TRIPOLI (AFP) – Powerful explosions rocked Tripoli Tuesday as NATO unleashed its heaviest blitz yet of the capital, while France and Britain piled pressure on Moamer Kadhafi by bringing helicopters into the Libya fray.

Top United States official Jeffrey Feltman said meanwhile that Libya's rebels are to open a representative office in the US and that Washington sees them as "credible and legitimate representatives of the Libyan people." Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim told reporters that at least three people died and 150 were wounded in the air strikes, which he said targeted a deserted military barracks but which instead hit civilians living nearby. An AFP journalist said the raids lasting more than half an hour began at around 1:00 am when powerful blasts were heard in the sector around Kadhafi's Bab al-Aziziya residence. More than 15 strong blasts were heard in the neighbourhood, with the sound of warplanes roaring overhead.

PressTV: US senate backs attack on Libya

MIRAMSHAH: Seven people were killed in a US drone strike on a vehicle in Machikhel village in Mir Ali subdivision in North Waziristan Agency (NWA) on Monday, sources said. Sources said an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) fired two missiles at a vehicle moving on a road in Machikhel village. The vehicle was destroyed and its seven occupants killed.

The identity of the slain men, whose bodies were disfigured, couldn’t be ascertained. This is the seventh missile attack by US drones in North Waziristan since the May 2 assassination of Osama bin Laden by US Special Forces in Abbottabad. This strike is the 28th by the CIA-operated drones in North Waziristan this year. North Waziristan is the primary target for US drones in Pakistan nowadays. Occasionally, the unmanned planes also attack targets in neighbouring South Waziristan Agency. These drone strikes are being conducted despite a recent unanimous resolution by parliament in Islamabad, asking the government to put an end to such attacks.

Global Post: Obama's hidden war: U.S. intensifies drone attacks in Pakistan - Despite death of Osama bin Laden, drone attacks continue to pound North Waziristan. Obama — who made winning the war in Afghanistan and catching bin Laden two of his central campaign promises in 2008 — has stepped up the use of unmanned drones in North Waziristan. The drones are operated by the Central Intelligence Agency and were first authorized by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2004.

WASHINGTON -- While the United States keeps trying to forget about Afghanistan -- and President Obama has quietly slipped the date for withdrawal three years ahead, from July 2011 to July 2014 -- a new secret program in Afghanistan is quietly boasting of bringing about an end to the decade-long war.

The program is "kill/capture," and it has been waged by the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, for the last year, with, according to PBS's excellent "Frontline," 3,000 operations in only the last 90 days. Essentially, it sends special forces out in the dark of night into slumbering Afghan villages to force Taliban leaders out of their hiding places and then shoot them or capture them. There is only one major problem: It appears rather too often that the American intelligence planners are not certain that the men they are killing or capturing are really Taliban. There is, of course, a larger question: Why are we killing and capturing Taliban when this war was supposed to be about al-Qaida? But we'll set that aside for the moment. Under Gen. David Petraeus, now named to be head of the CIA, the American forces have killed or captured more than 12,000 militants in the last year, according to "Frontline." Lt. Col. John Nagl, one of the officers involved in the campaign, is quoted as saying that these American troops are "getting very good at this ... almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine." The pictures of the Americans on patrol that accompany the TV show are terrifying, as they break into mud houses in the middle of the night, dragging out men who may match the pictures they carry with them to identify the Taliban -- or may not. I surely couldn't tell.

In a lecture that linked Egypt's revolution to the balance of power in the region, the renowned American academic Norman Finkelstein painted the clear fear change will induce in Israel.

The American political scientist and author Professor Norman Finkelstein, an outspoken critic of Israel, gave a lecture Monday night to a packed auditorium at the American University in Cairo, a day after he demonstrated with Egyptians in front of the Israeli embassy in Giza on the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba. Finkelstein, the author of The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, started the lecture by speaking about Israeli aggression towards its neighbours in the last five years, starting from Hezbollah’s victory against Israel. Finkelstein moved from this defeat to tell a narrative of Israel’s belligerency in reaction to this defeat, using the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2008, the ensuing blockade and finally the attack on the freedom flotilla, the Mavi Marmara as illustration. Through such accounts, Finkelstein presented to the audience why he views Israel as a rogue state.

Ashraf Ezzat: While in Cairo: Norman Finkelstein Joined a March on Israeli Embassy

Lauded by settlers and derided by commentators, the US president's AIPAC speech is portrayed as a victory for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Jewish settler leaders were moved to express their satisfaction with Barack Obama's Middle East speech at the AIPAC annual conference, going as far as inviting the US president to join the leadership of their association. Benny Katzover, longtime leader of the West Bank settlement movement, said that the speech didn’t just represent a victory for Israel, but it was also a great statement of support to the concept of settlement and to the "entrenchment of Jewish presence" in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Golan. In an interview with Israel's Channel Seven, Katzover explained that Obama's honest and clear mention of the necessity to take into consideration the demographic shifts taking place in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Golan after 1967 gives legitimacy to Israel's right to keep Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and supports without reservation the Jewish right to reinforce the settlement project as a whole and the Judaisation of Jerusalem. In his speech, Obama implied his support for Jerusalem to be the eternal and unified capital for the Jewish people, said Katzover. In its turn, Israeli Radio, reporting in Hebrew, said Sunday night that one of Banjamin Netanyahu’s aides said that Obama’s AIPAC speech showed that Netanyahu’ firmness and determination forced the US president to back down from his statements in last Thursday’s Middle East speech that had angered Israel.

