A psychologists' group has sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates asking him to "rectify the inhumane, harmful, and counterproductive treatment" of the Army private accused of being WikiLeaks' source for the US State Department cables. In a letter dated Monday, Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) argued that PFC Bradley Manning, who has been held in solitary confinement at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico for the past five months, may be the victim of political retribution. The group also suggested that the psychological damage Manning may be suffering from spending 23 hours a day alone may ruin his bid for a fair trial.

"History suggests that solitary confinement, rather than being a rational response to a risk, is more often used as a punishment for someone who is considered to be a member of a despised or 'dangerous' group," the letter stated. "In any case, PFC Manning has not been convicted of a crime and, under our system of justice, is at this point presumed to be innocent."

Nyheter24 ("News 24"), a Stockholm-based online tabloid broke the story in Sweden. The newspaper cites reporting by Andrew Kreig at Huffington Post (and the Justice Integrity Project), plus our work at Legal Schnauzer. Here is the Nyheter24 headline:

Karl Rove hjälper Reinfeldt att hantera Julian Assange: Enligt källor till Huffington Post har George W Bushs högra hand, Karl Rove, hjälpt den svenska regeringen att hantera fallet Julian Assange.

What does that mean? Well, we've been working on our Swedish--by pushing the translation button on our Google toolbar--and we will get to that in a moment. But first, we must say that it's pretty cool for our humble blog to have reached a global audience. We have international visitors to the blog on a regular basis, and they have picked up considerably since we've been writing about the Rove/Assange story. But to our knowledge, this is the first time our work has been picked up by a major news outlet in a foreign country. Even though we can't read Swedish, we pretty quickly discerned that Nyheter24 reporter Aaron Israelson had cited our work:

Nu anklagas Karl Rove för att ligga bakom den svenska regeringens kampanj för att få Wikileaks grundare och chefredaktör, Julian Assange, utlämnad hit. I syfte att därefter utlämna honom till USA - där ett spionåtal hotar Assange. Den amerikanske journalisten Roger Shuler, som bloggar på välbesökta och ansedda Legal Schnauzer, skriver att en säker källa uppger att Rove hjälper regeringen Reinfeldt med fallet Assange.

What does that mean? With the click of a button, here is the translation I came up with--and I swear I didn't have anything to do with the writing of this story:

Now accused Karl Rove of being behind the Swedish government's campaign to get Wikileaks founder and editor, Julian Assange , extradited here. In order to then hand him over to the U.S.--where a spy prosecutions threaten Assange. The American journalist Roger Shuler, who blogs on the popular and prestigious Legal Schnauzer, writes that a reliable source says that Rove will help the government Reinfeldt case Assange.

Legal Schnauzer: Julian Assange Case Is Being Driven by a Tangled Web in Sweden

Fred Syversen 107 meters (351 feet) cliff drop is the new world record. Fred Syversen unintentionally was filming for Nuit de la Glisse while he unintentionally set the new cliff dropping world record. See Fred Syversen's 107 meters drop and listen to his thoughts after the drop. Read more about Fred Syversen and his 107 meters (351 feet) drop in Fred Syversen 107 Meters Cliff Drop Video

Unless the sources of the DDoS attacks being carried out by Anonymous are identified and stopped, there seems to be no end in sight for their deluge of operations. These 'AnonOps' are presented as global outreach operations of sorts, aimed at assisting individuals and organizations subjected to persecution by governments and other institutions aiming to silence free expression and dissent.

The Tunisian people are perceived by Anonymous to be in need of global support and the same can be said of Wikileaks. In particular, the consensus seems to be that governments and other powerful bodies have chosen to pursue Julian Assange and his collaborators for having exposed crimes committed by those same institutions. As Assange has often pointed out himself, it is a disturbing fact about the current situation that upon learning about the horrendous crimes exposed through the leaks, the first impulse has not been to pursue the culprits, but instead to punish individuals who acted on conscience to make those crimes known.

WL Central: Nonoperational Site Update: Wrath of Anon in Tunisia

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has relayed a letter to US President Barack Obama, asking him to pardon a convicted spy whose arrest strained relations between the allies. Jonathan Pollard, a former US Navy analyst, was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 on charges of spying on the US for Israel. He is imprisoned at a federal jail in North Carolina. Netanyahu's office would neither confirm nor deny the sending of the letter but said the prime minister would refer to the issue in a speech to parliament on Tuesday, Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported. The White House however said it has received the request and is reviewing it. "A long time has passed since the act was carried out," read the letter. "Pollard has served his punishment."

Today a flag flies over Israel [...] the flag of McCarthyism. It manifests itself by turning any hopes of Israel ever becoming a Democracy into a fascist state. Aside from the racism which is supported by the political party in question, but also by trying to destroy any form of dissent against its evils.

Using the excuse of ‘protecting’ those guilty of committing war crimes against the people of Palestine, they have called for an inquiry commission to investigate cooperation between ‘anti-zionist’ groups and local organisations. In other words, a good old fashioned witch hunt reminiscent of the Cold War days in the United States. Keep in mind that this ‘initiative’ comes from the party led by Israel’s fascist Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

“The activity of these Israeli organizations severely harms Israel’s legitimacy in the international community,” the MK said. “The cooperation between international and Israeli organizations aimed at harming the IDF, its soldiers and officers must be investigated and stopped. “The activity of these organizations, which is funded primarily by anti-Zionist international organizations and even by foreign countries, constitutes a significant part of the delegitimization campaign against the State of Israel.”

Israeli terrorism is what must be stopped…. NOT those trying to stop it!

