A large number of casualties occurred in the city of Zliten, in the district of Misurata. In Zliten, 85 people were killed including 33 children, 32 women, and 20 men as a result of NATO's deliberate targeting of residential areas and civilian infrastructure. Many of the injured civilian victims are in critical condition and near death. Zliten has been under constant NATO bombardment for several days. The recent NATO attacks started at about 11:30 p.m. EET on August 8, 2011. At least 7 civilian homes belonging to local farmers were destroyed, killing entire families. In all 20 families were the targets of the NATO bombings. This video exposes the media's role of covering up the truth. The mainstream media did not report about this properly or accurately. The media did this to whitewash NATO's war crimes against the Libyan people.

As Libya’s new interim ruler Mustafa Jalil gave the last areas not under his control a surrender or die ultimatum, the rebel council he commands announced that they believe 50,000 people are dead since the uprising began. - Col. Buhahiar, one of the rebels’ many commanders, reported that 15,000 were slain between Zlitan and Misrata, on top of previous estimates, and that the rest of the slain were prisoners that they couldn’t find and are therefore assumed dead. Speculation about where the real death toll lies will no doubt continue for months and even years, and it is unclear if the rebels’ official count includes the large number of black people that they have executed under the assumption that they are probably mercenaries.

Brian Becker: The Truth About the Situation in Libya

NATO plans to continue to support rebels militarily, but a spokesman failed to explain how airstrikes were protecting civilians at this point. - Libyan rebels are planning to launch an attack within days on Muammar Qaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, the ousted Libyan leader’s last major bastion of support. Rebels began to converge on Sirte en masse this week, where negotiations with pro-Gadhafi tribal leaders for a transition of power have not borne fruit for the Transitional National Council (TNC). Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the rebels’ TNC, said that negotiations with forces in Sirte would end Saturday after the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Fitr, when the rebels would “act decisively and militarily.”

An aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell has hit out at Dick Cheney, saying the former Vice President s fears being 'tried as a war criminal'. - Powell's long-time aide and chief of staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson told ABC news Cheney, 'Was president for all practical purposes for the first term of the Bush administration,' adding, '[He] fears being tried as a war criminal.' The attack comes in the wake of attempts by Cheney to publicise his new book, with Powell accusing the one-time vice president of taking 'cheap shots' at the former Bush administration. According to early reports, Cheney's forthcoming book breaks with the former administration's version of events. But former Secretary of State Powell has dismissed Cheney's sensational claims as 'supermarket tabloid' material designed to 'pump up sales'.

A 9/11 coloring book has emerged on the brink of the tenth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center. It is entitled “We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom,” and was published by Missouri-based Really Big Coloring Books. The color book begins with Osama bin Laden plotting to attack the United States and ends with bin Laden being shot by a Navy SEAL. A spokesperson for the publisher said that seeing bin Laden get shot “provides closure” for children. Dawud Walid, Michigan representative for the Council on American Islamic Relations, called the book disgusting because it portrays all Muslims as terrorists.

Nahida Izzat: Another "Religion" in the Making

Kenny's Sideshow: The truth is the greatest enemy of the State - The 10th anniversary of 9/11 is turning out to be both absurd and surreal. Propaganda for profit is even targeting the little kids with a coloring book so full of crap that it would make Fox News blush. According to the NY Times, the White House has issued detailed guidelines/talking points to government officials on how to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks but with slightly different versions for domestic or foreign consumption. Very Orwellian.

Ten years after Sept. 11, 2001, Americans continue adjusting to evolving Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport safety procedures. While there is a limit to what Americans can reasonably expect TSA to accomplish to reduce the risk of terrorist attempts in an open society, there is also a limit to what TSA can reasonably expect a free people to tolerate.

In “The Road to Serfdom,” F.A. Hayak warned England and America in the aftermath of World War II that the increasing tendency of a central government to use administrative coercion to control citizens is incompatible with preserving a free society. Once a population internalizes that authorities have the power to coerce, few will experience actual coercion because passive submission avoids it. Excessive government control ultimately leads to a psychological change in the people of a nation.

Security forces fire on protesters throughout Syria as people mark Eid al-Fitr, which normally is a peaceful holiday celebrating the end of the holy month of Ramadan. - Security forces firing into crowds of protesters killed a 13-year-old boy and six other people across Syria on Tuesday, activists said, closing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, one of the bloodiest periods of President Bashar Assad's months-long military crackdown on a popular uprising.

Amnesty International: Syria’s surge of deaths in detention revealed

ISLAMABAD – The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States recruited over 1,500 men from Mazar-e-Sharif for fighting against the Qaddafi forces in Libya. - Sources told The Nation:

“Most of the men have been recruited from Afghanistan. They are Uzbeks, Persians and Hazaras. According to the footage, these men attired in Uzbek-style of shalwar and Hazara-Uzbek Kurta were found fighting in Libyan cities.”

