Jewish settlers steal Palestinian land in Sousia, an area near Hebron.

Syria's revolt against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad is turning into an armed insurrection, with previously peaceful demonstrators taking up arms to fight their own army and the "shabiha" – meaning "the ghosts", in English – of Alawi militiamen who have been killing and torturing those resisting the regime's rule. Even more serious for Assad's still-powerful supporters, there is growing evidence that individual Syrian soldiers are revolting against his forces. The whole edifice of Assad's Alawi dictatorship is now in the gravest of danger.

In 1980, Assad's father, Hafez, faced an armed uprising in the central city of Hama, which was put down by the Special Forces of Hafez's brother Rifaat – who is currently living, for the benefit of war crimes investigators, in central London – at a cost of up to 20,000 lives. But the armed revolt today is now spreading across all of Syria, a far-mightier crisis and one infinitely more difficult to suppress. No wonder Syrian state television has been showing the funerals of up to 120 members of the security services from just one location, the northern town of Jisr al-Shughour.

Patrick Mac Manus: Refugees speak of nightmare in Syria
Robin Yassin-Kassab: The Fall of the House of Assad: It's too late for the Syrian regime to save itself

Governor pressed oil boss for investment – a year after his company was responsible for the largest spill in Alaska's history.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin held private discussions with Tony Hayward, the discredited BP chief executive, to win his support for a 1,700-mile gas pipeline across North America a year after his company's failure to maintain another pipeline saw it blamed for the biggest oil spill in the state's history. The revelation is contained in emails released from Palin's time as governor that were made public following freedom of information requests. Palin's Alaska Gasline Inducement Act was supposed to encourage energy producers to build a multibillion-dollar pipeline to deliver natural gas from Alaska's North Slope fields to the US. But the energy companies refused to back the plan, believing it was a bad deal. In June 2007, two months after BP executives first poured cold water on Palin's bill before an influential Senate hearing, and a year after BP Alaska spilled more than 5,000 barrels of crude oil due to corroded pipes, the confidential emails show Palin was so desperate to talk to Hayward that she readjusted her schedules to take his call. They reveal that Palin instructed her office to ensure that Hayward had all her private and official phone numbers so the call could proceed after his office asked for it to be rearranged.

Unarmed boy was killed by rangers in Karachi. This was inhuman act the by the rangers who killed an unarmed person, they would have arrested him and bring in front of court, no laws allows this kind of behaviors. Even in wars against enemies such behaviors are not adopted. This must be a murder case against the person who shot this boy.

The Guardian: Pakistan troops caught on film shooting unarmed teenager dead

Is 2011 capable of exceeding 2010's revelations? And what discoveries in 2011 has WikiLeaks unearthed thus far?

June 7, 2011. Between Collateral Murder, the Iraq War Logs, the Afghan War Diary, and Cablegate, it appeared as though 2010 would go down in history as the most shocking year in WikiLeaks revelations. Americans discovered that trigger-happy soldiers who have been trained to kill are likely to shoot innocent civilians, including journalists and children. They learned that the US military handed over detainees they knew would be tortured to the Iraqis, and as a matter of policy, failed to investigate the hundreds of reported torture and abuse by Iraqi police and military. The Afghanistan logs showed many more civilians killed than previously known, along with once-secret US assassination missions against insurgents. And Cablegate shed light on a US foreign policy that values self-interest over democracy and human rights at all costs, perpetuating anti-American sentiment in the process. Is 2011 capable of exceeding 2010's revelations? And what discoveries in 2011 has WikiLeaks unearthed thus far?

Israel's Foreign Ministry has launched a global diplomatic campaign to thwart a Palestinian move to seek statehood recognition at the United Nations in September.

The ministry has also barred its ambassadors around the world from taking time off in September, Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported on Saturday. Over the past week, the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Director General Rafael Barak as well as some ministerial officials sent out classified cables outlining the ploy to the embassies. "The goal we have set is to have the maximum number of countries oppose the process of having the UN recognize a Palestinian state," Barak wrote to Israel's ambassadors in his cable, which was sent on June 2. Israeli diplomats were demanded to lobby the highest possible officials in their respective countries and muster their support to vote against the recognition of a Palestinian state. Also in a bid to sway public opinion, the ambassadors were tasked to fuel media hype through placing articles in international press.

BAGHDAD — The U.S. Embassy sought Saturday to distance itself from a highly contentious "fact-finding mission" to Baghdad led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., that led Iraq to demand the entire congressional delegation leave the country.

During an hour and 40 minute meeting Friday with Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, Rohrabacher informed the Iraqi leader that his House subcommittee was investigating the killing by Iraqi troops of 35 Iranian dissidents on Iraqi soil in April. After Rohrabacher later announced his investigation to the media, Maliki, who's currently acting minister of defense as well as commander-in-chief, apparently hit the roof. The Orange County conservative, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on oversight and investigations, later told reporters that the "massacre" was probably a crime against humanity. The charge, which often refers to a massive crime against civilians, was first leveled against accused Nazi war criminals during the Nuremburg Tribunal after World War II.

AWIP: Iraq slams US congressman remark

Suspected suicide CIA bombing kills 34 in Pakistan. The bombing took place near a building that houses several newspaper offices as well as apartments. The attack occurred when a large number of people were dining in the nearby restaurants. No one claimed responsibility for the attack but Taliban militants have vowed to avenge the [alleged] killing of al Qaeda chief bin Laden by U.S. SEALS in a secret raid in the northwestern town of Abbottabad on May 2. A small blast preceded a big one, which senior police official Banaras Khan said police suspected was carried out by a suicide bomber. Television footage showed twisted window frames, shards of broken glasses and fallen electricity cables strewn on roads as rescue workers were loading wounded men on stretchers into ambulances. Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister of the northwestern Khyber Pukhtunkhuwa (KP) province, told reporters that doctors had said the death toll was 34, "but it may rise as many wounded people are in critical condition." Peshawar is the capital of KP, which borders Afghanistan. Hospital officials said 100 people were wounded, 21 of them seriously. Several journalists and policemen were among the wounded.

NYT: CIA Director Warns Pakistan on Collusion With Militants