Were those kids at Yad Vashem who called elderly Palestinian women “sluts” and “whores” just a few “bad apples?” Or were they just a slice of the racist Jewish Israeli majority that agrees with a rabbinical ruling forbidding renting to Arabs and prohibiting Arab-Jewish relationships? Israel’s public high school teachers would know best.

Today, a group of young teachers sent a petition to Education Minister Gideon Saar calling on him to “speak out clearly against expressions of racism that are present everywhere.” The petitioners declared: “We can not remain silent in light of the increasing presence within the walls of schoolhouses of expressions of racism wherever it is directed — against Arabs, immigrants from Ethiopia and Russia, homosexuals and migrant workers. We see ourselves as educators who must issue a warning. A series of studies and surveys reflect the everyday reality that we all experience in encounters with our students: the prevalence of racism and cruelty is growing among young people in Israel. We are witnesses to this growing racism in education.”

The water quality control authority in the Gaza Strip said that more than 90% of the Strip's potable water was contaminated, warning of a serious threat to lives of the Strip's inhabitants. The report published on Monday said that the Palestinian citizens were increasingly using home desalination and purification systems especially with the high concentration of chlorine in the water wells. It noted that the sewage water, agricultural chemicals, and "dangerous waste" spewed by the former Israeli settlements in the Strip were contaminating the underground water reservoir. The report said that the people in Gaza consume 170 million cubic meters of the underground water per annum with no equal natural feeding of the water wells due to the scarcity of rain.

IOF Attacks a Palestinian Child when Breaking into Selwan
Village in Jerusalem.

Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law in the OPT continued during the reporting period (23 – 29 December 2010).

On the 2nd Anniversary of the Israeli Offensive on the Gaza Strip, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Escalate Attacks against Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)

● IOF killed two Palestinians shepherd in the Gaza Strip.
● Two activists of the Palestinian resistance were killed by IOF in the southern Gaza Strip.
● IOF continued to fire at Palestinian workers, farmers and fishermen in border areas in the Gaza Strip.
● IOF arrested 6 Palestinian fishermen and confiscated their boat.
● Israeli warplanes attacked a number of targets in the Gaza Strip.
● IOF continued to use force against peaceful protests in the West Bank.
● IOF arrested 17 human rights defenders.
● IOF conducted 51 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
● IOF arrested 18 Palestinian civilians, including a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and 7 children.
● Israel has continued to impose a total siege on the OPT and has isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world.
● Israeli soldiers positioned at military checkpoints in the West Bank arrested one Palestinian civilians.
● Israel has continued to take measures aimed at creating a Jewish demographic majority in Jerusalem.
● The Israeli municipality of Jerusalem waged a campaign of destruction and demolition in al-Tour village near Jerusalem.
● IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.
● Israeli settlers seized 600 donums of Palestinian land near Hebron..

Mr. Grouchosuave brings to my attention this gem.

The New Year began with three separate US missile attacks on targets inside northwest Pakistan, as the Obama administration intensifies an illegal cross-border war that took the lives of more than 2,000 people last year, according to published estimates in the US and Pakistan. Nine people were killed in the first missile attack, which struck a moving vehicle in the North Waziristan tribal region, the main focus of US attacks. Two hours later, US drones fired more missiles at people attempting to retrieve the bodies of the victims of the first attack, and five more died. A third attack on Saturday evening hit another moving vehicle in North Waziristan, killing at least four more. Less than 24 hours earlier, four US missiles hit another group of vehicles in the same region, killing at least eight.

The more than two dozen killed over the weekend is only a small fraction of the total death toll on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan. Both US and Pakistani sources say that the total number of strikes using missiles fired from Predator drones was approximately 120 in 2010, double the number in 2009, with estimates of the death toll ranging from 1,200 to 2,100.

UPDATE II: As officials worked to figure out the cause of death of some 5,000 blackbirds that fell from the Arkansas sky this weekend, some 100 miles away another disaster was unfolding: The discovery of 100,000 dead drum fish in the Arkansas River. According to news reports, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission found 20 miles of the river littered with dead fish on Thursday, and are conducting tests to determine what killed them. Observers are wondering whether the two mass die-offs are related, given the timing, but so far officials have found no links between the two events. Fish experts suspect disease to be behind the fish deaths, because they are limited to one species. Meanwhile, officials said Monday that fright likely killed the birds that began falling on the town of Beebe shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve.

Stephen Lendman: Electromagnetic Frequency Mind Control Weapons [Let's connect some dots here...could it be that they're actually testing some of these weapons in Arkansas right now?] Directed energy weapons include lasers, high power microwave, and millimeter wave ones among others. A relevant December 2007 Department of Defense (DOD) report called them a "transformational game changer in military operations, able to augment and improve operational capabilities in many areas," for both lethal and non-lethal purposes.

AWIP: Arkansas game officials probe mystery of falling birds -VIDEO

President Hugo Chavez and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shook hands and chatted briefly Saturday in a rare cordial encounter amid a diplomatic dispute that has left Venezuela and the United States without ambassadors in each other's capitals. The handshake came as leaders were milling about at the inauguration of new Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. It was unclear what Chavez and Clinton discussed. Chavez later described the interaction as a pleasant one, though he did not give much detail.

Hitler salutes in the street and firing practice in the forest: Neo-Nazis have taken over an entire village in Germany, and authorities appear to have given up efforts to combat the problem. The place has come to symbolize the far right's growing influence in parts of the former communist east.

The Guardian has obtained this police footage of Emily Apple and Val Swain being arrested by surveillance officers after asking for their badge numbers at the Kingsnorth climate camp last year. The two women speak to Paul Lewis about their arrest, imprisonment and official complaint.