Suicides in Japan rose dramatically during a financial crisis in 1998, and more than 30000 people have killed themselves every year since. - Survivors of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami need long-term mental health care to protect them from debilitating conditions that could lead to suicide, Japan's government said Friday. In its annual policy paper on suicide prevention, the Cabinet Office decided to include a separate section on the psychological needs of disaster victims. The report said survivors may be undergoing shock, stress and depression from the overwhelming losses. They may also feel guilty for escaping death. More than 23,000 are dead or missing, and entire towns along Japan's northeast coast were washed away. Observers around the world have lauded survivors' calm demeanor in the face of tragedy and destruction, but the report warns against assumptions that the Japanese could largely withstand problems like post traumatic stress disorder. "In fact, we cannot determine this until we are able to obtain detailed information," the report said. Japan already has one of the highest suicide rates in the industrialized world, with nearly 25 suicides per 100,000 people. That compares to about 11 per 100,000 in the United States.

Al Jazeera: Offering lifelines in Japan
The Australian: Suicide rates are increasing in Japanese regions most effected by the tsunami and nuclear disasters

WASHINGTON—The military is asking President Barack Obama to hold off on ending the Afghanistan troop surge until the fall of 2012, in a proposal that would keep a large portion of the 33,000 extra forces in the country through the next two warm-weather fighting seasons. - The military seeks to avoid a scenario in which large numbers of troops are pulled out during the heaviest period of militant activity next year, just as it hopes to be focusing on the violent eastern provinces bordering Pakistan. The plan would also allow Mr. Obama to offer a war-weary electorate a substantial troop withdrawal around the same time he is asking for another four years in office. Military officials say the November 2012 presidential election schedule has nothing to do with their recommendations, though they acknowledge that political considerations could affect Mr. Obama's decision. They say their only consideration is to maximize the pressure on the Taliban. Military and administration officials say it is unclear whether Mr. Obama will go along with the recommendation, or order a faster or slower withdrawal than the military seeks.

The lasting impact of the raid on Gary Adams' home became clear in a comment from his 3-year-old granddaughter during a recent trip to the pharmacy. - "She said, 'Granddad. Police. Hide,' " Adams, 57, of Bellevue recalled Wednesday while discussing the federal lawsuit he filed against the officers who burst into his home March 3. Led by FBI Special Agent Karen Springmeyer, about a dozen officers used a battering ram to enter Adams' rented Orchard Street home in a search for Sondra Hunter, then 35. But Hunter hadn't lived at that address for almost two years, while Adams and his family had been living there for more than a year, according to the lawsuit filed by Adams and 10 other family members. The incident destroyed his confidence in the police and his ability to sleep through the night, he said. "They had guns on my wife, my babies. I'd like to know how they would feel -- the people in my house -- if that happened to them," he said.

[Lamees Dhaif said,] "We expected that Americans would stand by us. We thought that when five armies came into our country, America would give a definite No No No, this should not happen. We were shocked by Hillary Clinton's statement. She gave the green light for the people who are crushing us. If Iran was coming to Bahrain, we wouldn't mind [the Saudi and Emirates armies entering Bahrain]. But nobody is there but us."

Dhaif worked as a columnist for four newspapers, including a Saudi one, but when the democracy movement began in Bahrain she had no choice but to support people who were speaking out for economic reform and human rights. As soon as she did so, "I had to be punished." She lost three jobs on one day, and the other soon after. She continued blogging but the regime persecuted her own family. "My brothers were hunted in their jobs, they were punished because of their sister." Government thugs broke into the family house and tried to burn it. Dhaif's reputation was savaged on the internet. "It was like a witchhunt in the 16th century." Her sister was imprisoned for 50 days, and tortured. And similar punishments have befallen student bloggers. Even for tweeting or posting on facebook, the government finds their IP addresses, arrests them, tortures them, tosses them back on the street at night, publishes their phone numbers and libels about their social activities. "They are kidnapped in the middle of night and tortured, no one knows about them, and of course they cant tweet any more. Some of the girls' brothers, they couldn't even go out of the house, because they are so ashamed of what is said about their sisters.

Stephen Lendman: Police State Terror in Bahrain
You Tube: Chossudovsky: Bahrain killings approved in the White House
Stephen Lendman: 2010 US State Department Human Rights Report on Bahrain
War in Context: Bahraini blogger: State Dept knew ‘all the details’ of violent crackdown, stayed silent

AWIP: Bahrain: NeoCon/Zionist Policy Re-Introducing Fascism Into This World
South Lebanon: Bahraini Rights Activist Reveals Al-Khalifa Regime's Close Ties with Israel - The Al-Khalifa regime is attempting to strengthen its ties with the Zionist lobby in a bid to win a stronger US support for its crimes against the Bahraini people.

