Tens of thousands of Yemenis have taken to the streets in the country’s capital, calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave power. At euronews we believe in the intelligence of our viewers and we think that the mission of a news channel is to deliver facts without any opinion or bias, so that the viewers can make their own opinion on world events.

Al Jazeera: Troops break up Gabon protests

For me, the leaked Palestinian Papers provide us with a valuable glimpse into Israeli politics and Western complicity in the crimes carried out against the Palestinian people. I do realise that most Palestinian commentators agree that the leaked papers have “damaged whatever little credibility the Ramallah-based authority still enjoyed among Palestinians” ; yet, more than anything else, the Papers prove beyond doubt that Israel is not a partner for peace -- In spite of the weaknesses that have been shown by the PA since the 1990’s, Israel has failed to secure a peace deal, and has consistently failed to show any will to bring the conflict to an end. In short -- Israel has always wanted more.

The Papers have also clearly shown that whilst Israel likes to present an image of ‘political pluralism’ , that is little more than a deception : there is not much difference at all between Tzipi Livni and Avigdor Lieberman. Both are Zionist enthusiasts, and both are interested in a ‘Jews only state’ -- Indeed, just like Lieberman Livni too,offered to “transfer Israeli Arabs.”

PA, with US encouragement, delayed a UN vote on the Goldstone Report into war crimes committed during Israel's Gaza war.

On October 2, 2009, the UN Human Rights Council was widely expected to pass a resolution supporting the Goldstone Report, the UN’s probe of war crimes committed during Israel’s war in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009. The Council instead agreed to delay a vote on the report until March 2010, following major reservations expressed by the Palestinian Authority, the United States and Israel. A UNHRC endorsement of the report would have brought Israeli officials one step closer to prosecution before a war crimes tribunal, an event many Palestinians were anxious to see. But, as The Palestine Papers reveal, the Palestinian Authority apparently sacrificed a potential victory for Palestinian victims in exchange for favorable assurances on negotiations from the United States and, they hoped, from Israel.

The Goldstone Report, formally known as the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, was released in mid-September 2009 amid calls for a review of Israel’s wartime practices. The probe was led by Richard Goldstone, a former South African judge; it identified war crimes committed overwhelmingly by Israeli forces, but also by Hamas, during Israel’s war on Gaza. Both the United States and Israel were outspoken in their criticism of the report, claiming that any UN endorsement would endanger the peace process and future Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has already admitted that the PA asked for the postponement; he said at the time it was to secure more international support before the vote. [...] What The Palestine Papers demonstrate is that, in the weeks preceding the vote, the United States apparently urged the PA to stall the report as a means of restarting negotiations with Israel.

Al Jazeera: MI6 offered to detain Hamas figures

[Editor's Comment:] And yet the British elite goes out of its way to accomodate the Israeli war criminals (Livni, Barak etc.) who'd like to visit Britain. They now are moving to scrap the principle of Universal Jurisdiction (here, here, here, here and here) in order to please them. They are kow-towing to the Zionist Jews and the sorry spectacle is absolutely repugnant. Why this Zio-zeal? More here and here.

Al Jazeera: A glimpse into the negotiation room
Mondoweiss: Palestine Papers: Admiral Mullen says Palestinian state is a U.S. ‘cardinal interest’ after raising troop deaths

An American man shot dead a Pakistani motorcycle rider in a street in Lahore city on Thursday, a senior police official told AFP, claiming that he fired his pistol in "self defence". "The American national told us he was driving his vehicle and stopped at a traffic signal. He saw motorcycle riders and one pulled out a pistol. The man told us he then pulled out his pistol and fired in self-defence," Lahore police chief Aslam Tarin told AFP.

The News: American kills three in Lahore LAHORE: Three people were killed when a US national opened fire on motorcycle riders and hit another with his car in an attempt to escape from the scene at Mazang Chowk on Thursday, Geo News reported. According to details, the man identified as Raymond David, reportedly a staffer of the US Consulate, opened fire at two persons ridding a motorcycle, injuring them seriously. Both the injured were shifted to Services Hospital where they were pronounced dead. Another motorcyclist was also injured when hit by the speeding car of David who was escaping from the crime scene. The injured was rushed to Services Hospital where he succumbed to his wounds during treatment. Later, the suspect was apprehended by police and taken to Old Anarkali police station. Police also recovered arms from his possession. Information officer at the US Consulate refused to comment immediately on the incident.

