk if the Israelis don’t lay off. This illustrates what I call the Pollard principle: whenever there’s a showdown between the US and Israel, a difficult negotiation involving some concession the hard-headed Israelis refuse to budge on, the Israeli side always raises the Pollard issue. It was raised during the Wye negotiations, and Bill Clinton toyed with the idea until then CIA chief George Tenet and a whole raft of intelligence and military officials threatened to resign in protest.

Gordon Duff: Pollard should have faced 110 murder counts for American victims alone. "Pollard had only one purpose, not to spy for Israel but to enable the Soviet Union to launch a successful nuclear “first strike” on America. Pollard didn’t act alone but had a series of handlers in Tel Aviv and Moscow." Israel is demanding the immediate release of Jonathan Pollard. Pollard, sentenced to life in prison for spying against the United States is a hero in Israel. Jonathan Pollard, an American of Jewish ancestry and Zionist extremist publicly stated that he tried to destroy America to help maintain the “racial purity of Israel.” Pollard may have been spying for Israel but all the information he stole, a truckload of America’s most vital secrets, all went to the Soviet Union.

Jeff Stein/WaPo: White House, CIA ignore reported Pollard gambit.

An Afghan reporter was arrested, apparently because of his contacts with Taliban representatives. For local reporters, covering the war is a minefield. The Associated Press reports that Afghanistan reporter Rahmatullah Naikzad, a freelancer who contributes video to the AP and also works for Al Jazeera's Arab language service, was arrested by a NATO forces in the troubled province of Ghazni yesterday. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the umbrella legal fig leaf for the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan, provided few details beyond a brief statement that the journalist had been detained because of suspected ties to the Taliban. The AP reports that Mr. Naikzad, an ethnic Tajik, cultivated ties with Taliban and other militant leaders as part of his job, and that his family strenuously objected to any suggestion he might have been providing assistance to the Taliban. The vast majority of Taliban members are ethnic Pashtuns, and most Tajiks are sworn enemies of the Taliban.

If recent experience is anything to go by, it could be months or years before the allegations against him are dealt with and he's either cleared and released, or evidence of wrongdoing is forthcoming. Reuters photographer Ibrahim Jassam, for example, was arrested by US and Iraqi forces on allegations he was a "security threat" and detained without charge for 17 months, until he was released this February.

Yes you read right. To all those who want to believe all the warmer propaganda like “the ice is melting” or “soon there will be no ice in the Arctic” and other cute little phrases designed to scare those global warming bucks right out of your wallet into someone else’s bank account please go look at this one from Real Science.

As you can plainly see, the ice is getting thicker, not thinning faster than Kojak’s hair. Polar Bears will not be drowning, the Walruses will not be beaching themselves due to lack of ice (which by the way is normal and not something to get over-excited about) and the Arctic Fox probably doesn’t need to go on the endangered species list because of that old faux global warming.

A report issued by the Justice Department Monday reveals new details of illegal spying by the FBI on an array of environmental, antiwar and animal rights groups during the years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But the report clears the FBI of any deliberate violation of civil liberties, claiming that agents were motivated by concern over potential violent acts, not the leftwing political views of their targets. The internal review by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine is filled with weasel words to describe the widespread spying. People were placed on terrorist watch lists because of “factually weak” evidence. Investigations were initiated and continued “without adequate basis.” FBI tactics were “troubling.” The FBI maintained investigative files although “there was little indication of any possible federal crimes.”

The conduct examined in the report, however, goes far beyond such characterizations. It is nothing less than the establishment, at least in embryonic form, of a police state, using the 9/11 attacks as a blanket justification for surveillance and infiltration of dozens of organizations engaged in legal and constitutionally protected political activity. Among the groups investigated were Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Catholic Worker and the Thomas Merton Center, a pacifist group based in Pittsburgh.

Middle-class families could be forced to undergo lie detector tests as part of a major crackdown on tax avoidance being spearheaded by Nick Clegg. Tens of thousands will face intrusive new tax investigations under the plans unveiled by the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday. As part of a two-pronged attack on the better-off, millions more will face cuts in benefits, such as winter fuel payments, child benefit and free bus passes. The moves, unveiled at the Liberal Democrat conference, were designed to guarantee Mr Clegg's popularity with mutinous grassroots members, but were described by critics as ‘bully boy tactics’.

The deaths bring to 530 the number of US, NATO and other occupation troops killed since the beginning of this year, according to the web site icasualties.org, which tracks casualty reports. With more than three months of the year left to go, this already surpasses the 517 fatalities in 2009. The death toll for US troops had already surged past the total 2009 figure by the end of last month. Thus far, 351 US troops have died in Afghanistan this year, compared to 317 for all of 2009. The latest casualties bring to 2,098 the number of American and other foreign occupation troops killed in Afghanistan since the US invasion of the country in October 2001.

These are harrowing times for anyone trying to sell a home or for anyone who is trying to make a living in the housing industry. But unfortunately, there are a whole lot of signs that things are about to get quite a bit worse. U.S. home sales have hit record lows in recent months. An increasing number of sellers have started to reduce their asking prices, and there are signs that home prices are already starting to slip substantially in many areas of the country. Meanwhile, the inventory of unsold homes in the United States continues to rapidly increase. Home foreclosures and bank repossessions of homes continue to set all-time records. What this all means is that the U.S. housing market is being absolutely flooded with homes for sale at a time when there are very few buyers. There is way too much supply and not nearly enough demand and as a result home prices are being pressured downward. The home buyer tax credits that the U.S. government was bribing home buyers with helped stabilize the U.S. housing market for a while, but now the tax credits have expired and things are getting scary out there.