BELGRADE -- Serbian President Boris Tadić confirmed during a news conference in Belgrade today that a man suspected to be Hague fugitive Ratko Mladić had been arrested.

According to reports earlier in the day, the Serbian police arrested on Thursday a man going by the name of Milorad Komadić, who was suspected to be former VRS General Ratko Mladić. B92 previously received confirmation that a man suspected to be Mladić was in custody. The secret operation came after a tip-off that Komadić "possessed some identification documents of Ratko Mladić and was physically very similar to him", the Zagreb-based Jutarnji List reported earlier today. The report did not mention the location where the arrest took place. B92 has unofficially learned that the operation took place in the village of Lazarevo, near the town of Zrenjanin in northern Serbia. B92 contacted the police, but was told only that an indentity check and a DNA analysis were "ongoing", and that a complete DNA analysis would take three days to complete. The former military leader of Serbs in Bosnia is wanted by the Hague Tribunal on genocide and war crimes charges.

BBC: Ratko Mladic arrested: Bosnia war crimes suspect held
NYT: Top Serbian War Crimes Suspect Caught
Al Jazeera: Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic arrested - Video
Der Spiegel: A Portrait of Ratko Mladic
Wikipedia: Ratko Mladić

By next month, every driver in the U.S. will be required to have a black box in their vehicle.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will declare that all automobiles are required to contain the event data recorder - similar to those found in aircraft - in order to monitor driving habits and provide a snapshot of the final moment of impact if the car crashes. The snapshot will be able to be viewed by law enforcement, insurance companies and automakers and the owner of the vehicle will not be able to turn it on or off. Critics of the mandate see it as another Big Brother-style invasion of privacy by the government while others believe it is a way to keep tabs on drivers. It will also make it easier for insurance companies to settle claims and have access to circumstances surrounding car crashes.

Skype appears to have suffered a significant and bizarre crash, with users worldwide reporting problems on Twitter.

Not long after the company has announced a major deal with Microsoft it has become victim to unspecified problems, with some reports of the programme shutting down with a Windows error message. Twitter is now seeing floods of angry messages by users who have been booted of the system and are now unable to login or even start up the Skype programme itself. An error message appears on Skype and users are not able to even get to the next log-in screen. Much of the vitriol is aimed at Microsoft, with one user tweeting: “Major worldwide Skype crash, thanks Microsoft!”.

Update: Skype's servers are screwed. There is a notice online which says: "Hi, our server has taken a short break. "Looks like our server is down. This usually means that we're doing maintenance work or there are too many visitors at skype.com and we cannot cope with the popularity. In any case — we're already fixing it and everything should be back to normal in a few minutes." What's happened here then? Not much or has Skype been hit badly? Somewhere in Redmond, someone is sweating...

Update 2: Thanks to commenter Rael, who mentions Skype's quick-fix post at heartbeat.skype.com.

It was not as if there was a chance of peace for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to squander in Washington. No peace process worth talking about exists to be revived. But he had a choice of making matters worse or better, and he chose to make them worse.

Not that you would have known that if your only contact with the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis was watching Mr Netanyahu's speech to a joint session of the US Congress. Congressional lawmakers are not just pro-Israeli, like most Americans. They support Mr Netanyahu's specific vision of Israel, judging by their response to his speech. His speech to Congressional lawmakers was punctuated by around 30 standing ovations.

Philip Giraldi: The Book of Netanyahu
Uri Avnery: Bibi and the Yo-Yos
Stephen Lendman: Netanyahu Spurns Peace

[PressTV Video] Former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney says every candidate for Congress has to sign a pledge to vote for supporting the military superiority of Israel. "Every candidate for Congress at that time had a pledge. They were given a pledge to sign ... that had Jerusalem as the capital city," McKinney said in an interview with Press TV on Sunday. "You make a commitment that you would vote to support the military superiority of Israel that the economic assistant that Israel wants that you would vote to provide that," she added. McKinney said that if a candidate does not sign the pledge or perform accordingly, "then you do not get money to run your campaign." The former Congresswoman said that after she made the pledge issue public "the tactic changed." "But this is what is done for 535 members of the United States Congress, 100 senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives have to now write a paragraph which basically says the same thing."

The LIBRARY of CONGRESS THOMAS
How Congress Works - Gus Savage: Laying out the Facts - Congressional Record - 101st Congress (1989-1990)

Iraqi demonstrators have gathered in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad to protest against the US attempts to prolong its military presence in the Middle Eastern country beyond the 2011 deadline.

More than 20,000 people assembled in Sadr City, a suburb of the Iraqi capital, to send a warning message to the US government that Washington is likely to suffer the consequences of extending its presence in their war-torn country, a Press TV correspondent reported early Thursday. The leader of Iraq's Sadr Movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, was among the officials who attended the demonstration to show unity with the people of Iraq. In April, al-Sadr warned of an “escalation of military resistance” in Iraq if the US forces do not leave by the appointed deadline.