A nine-year-old girl begged for her life before being shot dead along with her father by an anti-immigrant vigilante group, a court heard. Brisenia Flores was gunned down at point-blank range in her own home in Flores, Arizona, as her terrified mother Gina Gonzalez, who had also been hit, played dead on the floor. She sobbed as the court was told how she had heard Brisenia's desperate pleas as her killer stood over her.

'I can hear it happening,' Mrs Flores told the court describing how her daughter said: 'Why did you shoot my dad? Why did you shoot my mum?' 'I can hear her telling him to "please don't shoot me."'

The prosecution alleges that the child and her father Raul Flores Jr were murdered in May 30, 2009 by a group of vigilantes set up to tackle Mexican immigrants. The shootings took place 200 miles from Tucson, the scene of the gun massacre earlier this month in which another nine-year-old girl died. Shawna Forde, the head of the Minutemen American Defence group, is on trial accused of two charges of first degree murder. She is allegedly orchestrated the attack on the Flores family with two male accomplices, due to face face court in.March. Police claim that Forde believed Mr Flores was a drug trafficker and would have cash and goods in the house which they could use to fund their patrols. She reportedly led the raid and gave instructions to the male accomplices.

● Economists warn cuts will not make a dent in America's massive deficit
● Experts fear his 'innovate' rallying cry will actually COST money
● Republicans: Spending cuts don't go far enough
● Dow Jones gives mixed response to Obama speech
● Federal budget deficit to hit $1.5 trillion this year

President Obama’s rallying cry for Americans to pull together quickly unravelled today as government economists revealed the biggest budget gap in U.S. history. The weak economy and a new round of tax cuts will push up the U.S. deficit this year to almost $1.5 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. At 9.8% of the country’s entire gross domestic product, the staggering amount of debt is one of the largest as a share of the US economy since World War Two.

Jerry White: Obama’s State of the Union address
PressTV: US budget deficit to hit historic high
PressTV: US President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech does not reflect “the whole truth” about the US domestic and foreign policies, a political analyst says.

A two-stage winter storm struck, paused, gathered its breath and delivered a crippling blow to the Northeast early Thursday, dumping more than a foot of snow, closing airports and schools, stranding commuters and shattering January records. The storm, appearing as a giant white smudge over the Northeast on radar maps, seemed to land hardest in New York City and the surrounding area. Nineteen inches of heavy, wet snow fell on Central Park, tied for the highest total in the region and only an inch less than the 20 inches that paralyzed the city a month ago, according to the National Weather Service. But parts of Connecticut and New Jersey received nearly as much, and snowfalls totaled at least a foot from Boston to Philadelphia.

USA Today: Winter storm pounds Northeast
Yahoo: Snow blankets Northeast, New York vows to improve clean-up

Atmospheric physicist, MIT Professor of Meteorology and former IPCC lead author Richard S. Lindzen joins us to discuss the state of the climate change debate, the lack of evidence for catastrophic warming and what the science really tells us.

The super-volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming has been rising at a record rate since 2004. It would explode with a force a thousand times more powerful than the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980. Spewing lava far into the sky, a cloud of plant-killing ash would fan out and dump a layer 10ft deep up to 1,000 miles away. Two-thirds of the U.S. could become uninhabitable as toxic air sweeps through it, grounding thousands of flights and forcing millions to leave their homes. This is the nightmare that scientists are predicting could happen if the world’s largest super-volcano erupts for the first time in 600,000 years, as it could do in the near future. Yellowstone National Park’s caldera has erupted three times in the last 2.1million years and researchers monitoring it say we could be in for another eruption. They said that the super-volcano underneath the Wyoming park has been rising at a record rate since 2004 - its floor has gone up three inches per year for the last three years alone, the fastest rate since records began in 1923.

It sounded conciliatory, even friendly, brimming with the outward trappings of a shift to the center, but President Barack Obama’s 2011 State of the Union speech was, at its core, an unmistakably partisan challenge to congressional Republicans. Yet for all the surface civility, Obama wants to pick a fight, or at least draw a stark contrast, between his jobs-centric philosophy and the GOP’s determination to cut government first and ask questions later.

State of the Union Speech: You can read our full coverage below. The signature line everyone will remember came at the end: "We do big things."

