Ai Weiwei's wife has been able to meet the detained artist and activist for the first time since he went missing 43 days ago, a relative said today.

No one had been able to contact the 53-year-old since officials stopped him at Beijing airport on 3 April. But his sister, Gao Ge, said police took Ai's wife, Lu Qing, to meet him at an undisclosed location on Sunday night. She was able to see and speak to him briefly and reported that he seemed healthy and was being given access to the medication he needs for diabetes. "They weren't allowed to talk about much. They sat across a table from each other," Gao told Associated Press.

JERUSALEM — Thousands of Palestinians marched from Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip toward Israeli border positions on Sunday, hurling rocks and surging across one frontier before the Israeli army opened fire, killing at least 12 people and injuring scores.

The marches, which brought the protest culture of the Arab Spring to Israel’s doorstep, marked an unprecedented escalation of the annual demonstrations on the anniversary of the establishment of Israel in 1948. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the demonstrators were challenging “the very existence of Israel,” and, in nationally broadcast remarks, he pledged that the country was “determined to defend our borders and sovereignty.” Palestinians commemorate Israel’s founding as al-Naqba, or the catastrophe, marking the displacement of hundreds of thousands in the war that followed Israel’s declaration of independence.

Jason Ditz: Israel Gears Up PR Campaign to Defend Killings Along Border: Israeli Envoys Told to Blame Syria - Faced with growing international concern over the killing of some 20 civilian protesters along its borders with Lebanon and Syria and the wounding of hundreds of others, the Israeli Foreign Minister has issued a memorandum defining the official PR stance that Israeli officials abroad are to take with respect to the killings. The official stance will be that the deaths are entirely the fault of the Syrian government, with the argument being that since Syria’s military controls its border crossings into Israel, the protesters must’ve had official military permission to cross.

Daily Star: Israeli massacre at Lebanon border
Gaza TV News: Dramatic footage of hundreds returning to Golan Heights - VIDEO
Joseph Dana: 17 year old killed during Nakba demonstrations in East Jerusalem - VIDEO
UP: This is How Liberation is: The First Step of TOTAL Liberation of Palestine - VIDEO
New York Times: Palestinians Mark 63rd Anniversary of the ‘Nakba’ - PHOTOS
Patrick O'Connor: Israeli troops kill unarmed Palestinian protestors on borders
Jason Ditz: Reports: 20 ‘Nakba’ Protesters Killed as Israeli Troops Attack
Gaza TV News: Israel murders 21, and injure over 200 people in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon
Stephen Lendman: Commemorating Palestine's Nakba

Regime officials have repeatedly agreed to past calls for a ceasefire, including a transition to UN-supervised elections. The East Libyan rebels have rejected such offers in the past, but might be increasingly open as it seems the war has fallen into a permanent stalemate.

NATO is the big sticking point, however, as a number of top officials have ruled out ever ending the bombing campaign. Indeed, NATO military brass are calling for the further escalation of the war, and don’t seem particularly concerned about the prospect of years of bloody stalemate.

Jason Ditz: UK Army Chief Presses for Escalation of Libya War

Louis Vuitton's sued artist Nadia Plesner for her painting that included a child from Darfur holding a designer purse. European Court rules freedom of expression about Darfur more important than Louis Vuitton's trademark.

Back in March, we wrote about Louis Vuitton's attempt to sue artist Nadia Plesner for her painting that included what was supposed to be a child from Darfur holding a designer purse. This was the second time LV dealt with this issue. A few years earlier, it had sued Plesner over the same character holding the same purse (which, we should note, does not copy LV's logo directly) which was on t-shirts that Plesner was selling to help raise money for the victims in Darfur. We found the entire thing to be beyond distasteful by LV. This clearly was not trademark infringement. It was just LV being a bully. Plesner had lost that original lawsuit, mainly because she just didn't fight it. The new lawsuit was about the painting above.

A government body conducted analyses on the damage tsunamis of various scale would inflict on a nuclear power plant, according to documents made public on Sunday, adding to allegations that Japan and its largest utility failed to heed warnings.

The latest revelation, reported by the Mainichi daily, emerged as the government prepares to help Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) compensate victims of the crisis at the tsunami-crippled nuclear Fukushma Daiichi plant. The government and Tokyo Electric Power have repeatedly described the combination of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the ensuing 15-meter (46.5 foot) tsunami on March 11 as beyond expectations.

PressTV: Japan begins widening evacuation zone
Stephen Lendman: Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown Confirmed

The new-documents released by the Iraq war Inquiry has confirmed that Tony Blair and his communications advisor Alistair Campbell made up a pack of lies to involve Britain in an illegal war.

