Swiss lawmakers have approved a government-backed proposal to phase out the use of nuclear power.

A majority of parliamentarians in Switzerland's lower house voted in favor of the plan to shut down the country's five nuclear power reactors in the medium term. The ballot passed the National Council on Wednesday with 101 votes in favor, 54 against and 30 abstentions. It had the support of all parties except the pro-business Liberal Democrats and the nationalist Swiss People's Party. Efforts to abandon nuclear power in Switzerland were boosted following the incident at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant on March 11. Switzerland is following the lead of Germany, which announced on May 30 a plan to phase out nuclear power generation by 2022 and leave eight suspended plants — closed since the Japanese disaster — shut for good.

Video footage has emerged showing the body of a Syrian boy reportedly tortured to death after his arrest in April following a government crackdown on pro-democracy protests in the country.

The video, provided to Al Jazeera by sources inside Syria, shows the mutilated body of 15-year-old Thamer al-Sahri, who was arrested for participating in an anti-government demonstration. Hundreds of residents of the Syrian town of Jeeza filled the streets to mourn his death on Wednesday, the day his body was released from the mortuary and returned to his parents, six weeks after he went missing. The amateur video shows al-Sahri's body riddled with bullets, missing an eye, several teeth, and according to Al Jazeera's source, returned to his family with a broken neck and leg. Al Jazeera is unable to independently verify the footage due to restrictions on journalists in the country. Al-Sahri was arrested along with his friend, 13-year-old Hamza al-Khateeb - the teenager whose brutal death caused much of the world to pay closer attention to the events in Syria. Al-Khateeb's body was also mutilated.

US drones once again pounded the North Waziristan Agency of Pakistan today, destroying a housing complex and a car in Shawal, near the border with South Waziristan. At least 24 people were reported slain, and officials said they had no information on the identities of any.

Locals say that some of the area around this town is controlled by the Haqqani network’s Hafiz Gul Bahadur, particularly noteworthy because he’s negotiated a peace deal with the Pakistani government. They had no indication, however, that the targets of the attacks actually belonged to Bahadur or any other militant. The attack comes just two days after a deadly series of US strikes in South Waziristan killed 21 unknown people, bringing the three day toll to 45 killed and an unknown number of others wounded.

Interview with Cynthia McKinney in Tripoli, Libya, aired on Wakeup Call with Esther Armah, WBAI-FM, NYC on June 8, 2011.

Cynthia McKinney: Eyewitness Report: NATO Bombing of Tripoli - Video
You Tube: NATO destroying Libyan education system
You Tube: Lizzie Cocker talks to Canadian woman living in Tripoli, Libya
Rayyisse: Tripoli Press Conference - Video

US knowingly supported rigged Haitian election - The United States, the European Union and the United Nations decided to support Haiti’s recent presidential and parliamentary elections despite believing that the country’s electoral body, “almost certainly in conjunction with President Preval,” had “emasculated the opposition” by unwisely and unjustly excluding the country’s largest party, according to a secret US Embassy cable. The cable was obtained by WikilLeaks and made available to the Haitian newspaper Haïti Liberté, which is collaborating with The Nation on a series of reports on US and UN policy toward the country.

Acting on orders from the U.S. Department of Education, a S.W.A.T. team broke into a California home Tuesday at 6 a.m. and roughed up a man — because of his estranged wife’s defaulted student loans, ABC News10 reported. She wasn’t there.

Yet, Kenneth Wright of the city of Stockton was grabbed by the neck by handcuffed before he and his three young children were put in a police car as the officers searched his house, he told ABC News10. He said he was in his underwear the whole time. “They busted down my door for this. It wasn’t even me,” Wright told the local news station. “All I want is an apology for me and my kids and for them to get me a new door.” Local police were reportedly not involved in the incident. Dept. of Education denies that the warrant was about a loan default

The last thing Selim remembers from a security crackdown in his Syrian hometown are the two sniper shots that pierced his body. A day later, he woke up in a Turkish hospital across the border.