[Editor's Comment:] Yes, that's what Obama does. Big things. And he's right to boast about them (more so than Bush anyway, who was pretty good at boastin' too). -In Iraq Obama still is killing a lot of people, creating terror & mayhem on a daily basis, continuing where Bush left off. In Afghanistan he does things in a seriously big way as well, terrorizing many, and killing thousands of innocent civilians (oh, yes, children too), in the streets, in people's homes, in mosques and market squares. -Impressive! Why, in Pakistan he even murders them using drones, killing hundreds, thousands of them from a distance. So you see, retail clearly is not worthy of a Peace Laureate. Wholesale, that's the way to go. So if you're lookin' to do somethin' really, really, really BIG in the way of peace, Obama's the man...Why not join the Army?

WSWS: Obama outlines right-wing, pro-corporate agenda in State of the Union speech In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Obama outlined a reactionary political agenda that amounted to a full-scale embrace of the policies of the incoming Republican majority in the House of Representatives. The speech was a demonstration of the bipartisan consensus of the American ruling elite. Both Democrats and Republicans serve the interests of the financial aristocracy, from whom they are taking their marching orders to cut domestic social spending and enact further tax breaks for the wealthy. Obama displayed utter callousness and indifference toward the social distress of tens of millions of Americans. There was virtually no reference to unemployment or the staggering growth of economic inequality, and no proposals for creating jobs for the 17 million workers who are jobless or forced to subsist on part-time and temporary work. The words “poverty,” “foreclosures,” “hunger” and “homelessness” were not uttered, despite sharp increases in all four during the first two years of Obama’s tenure. Listening to Obama’s desultory remarks, one would never have guessed that just 28 months ago the American financial-corporate elite brought the American and world economy to its knees, precipitating the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The speech was a paean to American capitalism and the very financial bandits who are chiefly responsible for the catastrophe facing the American people.

The Economic Collapse: Empty Promises: 5 Reasons Why Barack Obama’s State Of The Union Address Was Completely Wrong About The Economy What the American people really need are some very real answers to some very real problems. So were there any real answers in Barack Obama's State of the Union address? Well, Barack Obama promised that America will "out-innovate, out-educate and out-build" the rest of the world. He also pledged that America will become "the best place in the world to do business" and that the government must "take responsibility" for our deficit spending. But does all of this rhetoric mean anything or is all this just another batch of empty promises to add to the long list of empty promises that Barack Obama has already made and broken? The American people certainly don't need any more empty promises. Millions of American families have been pushed to the edge of desperation by this economy.

The Qatar-based broadcaster Al- Jazeera launched Monday a second cache of documents quoting Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as saying it would be "illogical" to ask Israel to absorb five million refugees as part of a final peace deal. The leaked files said that Abbas privately acknowledged the return of even one million refugees would mean "the end of Israel" and does not seem practical. According to the documents, not only did Palestinian officials offer a low figure of returnees, Chief Palestinian negotiator Saed Erekat said that "refugees would not have voting rights on a possible peace deal with Israel."

The new documents also showed that in the course of peace talks in 2008 and 2009, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni proposed moving several Arab villages now in Israel into a future Palestinian state as part of a land-swap deal for West Bank Jewish settlements. The Arab satellite news channel launched a first cache of new documents on Sunday. Al-Jazeera said it has obtained nearly 1,700 documents, maps and minutes of decade-long records of negotiations. The Arab satellite news channel said the leaks cover more than 10 years of secret talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The documents also showed Abbas was warned in advance of Israel 's 2008 invasion of Gaza.

Uruknet: The Palestine Papers: Offering Palestine
Uruknet/The Guardian: Palestinian refugees rule out compromise on return to homeland
Uruknet/The Guardian: Palestine papers: MI6 plan proposed internment – and hotline to Israelis

The first protester is dead in Egypt according to tweets and media reports. 20-year-old Mustafa Reda Mahmoud Abdelfattah is said to have been killed by a shot to his heart. SkyNews confirmed this report. A second protester has also been killed according to Reuters. Police have started firing live ammo at the crowd along with tear gas. Now the sun is setting and the crowds are still out. Click HERE to see photos of the Egyptian riots.