Stephen Lendman: Obama Genuflects to AIPAC
Stephen Lendman: Alleged Obama - Netanyahu Rift
Richard Falk: Obama bows to AIPAC's will

Why is it that Palestinians are the only people in the Middle East seemingly not allowed to throw stones at a military regime which oppresses and controls them? Why are Palestinians branded as violent when they use the same tactics which the Egyptian and Tunisian protesters used during their historic revolutions? This question has been stuck in my mind since Obama’s recent speech on the Middle East.

On Friday, the Palestinian ‘Arab Spring’ was on display in Nabi Saleh. Watch the video. What do we see here? You will notice that the demonstration in Nabi Saleh, a small village west of Ramallah, began with no stones and only chants. The army quickly attacked the demonstrators with tear gas and sound bombs resulting in the outbreak of clashes between stone throwing youth from the village and soldiers. Do these youth have a right to throw stones at an invading army?

As the demonstration wore on, the army became more aggressive. At one point, soldiers decided to arrest over 10 Israeli supporters. For what reason were these witnesses of occupation arrested? For the same reason that at minute 2:55, you see a solider throw a sound grenade at the filmmaker responsible for the clip. The army does not want outsiders to understand what is happening to the Palestinian Arab spring in the West Bank. Who would have thought that the Arab Spring in Palestine would feature Israeli supporters resisting alongside Palestinians?

The shocking part comes at the end of the video when the army brought in the ‘Skunk truck,’ filled with a corrosive petrochemical, and sprayed the village’s central square. Did the truck spray stone throwing Palestinian youth? No. It covered buildings with chemical rendering them useless for weeks. This video reflects the realization of the Egyptian revolutionary model in the West Bank. This is what unarmed resistance and joint struggle to Israeli occupation looks like. This is the Arab Spring in Palestine.

Donald Rumsfeld, who went from matinee idol to political liability over the arc of former President George W. Bush’s first six years in office, is mounting an unlikely comeback as best-selling author, amateur historian, social-media dabbler and in-demand talking head. His memoir, “Known and Unknown” — covering his kaleidoscopic career from three-term congressman to White House chief of staff to both the youngest and the oldest secretary of defense — spent eight weeks on The New York Times’s best-seller list, hitting No. 1.

That there are known knowns,
There are things we know that we know,
There are known unknowns,
That is to say there are things that we now know, we don't know
But there are also unknown unknowns,
There are things we do not know we don't know
And each year we discover a few more
Of those unknown unknowns.
—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing [Source]

At least 13 Pakistani soldiers, including 11 members of the Navy, were killed when a group of insurgents raided the Pakistani naval base in the financial capital of Karachi. The raid occurred overnight, but sparked what officials called an 18 hour battle.

According to security officials, the raid also saw two surveillance aircrafts at the base destroyed, and the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was accused of having “claimed responsibility” for the attack by the nation’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik. Four insurgents were reported slain. The success of the raid of such a heavily guarded facility has spawned considerable concerns again about the competence of the Pakistani military. These questions are compounded by a unilateral US raid earlier this month, which the military apparently did not notice. Pakistani security officials shot back, saying that they responded to the raid within three minutes of the insurgents arriving. Officials also insisted they rescued 17 foreigners who were on the base, including 11 Chinese and six Americans who were involved in “training” exercises.

Destruction in Joplin (Photo by storm chaser Brandon
Sullivan)

The huge tornado that razed much of Joplin, Missouri Sunday evening, killing at least 116, was the deadliest in the US since 1953. Many remain missing and hundreds have been critically injured.

The storm cut a six-mile-long and nearly one-mile-wide swath through the downtown, striking a hospital, department stores, nursing homes, houses, schools, and entire apartment complexes. The tornado “cut the city in half,” Joplin Fire Chief Mitch Randles said, estimating that 25 to 30 percent of the town was damaged. Most of the 50,000 residents are directly impacted by the destruction, and hundreds of thousands more in the greater metropolitan area will face power outages, lost work, and other economic hardship. The Joplin tornado was one of 68 other cells moving through the Midwest over the weekend, including one that hit Minneapolis, Minnesota Sunday night. One person was killed by that storm; on Friday night a tornado claimed the life of a Kansas resident. More severe tornadoes are forecast for the region Tuesday.

The Joplin disaster once again lays bare certain social realities of American life. Masses of people live in cheaply fabricated housing, in towns with no public storm shelters and little forewarning of disaster. Thousands of the poorest people are exposed to both the raw force of nature and a protracted humanitarian disaster. Many lose what little they own and face the prospect of beginning anew without savings, insurance, or governmental help.

Naomi Spencer: The social conditions behind the deadly US tornado outbreak

Spanish protests spread across Europe — in videos An unprecedented wave of spontaneous protest is washing across Europe as outraged Spanish protesters seek to export their nascent revolution. Something incredible is happening in Europe right now: the M-15 movement that was born in Spain last week, with the Democracia Real Ya protests on May 15, is rapidly spreading across the continent as young people everywhere take to the streets to demand real democracy now. Below are some of the most inspiring videos from the wave of protests that is washing over the continent. Please let me know in a comment if you have any other footage that I could put up. And make sure to find a protest near you and join the global solidarity movement!

The U.S. President Barack Obama was pandering to the pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC when he gave a speech there, so says political commentator James Morris.

Morris told Press TV's U.S. Desk that Obama's pandering to AIPAC was for "political purposes". The Los Angeles-based political analyst said that "with regard to the coming election and financing from Jewish donors" the Democratic Party is very concerned. Morris accused Obama of "putting the security of Israel above the security of America". He told the U.S. Desk that while Obama is "saying that we're in tough fiscal times with regard to the U.S. economy and U.S. states going broke", the president is reaffirming sending billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Israel to pay for their military. Morris said the U.S. has admitted to sharing all the latest military technology with Israel, while Tel Aviv has sold some of that technology to China.

Jeff steinberg: 1967 border issue political theater for US - Video