When Al-Jazeera reporter pointed it he was disallowed by the ‘rebels ‘to capture images. Sources in Quetta said:

“Some Uzbeks and Hazaras from Afghanistan were arrested in Balochistan for illegally traveling into Pakistan en route to Libya through Iran.

Aljazeera’s report gave credence to this story. More than 60 Afghans, mainly children and teenagers, have been found dead after suffocating inside a shipping container in southwestern Pakistan in an apparent human smuggling attempt. More than 100 illegal immigrants were discovered 20km from the border town of Quetta last week inside the container, which had been locked from the outside. Aljazeera having dubious record gave human touch to this story as most of the men who intruded inside Pakistan from Afghanistan were recruits for Libyan Rebels’ Force.

Michel Chossudovsky: The "Liberation" of Libya: NATO Special Forces and Al Qaeda Join Hands

Libya's interim leaders have given pro-Gaddafi forces until Saturday to surrender or face military force. - Mustafa Abdul Jalil, who leads the National Transitional Council (NTC), said the ultimatum applied to loyalists of Col Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte and in other towns. The announcement came after Col Gaddafi's wife and three of his adult children fled to neighbouring Algeria. Algeria has defended the move, which the NTC called an "act of aggression". Col Gaddafi's own whereabouts are unknown - rumours have variously placed him in Sirte, in regime-controlled Bani Walid south-east of Tripoli, and in the capital itself.

Al Jazeera: Surrender deadline set for Gaddafi forces

Lizzie Phelan: The truth about the causes and effects of the NATO war on Libya - VIDEO

The post-9/11 years at the Department of Defense have seen an enormous increase in no-bid contracts, with the lack of competition approaching 50% during the first six months of this year - Over the course of the last 10 years, the amount of money spent by the Pentagon on non-competitive contracts has almost tripled, from $50 billion in 2001 to $140 billion in 2010, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News. And the reliance on no-bid deals has only gone up so far in 2011—to 45%—the highest rate recorded since 2001. Like other federal agencies, the Defense Department is supposed to demand competitive bidding. But numerous loopholes in federal law make it possible for contracting officers to bypass restrictions and select a single company to provide goods and services.

Al Jazeera: Pentagon 'wasted $30bn' on contracts

Women and children had their hands tied behind their back and were shot in the head in house raid, which was covered up by the military. - As revealed by a State Department diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks last week, US forces committed a heinous war crime during a house raid in Iraq in 2006, wherein one man, four women, two children, and three infants were summarily executed. The cable excerpts a letter written by Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, addressed to then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. American troops approached the home of Faiz Harrat Al-Majma’ee, a farmer living in central Iraq, to conduct a house raid in search of insurgents in March of 2006.

“It would appear that when the MNF [Multinational Forces] approached the house,” Alston wrote, “shots were fired from it and a confrontation ensued” before the “troops entered the house, handcuffed all residents and executed all of them.” Mr. Faiz Hratt Khalaf, (aged 28), his wife Sumay’ya Abdul Razzaq Khuther (aged 24), their three children Hawra’a (aged 5) Aisha ( aged 3) and Husam (5 months old), Faiz’s mother Ms. Turkiya Majeed Ali (aged 74), Faiz’s sister (name unknown), Faiz’s nieces Asma’a Yousif Ma’arouf (aged 5 years old), and Usama Yousif Ma’arouf (aged 3 years), and a visiting relative Ms. Iqtisad Hameed Mehdi (aged 23) were killed during the raid.

Incredible speech given by Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition. The event on June 24 was sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition.To learn more, go to http://www.answercoalition.org/national/index.html video credit ~ http://www.youtube.com/user/liamh2

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband appeared on MSNBC’s The Last Word to discuss the memoir recently published by former Vice President Dick Cheney.

“He’s wounding his former colleagues,” she said in regards to his depiction of Condoleezza Rice. “He’s shown nothing but contempt.” “And I think it is so ironic that Dick Cheney, who touts his national security prominence and expertise, has never once accepted any responsibility, nor regret, for the outing — the betrayal — of a CIA officer that was working on nuclear weapons — finding them, stopping them.”

Medea Benjamin: Ten Reasons to Move Cheney’s Book to the Crime Section

They aren't attacking Libya because of Gaddafi, they're attacking Gaddafi because of Libya. - At least fifty more people have been found killed in the expanding Tripoli massacres, Many of these, I think around three dozen, were burnt to literally skeletal remains in a warehouse. This is blamed saqurely, by a self-described escapee of the fire and a couple of others, as committed by the Gaddafi regime against those in the uprising. The find was made in the just-overrun area near the headquarters of the much demonized "Khamis brigade," long reported to engage in serious crimes against humanity. The incident remains, in this researcher's mind, extremely questionable.