Xinhuanet: Egyptian authorities ban further protests Egyptian authorities said Wednesday that further protests will be banned after Tuesday's mass gatherings in Cairo and some other places in Egypt. A statement of the Interior Ministry said anyone who organizes protests would be subject to legal questioning. The statement called on people to discard attempts to exploit their problems and to bear in mind the dangers of stirring the sentiments of ordinary people to open doors for havoc and chaos. "Police separated the crowds after we learnt that the protesters planned to escalate matters and invite other groups," the ministry's statement said. The statement also denied that massive protests took place in other places, saying the intensive presence was in Tahrir Square in central Cairo where no more than 10,000 protesters amassed and by the evening they were reduced to half.

WSWS: Tens of thousands march in Egypt against Mubarak regime
PressTV: Further protests banned in Egypt
AhramOnline: Live Updates of the Protests in Egypt - it is growing
SifyNews: Egypt president's son, family flee to Britain
The Independent: Robert Fisk: A new truth dawns on the Arab world

Demonstrations were held in Cairo yesterday demanding the ouster of President Mubarak and calling for reforms. This was inspired by recent events in Tunisia and by the works of our talented Associate, Carlos Latuff. Carlos’ works were featured on many of the placards carried in the event. Egyptian demonstrators hold up placards during a protest in central Cairo to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak and calling for reforms on January 25, 2011. The protesters, carrying flags and chanting slogans against the government, rallied in a protest inspired by the uprising in Tunisia which led to the ouster of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. A video of the demonstration, courtesy of Al Jazeera, can be seen here.

Boy's claim of innocence prompted judge to try him as adult. A Pennsylvania boy who was 11 years old when he allegedly shot and killed his father's pregnant fiancee could find himself being the youngest person ever sentenced to life without parole. Human rights campaigners have said the case shows the US' justice system to be unusually harsh towards juvenile offenders, and argue that a life sentence for the boy could violate international law.

Prosecutors allege that Jordan Brown, now 13, shot and killed 26-year-old Kenzie Houk as she slept in her home in Lawrence County, near Pittsburgh, in February, 2009. Houk was pregnant with a nearly full-term child at the time. Brown was charged with two counts of homicide. Brown's lawyers on Tuesday argued an appeal against a judge's earlier decision to have the adolescent tried as an adult.

[russkeller:] Can't audit the CIA either. It's why they got into drug sales so they could have cash off the books and not be held accountable.
[Editor:] The Federal Reserve (FED) can't either...

Click on image to check out the rest of the info. (Hat Tip: Lauren Jackson)

We read: US fury over UN expert's 9/11 'cover-up' claims 25 Jan 2011 The United States on Tuesday demanded the sacking of a UN human rights expert for "noxious" [?] comments claiming there had been a US cover-up over the September 11 attacks... The US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, called Falk's views "despicable and deeply offensive" and said she had registered a protest and called for his dismissal. Falk wrote in his personal blog on January 11 that there are "awkward gaps and contradictions in the official explanations" given for the attacks when hijacked [sic] jets crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. He said there was "an apparent cover-up" by the US government over its knowledge of the attacks masterminded by Osama bin Laden. Falk said mainstream US media had been "unwilling to acknowledge the well-evidenced doubts about the official version of the events: an Al-Qaeda operation with no foreknowledge by government officials."

Except that the events of September 11th were not a 'bin Laden' operation. They were a Cheney/Neo-con operation, six ways to Sunday.

Most variations of international-relations realism include some notion of states sacrificing ethical considerations at the altar of national interest. It's never been completely clear, of course, whether this is a descriptive claim, or a prescriptive one—whether, in other words, the idea is that states should behave this way, or that they in fact do. Those pondering this question ought to consider the case of Norway. In a brief but revealing cable included in the vast WikiLeaks "CableGate" trove and published last week by the Norwegian paper Aftenposten, US embassy officials report that the Nordic nation opted to divest its sovereign wealth holdings from companies violating "humanitarian principles" and "fundamental ethical norms."

In case you are thinking that major global corporations aren't exactly quaking in their boots at the prospect of divestiture by Norway, think again. Built on the healthy revenues of Norway's thriving oil sector, the country's sovereign fund invests its considerable wealth in over 7,000 corporations worldwide. In fact, the fund is the largest single investor in Europe. To judge from the WikiLeaked cable, the combination of Norway's financial heft with its righteous ethical stance concerned American diplomats because, well, it disproportionately affects US corporations—specifically, America's highly-profitable and politically-influential arms manufacturers.