Following the revelation of the top military intelligence official, Michael Laurie, that Iraq dossier was written to make case of war, analysts said that the Iraq Inquiry is aimed at finding errors which have been made by the UK officials in invading to Iraq, has been leading depressing affair. They believed that the Chilcot Inquiry into Iraq war has already cost millions of pounds, and lasted for two years and exactly when the key witnesses stood at the Inquiry to give evidence on the disastrous Iraq War, the inquiry officials started asking imprecise and inadequate questions. The devastating evidence by Major General Michael Laurie proves that Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell were slippery, unashamed and able to mislead not only the Inquiry but the families of about 200 British soldiers who laid down their lives in this illegal bloody war.

CBC News: Canada offered to aid Iraq invasion: WikiLeaks - The same day Canada publicly refused to join the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, a high-ranking Canadian official was secretly promising the Americans clandestine military support for the fiercely controversial operation. The revelation that Canadian forces may have secretly participated in the invasion of Iraq is contained in a classified U.S. diplomatic memo obtained exclusively by CBC News from the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

CNN: Condoleezza Rice: Iraq sheltered, trained al Qaeda [September 25, 2002]

On May 13 President Barack Obama welcomed North Atlantic Treaty Organization secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen to the White House and the two pledged to continue the world’s two major wars, those in Afghanistan and Libya. There are over 150,000 foreign troops engaged in the nearly ten-year war in Afghanistan, at least 130,000 of them serving under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. Since taking command of the war against Libya on March 31 the military bloc has conducted almost 7,000 air missions, including over 2,600 combat flights. Obama and Rasmussen also announced that the U.S. will host next year’s NATO summit.

In a column in the same day’s Wall Street Journal, Rasmussen said, “NATO’s operational commitments have changed beyond recognition in the past 20 years, and we have never been busier.” Indeed.

Citizens have "no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry [to their homes] by police officers," Indiana's Supreme Court declared May 12 in a controversial 3-2 decision, Richard L. Barnes v. Indiana.

Justice Steven David wrote for the court in the decision that "this Court is faced for the first time with the question of whether Indiana should recognize the common-law right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers. We conclude that public policy disfavors any such right." Fellow Indiana Supreme Court Justice Robert D. Rucker issued a blistering dissent, claiming:

The common law rule supporting a citizen's right to resist unlawful entry into her home rests on a very different ground, namely, the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Indeed, "the physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed." Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 585 (1980). In my view it is breathtaking that the majority deems it appropriate or even necessary to erode this constitutional protection based on a rationale addressing much different policy considerations. There is simply no reason to abrogate the common law right of a citizen to resist the unlawful police entry into his or her home.

Have you herd about the Sheeple Quiz? Although most NaturalNews readers will easily beat it, it's a fun quiz to find out how smart (or gullible) your friends really are. So let 'em take the Sheeple Quiz! And then you'll know whether they're independent thinkers or just zombie-minded sheeple like the rest of the flock.

When it comes to your retirement account, you probably keep an eye on Wall Street and the financial markets because when they lose value, your account loses value. Little did you know you are going to have to keep an eye on Uncle Sam as well, because he's eyeing your retirement too, and he could soon take what he will claim is his fair share of it.

WASHINGTON — The debt-laden US government's credit card will hit its limit Monday, creating a cash crunch that puts the country's credit standing at risk as politicians battle over its long-term deficit.

Reaching the $14.29 trillion ceiling set by Congress will not have an immediate impact on government finances, because the Treasury has found about ten weeks of wiggle-room in short-term adjustments and an unexpected April jump in tax revenues. But with Republicans refusing to increase the ceiling without massive future spending cuts, the longer the fight over bridging the country's deficit goes on, the higher the stakes will get. If nothing is done by about August 2, there is a chance the United States, which has always merited a top-grade credit rating, could do the unthinkable -- default on its debt payments.

Israeli naval forces have fired warning shots at a Malaysian aid ship headed to the Gaza Strip as it was approaching the shore.

The ship's Malaysian organizer said the Israeli forces made them withdraw to Egyptian waters, AFP reported Monday. "The MV Finch, carrying sewage pipes to Gaza, had warning shots fired at it by Israeli forces in the Palestinian security zone this morning at 0654 Jordan time (0354 GMT)," said Shamsul Azhar, a member of the Perdana Global Peace Foundation. "Currently the ship has been forced to anchor in Egyptian waters, 30 nautical miles from Gaza," he further explained. The Free Gaza Movement, a coalition of human rights activists and pro-Palestinian groups, announced early April that a flotilla, comprising about 15 ships with activists from 25 countries on board, would set sail to Gaza in May on the first anniversary of the Israeli attack on a Gaza-bound Turkish ship.

Jane Hirschmann: Making a stand for human rights and dignity in Gaza