On 19 August, 16-year-old Yazen Abbasi was brutally beaten by a gang of soldiers after noon prayer outside the mosque in Ras al-Amud, a neighbourhood in Silwan in East Jerusalem.

Over 100 soldiers were present for Friday prayers that day. According to worshippers, the closure of Al Aqsa mosque for Ramadan brings many more worshippers to Ras al-Amud’s mosque. Yazen, waiting for his family outside the mosque, was startled by the loud bang of a firework set off. Unknown youths threw it in the direction of an assemblage of soldiers, his older brother, Hussein, tells The Palestine Monitor. Yazen was peering over a wall, looking for the source of the firework, when three soldiers attacked him from behind. “Witnesses told us the soldiers beat him with batons and the butts of their rifles,” Hussein notes, “before army commanders arrived and joined in until about ten soldiers were involved.”

They dragged him into an army jeep, preventing passersby efforts to free the boy using cans of pepper spray. From there they drove Yazen to an East Jerusalem police station. His father came to the station after being notified of Yazen’s arrest. During questioning by police officers, Yazen denied accusations of stone throwing. Yazen was then taken to a police station in West Jerusalem where police took his DNA and fingerprints. He was released at 19:00 that evening and taken to hospital where doctors discovered severe damage to his left eye. Along with serious bruises and cuts to the head, he has been left with blurry sight in this eye. Hussein told The Palestine Monitor the damage may be permanent.

Stephen Lendman: Israeli Persecution of Palestinian Children
Stephen Lendman: Israel Shooting and Electric-Shocking Palestinian Children
Stephen Lendman: Israel Toughening Conditions for Palestinian Detainees
PIC: UN official: Israel killed 1,300 Palestinian children since 2000
AWIP: Israel harasses Palestinian children
AWIP: Israel's War on Jerusalem's Children: 1,200 Arrested in One Year

The commission on wartime contracting blamed an over-reliance on contractors, poor planning and fraud for the waste. It had evidence of lax accountability and inadequate competition, it said. Writing in the Washington Post, the report's authors warn that investments in the two countries could be wasted even after US involvement there ends. Among the examples cited was a $40m prison for Iraq that the country did not want and was never completed. US-funded projects in those two countries also risk going to waste because host governments are unable or unwilling to sustain them.

The UK government, in yet another Islamophobic step, has instructed university staff including lecturers, chaplains and porters to report Muslim students who are depressed or isolated to the police. - As part of the government's new strategy and under its new guidance to combating extremism, university lecturers and student union officials are obliged to inform the police in case they witness a Muslim student behaving as if he/she is depressed or isolated, or there is fear the student might become radicalized. But, student union officials and university lecturers expressed shock at the new guidelines, which have resulted in deep discomfort among them and are seen as an infringement of students' civil liberties.

Files declassified in America have revealed covert public relations and lobbying activities of Israel in the U.S. The National Archive made the documents public following a Senate investigation. They suggest Israel has been trying to shape media coverage of issues it regards as important. You can download the files from the web-site of the Institute for Research on Middle Eastern policy. And we can cross to Washington now and talk to Grant F. Smith who is a director at that Institute.

The Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Monday that its former head Dominique Strauss-Kahn paid a visit to the global lender and met with its chief and staff members. - He visited IMF headquarters Monday afternoon, and current IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde met him prior to his meeting with Fund staff, an IMF spokesman said in a short statement. "These were private meetings, arranged at his request. We have no further comment to offer," noted the statement. IMF spokesman David Hawley said on Aug. 25 at an IMF press conference that Strauss-Kahn was scheduled to make a "personal visit" to the IMF as early as this week. Strauss-Kahn resigned from the IMF in May to fight criminal charges in New York.

WASHINGTON — At least 83 people died as human guinea pigs in macabre US research on sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala in the 1940s, a commission ordered by President Barack Obama concluded Monday. - Nearly 5,500 people were subjected to diagnostic testing and more than 1,300 were exposed to venereal diseases by human contact or inoculations in research meant to test the drug penicillin, the presidential commission found. Within that group, "we believe that there were 83 deaths," said Stephen Hauser a member of the commission, which has pored over 125,000 documents linked to the shocking episode since being set up by Obama last November. Among the 1,300 people exposed to STDs during research between 1946 and 1948, "under 700 received some form of treatment as best as could be documented," Hauser said.