[Erta Ale, a volcano in the deserts of Ethiopia’s Afar Triangle in northeastern Africa, erupts. The volcano’s crater had always had a bubbling soup of silver-black lava. But, in November 2010, it started erupting again after decades of lying dormant.]

The fissures began appearing years ago. But in recent months, seismic activity has accelerated in northeastern Africa as the continent breaks apart in slow motion. Researchers say that lava in the region is consistent with magma normally seen on the sea floor -- and that water will ultimately cover the desert.

Cynthia Ebinger, a geologist from the University of Rochester in New York, could hardly believe what the caller from the deserts of Ethiopia was saying. It was an employee at a mineralogy company -- and he reported that the famous Erta Ale volcano in northeastern Ethiopia was erupting. Ebinger, who has studied the volcano for years, was taken aback. The volcano's crater had always been filled with a bubbling soup of silver-black lava, but it had been decades since its last eruption.

NATO's senior official in Afghanistan Mark Sedwill has said foreign forces will remain in the war-wrecked country far beyond 2014 to take new "tasks". The NATO official made the remark at a press conference on Tuesday, adding that a new phase in the war will begin in 2014 despite the planned handover of security to Afghan forces, Xinhua news agency reported. Sedwill further explained that the tasks and roles of NATO forces would undergo a change and stressed that after 2014 priority would shift to providing socio-economic support for the war-torn country rather than military and security aid.

Last November, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced that NATO would start handing over control to Afghan security forces from the beginning of 2011 and the transition would be completed by the end of 2014. Despite because of the presence of some 150,000 US-led foreign troops in Afghanistan, the war-hit country remains devastated by militancy as well as persistent bombings and ground attacks by foreign troops that supposedly target militants but leave many civilians dead.

More about NATO's "tasks" here.

Thousands of people rallied on Sunday in Mir Ali, a town in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal agency, and in Peshawar, the capital of the country’s north-west Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, in furious protest against a wave of US Predator missile strikes on homes and vehicles inside Pakistan. Hundreds of Pashtun tribesmen spontaneously assembled for the Mir Ali demonstration. Just hours before, a Predator had stalked a car allegedly carrying four anti-US militants and incinerated it with Hellfire missiles when it parked in the village of Doga Madakhel. All the occupants were killed. Two other Predator strikes followed. A motorcycle rider and two others were killed not far from Doga Madakhel, then at least six people were killed by another missile strike on a house near Miranshah, the largest town in North Waziristan. Sunday’s demonstration in Peshawar highlighted the growing fury in Pakistan over the US operations inside the country—which are gross violations of Pakistani sovereignty and war crimes under the Geneva Convention, which bans extrajudicial assassinations and the targeting of civilian housing and vehicles.

Institutionally biased to the Left [???], politically correct and with a rudderless leadership. This is Peter Sissons’ highly critical view of the BBC in his new memoirs, in which he describes his fascinating career over four decades as a television journalist. Here, in the latest part of our serialisation, he reveals how it was heresy at the BBC to question claims about climate change . . .

Yesterday nine members of anti-war and Palestinian solidarity groups were compelled to appear before the Chicago grand jury for the first time. One of these is Maureen Murphy, a journalist who has been active in opposition to Israel’s repression of Palestinians. In a statement, Murphy said she and the others would refuse to comply with the grand jury, calling the process a “fishing expedition.” Coinciding with yesterday’s grand jury hearing, the Committee to Stop FBI Repression held demonstrations in Chicago, Minneapolis, and other cities. The 14 activists victimized in the September raids invoked their Fifth Amendment right when requested to appear before the Chicago grand jury, and subpoenas were withdrawn. The FBI infiltration of political groups, police raids, and the grand jury inquisition by the Obama administration aim to intimidate and criminalize opposition to government policy and roll back democratic rights. They come at a time of deepening economic crisis and a war that has lasted longer than any other in US history.

Maureen Murphy: I Will Not Dignify This Witch Hunt

Synopsis

●Two young journalists found themselves in the middle of what would be their biggest story yet, but what happened would change their lives forever.
● 365 AM is the raw story of Gaza and two journalists trying to reach the rest of the world from inside one of the most deeply divided and silenced places on the globe.