Syrian forces shot dead at least 18 protesters yesterday as one of its most reviled figures gave up his business empire in an attempt to assuage public anger. - Security personnel used live fire to disperse protests in the country's two largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo, as demonstrators refused to be mollified by news that President Bashar al-Assad's brother-in-law had been forced to surrender control of much of his business empire. Rami Makhlouf, who is thought to be Syria's richest man, announced he was giving much of his 40 per cent stake in Syriatel, the country's largest mobile telephone operator, to "the poor" and devoting himself to charity. The tycoon is one of 13 powerful Syrians close to the regime that has been sanctioned by the EU, a punishment that reflects his role as one of the suspected architects of the brutal crackdown of the protests, during which more than 1,300 people are believed to have been killed.

At least 16 Libyan revolutionaries have been injured in a NATO strike on their position near the town of Ajdabiyah in the east of the country, a report says. - Farag al-Moghraby, a spokesman for the Libyan revolutionary forces, said the assault took place near the village of Amreer Gabs, about 30 km northwest of Ajdabiyah, Reuters reported on Friday. Ajdabiyah is a key town just west of the revolutionaries' stronghold of Benghazi in northeastern Libya. Moghraby added that the attack was most probably “a NATO airstrike that had mistakenly hit that location." “We are investigating where the airstrike came from, whether it's NATO or Gaddafi forces,” he went on to say. According to media reports, Libyan revolutionary forces recently made fresh gains against the regime forces in the east and west of the crisis-hit country.

Xinhua.net: US-NATO air strike reportedly kills 12 in Libya: State TV

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has sued for peace with the European Central Bank (ECB) following weeks of feuding over how to rescue Greece from the devastating debt crisis threatening the future of the euro single currency. - Merkel announced on Friday that the decisions on a new three-year bailout package for Greece, which is tipped to run to about €120bn (£106bn), would need to be agreed with the ECB. At a Berlin summit with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Merkel softened her terms for the new Greek bailout, urged a quick decision on Greece, stressed that any participation by private creditors in the rescue should be voluntary and insisted that a new package with Greece would be reached together with the ECB. Merkel's climbdown was welcomed by the financial markets, as the prospect of Greece suffering a catastrophic disorderly default receded.

LA Times: European Union: Everywhere you look, a crisis
The Guardian: Greece general strike: protests in Athens - in pictures

Tomorrow women across Saudi Arabia are going to do something drastic. Something women in many parts of the world do every day without much thought while running errands, picking the kids up from school, going to work. They are going to drive. - An online campaign has called on women who hold international driving licences to start driving on Saudi Arabian roads on June 17th. The “Women2Drive” campaign has used Facebook and Twitter to encourage women to drive as part of their normal daily activities rather than converge in one place. Saudi Arabia has long banned women from driving. According to embassy cables released by Wikileaks, the ban against women driving in Saudi Arabia dates all the way back to a 1991 fatwa issued by the late grand mufti against gender “mixing.” Not allowing women behind the wheel in Saudi Arabia is an immense barrier to their freedom of movement, and severely limits their ability to carry out everyday activities. This is just one example of so many areas of life where women in Saudi Arabia have their human rights and their agency denied.

War in Context: Saudi Women to Drive

A quarter of Britain’s population will have their names logged on a new police database despite millions of those having had no convictions, it has emerged. - ore than 12,000 users from Britain’s police forces and law enforcement agencies will share intelligence on criminals, suspects and those with criminal links when the Police National Database (PND) goes live next week. But civil liberties campaigners have called for safeguards to ensure information does not get into the wrong hands, and that those with no criminal connections do not appear on the database. The £75million PND was set up after the 2002 murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire. It is being updated by all 43 forces in England and Wales, the eight forces in Scotland, the British Transport Police and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Of the 15million people on the database, 6million will have a criminal conviction.

The Vietnam War was the most intensely televised war ever. However, next door in neighboring Laos, the longest and largest air war in human history was underway, which eventually made Laos the most bombed country on earth. The Secret War was the largest operation ever conducted by the CIA, yet to this day, hardly anyone knows anything about it. Critics call it the biggest war crime of the Vietnam War era and point to striking similarities to the present conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan; similarities that were tested and set in motion back in Laos in the 1960s. In The Most Secret Place On Earth, key players of the Secret War-- former CIA agents, American pilots, Laotian fighters and war reporters -- take us on a journey into the physical heart of the conflict: Top secret Long Cheng, where the CIA built its headquarters in 1962. It was from this base that the Secret War was largely planned and executed. As the war dragged on, Long Cheng became the busiest airbase in the world and a major center for the global opium and heroin trade. As we journey into Long Cheng for the first time -- the site has been off limits to the outside world since the end of the war in 1975 -- the film reconstructs the gripping story of the operation and illustrates its relevance to current American conflicts.

You Tube: Laos - The most bombed country on earth
John Glaser: American Wars Will Be Increasingly Secret

Turkey, in a shift against its longtime ally, welcomes defecting Syrian officers. It also announces plans to deliver aid across the border to those displaced by Syrian President Bashar Assad's deadly crackdown on antigovernment protesters. - The shift against Damascus, where President Bashar Assad has undertaken a bloody crackdown against peaceful demonstrators, comes after months of waffling and wavering over its stance on uprisings that have shaken or brought down autocratic longtime leaders across the region. Turkey endorsed the largely peaceful revolution in Egypt, for example, but pleaded for political reforms rather than the ouster of heads of state in others, especially ones where it has business interests, such as Syria or Libya. The moves against Damascus, after escalating rhetoric against Assad's actions, are cooling once-warming ties with Syria ally Iran.

