With a financial crisis looming on the horizon, many states across the U.S. are faced with mounting problems of the ever-increasing prison population, says international lawyer Edward Corrigan.

"It's a very serious problem. The United States has the highest number of prisoners per capita of any country in the world. And they have crisis in California right now," Corrigan told Press TV's U.S. Desk in a Sunday interview. "Also there's the issue that they are switching to private prisons which is for profit but it's made the situation much worse and then they have got the huge financial crisis in the states, with many states going on the verge of bankruptcy," added the international lawyer.

A recently-emerged video from Bahrain shows that the ruling family's relentless crackdown on popular anti-government protests continues to take its toll on Bahraini minors.

The video, released by activists, shows how Saudi-backed forces detain children despite the Al Khalifa family's recent lifting of countrywide martial law it had put into force back in March. Youngsters protesting the ongoing violent suppression are shown fleeing police cars on the eastern island of Sitra. The regime forces then catch up with the kids and brutally beat one of them before abducting a number of the children.

In a popular revolution, thousands of anti-government protesters have been staging peaceful demonstrations in Bahrain since mid-February, demanding that the Al Khalifa dynasty relinquish its over-40-year-long power.

On March 14, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deployed troops to the Persian Gulf sheikhdom at Manama's request to help crush the nationwide protests. According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested so far during the clampdown. Activists said that the newly-released images show how far the ruling family is willing to go in order to silence opposition. Regime forces have also been reported kidnapping children from schools.

Secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing have shown there was no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square when China put down student pro-democracy demonstrations 22 years ago.

The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and released exclusively by The Daily Telegraph, partly confirm the Chinese government's account of the early hours of June 4, 1989, which has always insisted that soldiers did not massacre demonstrators inside Tiananmen Square. Instead, the cables show that Chinese soldiers opened fire on protesters outside the centre of Beijing, as they fought their way towards the square from the west of the city. Three cables were sent from the US embassy on June 3, in the hours leading up to the suppression, as diplomats realised that the final showdown between the protesters and soldiers was looming. The cables described the "10,000 to 15,000 helmeted armed troops" moving into the city, some of whom were "carrying automatic weapons". Meanwhile, "elite airborne troops" and "tank units" were said to be moving up from the south.

The Telegraph: Wikileaks Tiananmen cables

Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt, the former Black Panther leader, who spent nearly three decades in prison for a crime he claimed to have not committed, has died. He was 63.

Pratt -- who spent eight years in solitary confinement and had his 1972 murder conviction overturned in the death of a Santa Monica, Calif., teacher in 1968 -- died early Friday at his home in a village near Arusha, Tanzania. He had lived there for the past five years, according to a statement his friend, Pete O’Neal, made to the Associated Press (AP). O’Neal, who praised Pratt as his hero, said that he suspected he died from either a heart attack or stroke. “Geronimo was a symbol of steadfast resistance against all that is considered wrong and improper,” O’Neal told the AP. “His whole life was dedicated to standing in opposition to oppression and exploitation...He gave all that he had and his life, I believe, struggling, trying to help people lift themselves up.” Pratt’s conviction was overturned after a judge cited a lack of credibility by key witnesses, and in 2000 he settled a $4.5 million lawsuit for false imprisonment and violation of his civil rights against the FBI and city of Los Angeles.

Stephen Lendman: Former Political Prisoner Geronimo Pratt Dies

Many ordinary Arabs claimed another scalp on Sunday in their quest to oust the region's autocrats and dismissed the idea that Yemen's president would ever return to power after treatment in Saudi Arabia.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh, wounded in an attack on his palace in the Yemeni capital last week, underwent surgery to remove shrapnel on Sunday. A party official said he would return to Sanaa to resume his duties. Few believe he will. "This signifies the fall of the third Arab authoritarian regime and will give a massive boost to those fighting in Syria and Libya," said 27-year-old Egyptian banker, Hussein Khalil, who was among protesters who brought down Egypt's president. In January, Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia after stepping down. About a month later, on February 11, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak quit amid protests. He vowed not to leave Egypt and now faces graft and murder charges. Protests have spread, notably to Yemen, Syria, Libya and Bahrain, where other Arab rulers have been in power for decades. But protesters in these states have come up against rulers determined to hold on and ready to use military might. Some now hope that could change.

BBC: Yemenis rejoice as Saleh leaves but fighting continues

Israeli troops opened fire on Sunday at Palestinian protesters in Syria who rushed toward a border fence and Syrian state television said six demonstrators were killed.

"Anyone who tries to cross the border will be killed," Israeli soldiers shouted at the crowd of several hundred through loudspeakers on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Sunday marked the 44th anniversary of the 1967 Middle East war and Israel had been on alert for a repetition of last month's storming by thousands of Palestinian protesters of Israel's frontiers with Syria and Lebanon. Thirteen people were killed in those demonstrations marking the Naqba, or what Palestinians term the catastrophe of Israel's founding in 1948.

Rallying again to calls on Facebook to march to Israel, Palestinians in Syria descended from a hilltop overlooking the Druze village of Majdal Shams and reached the disputed border, that before last month had been largely tranquil for decades. Syrian TV said six protesters were killed by Israeli gunfire and 13 injured. Israel's chief military spokesman, Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai, said troops had opened fire but that he could not confirm any casualties. He told Israeli Army Radio that if the Syrian state television death toll was correct and Israeli soldiers had succeeded in stopping protesters from breaching the fence, then, "I think that's a measured, focused and proper response."

CBS News: 14 die as Israeli troops fire along Syria border

Julian Assange appeared at The Telegraph Hay Festival to defend Wikileaks' “enviable record” and claimed that the FBI had tried to bribe the organisation’s staff.

The founder of the whistle-blowing website disclosed his group would publish more leaked documents in the future. He also threatened to break controversial super-injunctions if the details were leaked to him. During an hour-long appearance, Mr Assange insisted that “the internet does not give you free speech”. He said that those revealing secrets online were “hounded from one end of the earth to the other”. His speech was watched by a series of well-known personalities including Vanessa Redgrave and Ralph Fiennes. Mr Assange added that his group had faced numerous recent challenges, including attempts by the FBI to try and bribe employees.

Over the weekend, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin arrived in Israel, where she was photographed wearing a Star of David around her neck.

So what was the most decidedly not-Jewish Palin doing wearing one in Israel? Not appealing to American Jews — that’s for sure. Most American Jews, being Democrats, can’t stand her. And one visit to Israel, a nation many American Jews have mixed feelings toward, anyway, isn’t going to change that. The Star of David or Magen David is a symbol associated with Jewish texts far back as the 11th century and has been used by European Jews to symbolize their faith since the 17th century. As Zionism developed as a European philosophy, the Star of David came to represent the movement and later became the defining symbol on the flag of the state of Israel. In contemporary urban America, wearing a Star of David on a chain generally marks the wearer as Jewish.