The 28-year-old worker was among several dozen wounded Syrians who managed to flee the bloodshed in their country, crossing through unguarded stretches of the border, and are now in the care of Turkish doctors. Speaking in his hospital bed, Selim recounted how he was caught up on Sunday in a crackdown on the north-western town of Jisr al Shughour. "The last thing I remember is the shots of a sniper: a bullet came through my collarbone and exited through my left flank. As I tried to warn my friends, another bullet pierced my hand. Then I lost consciousness," he said. He woke up Monday in a hospital in Antakya, a Turkish town some 50km from the border. How he ended up there - he has no idea.

Iraq is full of street kids; children with one or both parents killed, or some who have merely been abandoned. It has been estimated that there are now over a million orphans in the country. But there are just four small orphanages in the capital, Baghdad - none of them filled to capacity. The Iraqi government says that relatives would rather abandon children they are unable to take care of, than bear the shame of bringing them to an orphanage. Al Jazeera's Jane Arraf reports from Baghdad.

The Consultation Conference on Iraq National Action Plan for Human Rights was held in Baghdad last June 5. Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Iraq Ad Melkert gave a speech at the Opening of this Conference and his. His lecture reflects the deep contempt for the values they supposedly defend at UN.

It is intolerable that a Special Representative of any UN body justifies, with either facts or words, the Maliki regime, which is based on criminal militias, torture, illegal detentions and assassinations. A UN Special Representative on Human Rights cannot claim that Iraq´s situation has improved while militias –protected and sponsored by the Iraqi Government– still control the country and while the country is still occupied. With his words he endorses not only the illegal and criminal occupation of Iraq but also what this occupation brought about: misery, unemployment, refugees, the collapse of health services and education, the orphans and the more than 1.2 million Iraqi human beings killed, among other misfortunes. Melkert’s speech supports a government that has proven to be criminal, so the international community has the moral obligation to demand his immediate resignation.

SUMMARY: "The Plenary Session of the Congress, approved the opinion of the law project that declares a moratorium of ten years that prevents the import of Genetically Modified Organisms on the national territory for cultivation, breeding or of any transgenic production."

The World Bank released its latest Global Economic Prospects report Tuesday, forecasting slower economic growth the rest of this year and next. The World Bank is projecting a deceleration of gross domestic product (GDP) gains in the US, the euro zone, and the developing economies of Asia and Latin America compared to 2010. The only region where it foresees faster growth is Sub-Saharan Africa.

While the World Bank attempts to put the best possible spin on its forecast, suggesting that there will not be a return to negative growth (a so-called “double dip” recession) and predicting an eventual acceleration, the figures released by the agency portend a growth of unemployment, poverty and social deprivation across the planet. In the US, Europe and Japan - where the so-called “recovery” has been characterized by anemic growth following the collapse of 2008 and early 2009, sustained high unemployment, and brutal attacks on the living standards of the working class - even slower GDP growth will mean a deepening of the slump.

Stephen Lendman: Global Economic Crisis Deepening

Lord Christopher Monckton appears in a powerful new video by CFACT in which he exposes the deceptions involved in Climategate, scientist by scientist. These scientists received more than $21 million in public funding, yet used deception to ensure that real world data did not interfere with the selling of global warming.

“When you listen to Chris Monckton clearly, logically and succinctly take you through what transpired at the University of East Anglia, it's like having a bucket of cold water thrown in your face,” said CFACT's Executive Director, Craig Rucker. “This will surely wake people up. Monckton holds nothing back.”

The video was shot at Berlin's Melia Hotel on Friday, December 4th during a climate conference co-sponsored by CFACT and several European think tanks. The conference included top scientists and experts, including Fred Singer, Nils Axel Mörner, Horst-Joachim Luedecke, and Henrik Svensmark.

“These scientists whom Lord Monckton exposes using tricks in place of science are no bit players,” Rucker said, “these are founding fathers of global warming and their credibility now lies in tatters. Sound science requires no sleight of hand. They have left their entire global warming argument more suspect than ever.