Objective of the film

1- we seek to show and educate the Western audience about a different narrative than the one they are used to seeing about the people in Gaza.
2- we intend on entering this film into many film festivals around the world.
3- we will create a website that will empower people to take action giving them a set of practical steps that they can take to help the people of Gaza.
4- we hope to do a speaking tour around the world with Ayman Mohyeldin and Sherine Tadros targeting the Universities, and other educational and prominent institutions to shed light on what happend in Gaza.

On January 3, 2011, the U.S. Government, in its fright over the WikiLeaks releases, granted to all its agencies authority to terminate any Federal employee, diplomat or military member who exhibits unhappiness or who expresses any criticism of anything the American government is doing. Its theory is that an “unhappy” soldier or diplomat may leak information to WikiLeaks about government misconduct, so it is best to remove them from the military or from the diplomatic service before they can do so.

The principal reason given for most revocations is that the soldier or diplomat is no longer deemed “trustworthy.” Untrustworthiness has always been a vague and arbitrary standard. As there are no credible checks and balances on the revocation process, abuses are inevitable. But now the term “untrustworthy” has been expanded such that any pretense of due process and legality has been eliminated.

A spate of shooting attacks on law enforcement officers has authorities concerned about a war on cops. In just 24 hours, at least 11 officers were shot. The shootings included Sunday attacks at traffic stops in Indiana and Oregon, a Detroit police station shooting that wounded four officers, and a shootout at a Port Orchard, Wash., Wal-Mart that injured two deputies. On Monday morning, two officers were shot dead and a U.S. Marshal was wounded by a gunman in St. Petersburg, Fla. On Thursday, two Miami-Dade, Fla., detectives were killed by a murder suspect they were trying to arrest. "It's not a fluke," said Richard Roberts, spokesman for the International Union of Police Associations. "There's a perception among officers in the field that there’s a war on cops going on."

Palestine papers show US secretary of state told negotiators that Chile and Argentina could be asked to give land to displaced.

The United States proposed giving Palestinian refugees land in South America as a radical solution to a problem that has haunted Middle East peace talks for decades. Condoleezza Rice, the Bush administration's secretary of state, wanted to settle displaced Palestinians in Argentina and Chile as an alternative to letting them return to former homes in Israel and the occupied territories. Rice made the proposal in a June 2008 meeting with US, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Berlin, according to minutes of the encounter seen by the Guardian. During a discussion about international funding to compensate refugees – an estimated 5 million Palestinians are scattered around the Middle East – the US diplomat made a startling suggestion.

"Maybe we will be able to find countries that can contribute in kind. Chile, Argentina, etc (ie, give land)."

The Guardian: Palestinians condemn US plan to settle refugees in South America
Desert Peace: BIGGEST LEAK OF THE DECADE
Desert Peace: If true, it is treason
Ynet News: PA official: Leaked memos authentic

The British government is complicit in torturing political prisoners detained and jailed in the occupied West Bank by the Palestinian Authority (PA), a senior British officer said. The officer, James MacInnis is charged with training the PA's top security officials as part of a plan to provide assistance and financial support to PA agents in arresting and torturing members of the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas. MacInnin admitted to the British role in torturing Palestinian prisoners after an Arab organization for human rights in London revealed that the PA has been torturing prisoners affiliated with Hamas for years. Torture techniques used in PA prisons included shabh (hanging) of all kinds, beatings with cables, pulling out nails, suspension from the ceiling, flogging, kicking, cursing, electric shocks, sexual harassment and the threat of rape, according to the report. At least six Palestinians have died under torture in PA prisons and many former detainees have permanent physical disabilities, the report found.

Human Rights Watch has warned about the worsening security situation in Afghanistan, despite because of the presence of 150,000 foreign troops in the war-wrecked country. In its annual report for 2010, the rights group said security has deteriorated in most regions of Afghanistan, despite the US troop surge last year. The Monday report said that two US operations in Kandahar and Helmand in 2010 displaced thousands of Afghan civilians and increased militancy in the two provinces. It added that there was a ten percent increase in civilian casualties last year in the war-ravaged country.

According to UN figures, over 2,100 Afghan civilians lost their lives in the first nine months of 2010. Nearly 100,000 American troops are already stationed in the Asian country and many more are expected to join them soon. The developments come as a recent report says US-led military operations have inflicted over USD 100 million in damages on public property in southern Afghanistan.