AWIP: Gates: Keep Troops in Iraq to Bother Iran
Bill Van Auken: US Defense Secretary Gates urges post-2011 occupation of Iraq

The former Egyptian intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, who faces numerous lawsuits in the North African country, has gone missing following the ouster of ex-President Hosni Mubarak.

More than three months after the ouster of Mubarak in the February revolution, Suleiman has not appeared in public as many reports have been filed against the former spy chief over the killing of protesters, the abuse of power and the wasting of public money. During the Egyptian revolution, Suleiman had made several televised speeches to calm protesters on behalf of Mubarak to save the regime. Since the downfall of the former president, many former officials have come under investigation and some were tried and convicted of corruption charges, while Suleiman has so far managed to avoid a day in court.

[Watch video, courtesy of Wikileaks] In a behind the scenes interview tape between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and PBS Frontline’s Martin Smith, Assange claims that WikiLeaks’ mission is not to destroy the U.S. government, but to expose government cover-ups.

“What we mean about conspiracy is simply people getting together in private to make plans to do something that the public would be outraged against,” Assange said. “They keep it in private because the public would oppose it. And if the public finds out about it and opposes it before it’s implemented, then chances are it won’t be implemented.” “Institutions derive their legitimate authority from an informed public that chooses to grant them authority,” Assange said.

“If the public is not informed, then any authority that chooses to grant an organization in itself is not informed, and therefore is not legitimate.”

He added that WikiLeaks was not interested in annihilating the government of the United States or any other government, and denied the organization he founded had a partisan political agenda.

US Vice President Joseph Biden said Tuesday night that bipartisan talks between the Obama administration and congressional leaders had identified more than $1 trillion in possible spending cuts, about half the total demanded by Republicans as the price of a vote to raise the federal debt ceiling.

“Our Republican friends and the Democrats think we’re making progress. We’re confident if we keep on this pace we can get to a relatively large number,” Biden said after a 2½-hour meeting with the top Republican negotiators, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. “I think we’re in a position where we’ll be able to get to well above a trillion dollars pretty quick, what would be a down payment on the process,” Biden said. “We’re going to be discussing trigger mechanisms,” he added, which could include either budget cuts or tax increases to be applied automatically if deficit-reduction targets are not met.

Biden refused to discuss any of the details of the proposed cuts, and there were conflicting reports about whether the major entitlement programs had yet been addressed, including Medicare and Medicaid.

A bill that would criminalize TSA agents who conduct airport patdown searches was scuttled last night after the federal government threatened to ground all flights out of Texas.

The proposed law would have levied misdemeanor charges against security agents who "intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly [touch] the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of the other person, including touching through clothing, or touching the other person in a manner that would be offensive to a reasonable person." An earlier version of House Bill 1937 would have made such action a felony.

"If [the legislation] passes, the federal government would likely seek an emergency stay of the statute," a letter from the Department of Justice explained (PDF). "Unless or until a such a stay were granted, TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight or series of flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew."

As a result, the bill's co-sponsor in the Texas Senate withdrew the legislation. It had cleared the Texas House by unanimous vote.

NSA, Cyber Command have 'unparalleled expertise'.

The US military will play a leading role in defending homeland America from cyber attacks, and this will include providing cybersecurity to key infrastructure on US soil. Robert J Butler, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, briefed senators in Washington on the plans yesterday. Butler stated that the Defense department would of course safeguard its own .mil domain, but would also closely collaborate with the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to guard and patrol the rest of America's cyber territory [= the entire world...].

Meeting today in London, President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron once again insisted that the NATO war in Libya will continue until Moammar Gadhafi is ousted from office. They also added that the strikes against Libya will be escalated. Reports from residents in Tripoli suggest that the strikes have already been escalated considerably. President Obama has vowed that NATO will never let up on the strikes until Gadhafi agrees to step down.

The US warns Gadafi: the attacks will increase: ter·ror·ism  [ter-uh-riz-uhm] –noun 1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. [Dictionary.com]

AWIP: 19 killed in NATO attacks
PressTV: 4 blasts shake Tripoli after NATO sorties
HRI: The cluster bombing of Misrata: The case against the USA
NYT: In House, Libya Effort Is Called Violation of War Powers Act
Bill Van Auken: NATO bombing of Tripoli kills 19 civilians, wounds 150
Media Lens: If At First You Don't Succeed - Four Decades Of US-UK Attempts To Topple Gadafi

You may think you understand how the Patriot Act allows the government to spy on its citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) says it’s worse than you’ve heard.

Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the surveillance law as early as Thursday. But Wyden says that what Congress will renew is a mere fig leaf for a far broader legal interpretation of the Patriot Act that the government keeps to itself — entirely in secret. Worse, there are hints that the government uses this secret interpretation to gather what one Patriot-watcher calls a “dragnet” for massive amounts of information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection efforts much differently. “We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says,” Wyden tells Danger Room in an interview in his Senate office. “When you’ve got that kind of a gap, you’re going to have a problem on your hands.”