US Army suicide rates have reached their highest level in a year both among active-duty soldiers and those who have not been deployed to conflict zones. - According to CNN, May 2011 was the worst month in terms of suicides and suicide attempts as the US military reported 21 cases of 'potential suicides' among active-duty soldiers. The Pentagon announced the statistics on Thursday, adding that it is still trying to solve the problem. The US military has also noted that it has difficulty finding a reason for the suicide hike. April saw 16 potential suicides, which is more than twice the figure released for March. One reason could be the fact that the military keeps redeploying many of its soldiers already diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, physicians conjecture. Figures released earlier this year by the US Army Vice Chief of Staff, General Peter Chiarelli, showed that the number of suicides among soldiers who have never been deployed to conflict zones had also increased sharply.

Bulgaria's former Chief of General Staff, Nikola Kolev, currently Chief of Staff of President, Georgi Parvanov, has provided valuable information to the US Embassy in the beginning of 2003. - The revelation comes from an US diplomatic cable, stamped as Secret, dated January, 10, 2003 and titled "Squaring the Lawyer's Circle – Leading Figures in Bulgaria's Ruling NMSP Party Come under Attack." The cable is signed by CDA Roderick Moore. The most startling revelation from this cable, however, remains the "recruitment" of Gen. Kolev, who informed the Americans about the concealed report of corruption within MOD. The phrase "strictly protect," is following the mention of Kolev's name – a phrase related to the US Embassy's most valuable informers, according to Bivol.bg. The entire cable read HERE.

Heavy fighting continued in southern Yemen this week between the armed forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and anti-government fighters.

In the capital, Sanaa, there are ongoing protests by workers and students against the regime. Demonstrators have gathered in the city since mid-January to call for the resignation of Saleh. Protesters have also demanded jobs, education and other social services. Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, has unemployment and poverty rates as high as 50 percent.

Government security forces have killed hundreds of unarmed protesters. Hundreds more have been killed in fighting between the armed forces and tribal militants.

The Obama administration is backing the Yemeni regime in this civil conflict, launching cruise missile and Predator drone attacks against targets in the country. Though Washington has been secretive about the extent of its operations, there are reports in the US and Arab media of an increased use of US air strikes in southern Yemen, with six alleged Al Qaeda militants killed in such attacks over the past month.

Hakim Almasmari: US Makes a Drone Attack a Day in Yemen
PressTV: Yemenis set for mass anti-govt. rallies

Israeli naval commandos carried out a wide-ranging exercise yesterday in the takeover of a large ship in preparation for a possible raid of the vessels taking part in the Gaza-bound flotilla that is expected to sail in coming weeks. - The exercise appeared aimed at avoiding the killing of any of the passengers in case the commandos are ordered to board the ships to stop them from heading to Gaza to break Israel's naval siege of the Palestinian enclave. The simulated takeover of the ship came after months of training by naval commandos along with forces from the police and prison services. It was meant to implement the lessons learned from the deadly attack that the navy carried out in May last year on another Gaza-bound flotilla in which nine Turkish activists were killed by Israeli troops.

The greatest depression in human history is still in its starting stages. What the media and many officials often refer to as the "hangover" from the global financial crisis is in fact the end of the beginning. Originating in 2008, the global economic crisis took the world by storm: banks collapsed, the "too big to fail" became bigger by consolidating the rest, governments bailed out their financial industries, masses of people lost their jobs, the 'developing' world was plunged into a deep systemic crisis, food prices rose, which in time spurred social unrest; and the Western nations that took on the bad debts of the big banks are on the precipice of a great global debt crisis, originating in Europe, hitting Greece and Spain, but destined to consume the industrialized world itself. Though many claim that we are in a "recovery," things could not be further from the truth. As the mainstream media is finally catching on to the reality of the mirage of the so-called "recovery", reports are surfacing about a dire global economic situation.

Stephen Lendman: Dismissively Ignoring Hard Times

Nearly three weeks after Rep. Anthony Weiner accidentally tweeted a photo of his bulging crotch, his final act as congressman was to attempt to resign with dignity. Instead, heckling and catcalls disrupted his news conference, creating a noisy, circus-like atmosphere that overshadowed the main event. It was an ungracious end, a fitting metaphor for the troubled congressman's career. - On Thursday afternoon, the 46-year-old struck a sober tone at the podium of the senior center in Brooklyn where he launched a campaign for City Council in 1992. He stood alone; his pregnant wife, Huma Abedin, remained at home while he officially ended the only career he has ever known. But like other developments in the tawdry drama, the press conference was marked by profanity and low-brow antics. After recounting the beginning of his political career and proclaiming that there is "no higher honor" than to represent one's neighbors, he said he initially hoped to continue his work but then realized "the distraction that I have created has made that impossible." With that, he apologized and resigned. Weiner was said to have telephoned Pelosi and Israel [???], the head of the party campaign committee, as they attended a White House picnic Wednesday evening to tell them of his plans to quit.