Robert Parry: Guatemala: A Test Tube of Repression

TRIPOLI, Libya — Ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's wife and other relatives fled to Algeria Monday, the Algerian foreign ministry said. - The Algerian government said Gadhafi's wife, daughter, two of his sons and their children entered the neighboring country on Monday. It did not say whether Gadhafi himself was with the family. It said the U.N. secretary-general and Security Council and the head of Libyan rebel National Transition Council were informed. The report came as battles raged on two sides of Sirte, the southern city that is the headquarters of Gadhafi's tribe and his regime's last major bastion. The rebels were consolidating control of Tripoli, the capital. Despite effectively ending his rule, the rebels have yet to find Gadhafi or his family members — something that has cast a pall of lingering uncertainty over the opposition's victory.

Al Jazeera: Gaddafi family members flee to Algeria
PressTV: 'Gaddafi, 2 sons in town south of Tripoli'

Taking away dead is a priority as Tripoli struggles with a shortage of medicine, water, fuel and food.

The shots came from two of the high-rise buildings, long bursts of Kalashnikov fire which made the rebel fighters on the ground scatter in alarm. The stubborn resistance at Abu Salim hospital, the last redoubt of the Gaddafi loyalists in Tripoli, was not yet over. The scale of the fighting is now much reduced, but the bodies keep piling up – civilians caught up in the crossfire during the fierce violence of the past few days; fighters from both sides killed in action; those summarily executed, black men by the rebels for being alleged mercenaries, and political prisoners by the regime. Outside Bab al-Aziziyah, Muammar Gaddafi's fortress stormed last week, the dead, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, many with their hands tied behind their back, some gagged, have been left on display on the roadside by the revolutionaries. Inside Abu Salim, the dead from the mortuary, some with marks of manacles on their wrists, spill into other rooms at the hospital. Yesterday brought the news of another massacre, the remains of 53 people in a warehouse on the outskirts of the city, shown to a Sky News reporter.

Jason Ditz: Rights Group: Evidence Emerges of Revenge Killings Across Tripoli
Patrick Martin: Evidence mounts of atrocities by Libyan “rebels”
Stephen Lendman: Rebel Assassins Terrorizing Libyans

Progressive Radio News Hour Guests for August 25, 27 and 28, 2011. Progressive Radio News Hour Guests The Progressive Radio News Hour Guests for August 25, 27 and 28, 2011. Thursday, August 25 at 10AM US Central time: Gilad Atzmon. Atzmon is an Israeli-born musician/writer/activist critic of Israeli repression against Palestinians and its Arab citizens. He's also the author of "The Wandering Who?" His new book and Middle East/North African issues will be discussed. Middle East issues will be discussed.

Stephen Lendman: Palestinian Right of Self-Defense

The Wandering Who? is out soon. You can now pre-order the book on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. You can find Gilad's articles on AWIP here.

The international development minister, Alan Duncan, has been forced to remove a video from a government website in which he accused Israelis of a “land grab” in the middle-east, after protests from Jewish leaders.

The minister made his remarks in a recording during a visit to the region earlier this year. He announced British aid to support primary education for 35,000 Palestinian children, help to create 8,000 jobs in the area and “direct payments” to 215,000 people so they can buy food, medicine and other essentials. Mr Duncan, Conservative MP for Rutland and Melton, also accused Israeli settlers of “deliberately” taking water away from the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. In the video, Mr Duncan declared:

“The wall is a land grab. It hasn't just gone along the lines of the proper Israel boundary. “It's taken in open land which actually belongs to Palestine. Israeli settlers can build what they want and then immediately get the infrastructure so that takes the water deliberately away from Palestinians here.”

The Board of Deputies wrote to Mr Duncan – and the Foreign Secretary William Hague - and demanded that he take the video down. Shortly afterwards, the footage was removed.

The US Congress is controlled by the 'Zionist lobbies' who work in the interest of Israelis, Lawrence Davidson, professor of History at West Chester University, has told Press TV. - “What we've got here is a congress, the US Congress, that is really, literally controlled by various Zionist lobbies in the United States on the issue of relationships with Israel,” Davidson said in a Sunday interview with Press TV's US desk. “What the Congress does in terms of Israel is what the Zionists tell them they want done and of course take their decrees from Israelis,” he stated. He further pointed to the US hypocrisy in supporting “Zionists” when they sought the UN recognition of Israel and Washington's warning of Palestinians against taking similar initiative at the United Nations. The PA is to formally submit a request to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for membership in the world body on September 20, when the UN General Assembly will commence its 66th session.

Anthony Lawson: The Death of American Democracy - MUST SEE VIDEO

A more severe crash than the one triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers could be on the way, according to alarm signals in the credit markets. - Insurance on the debt of several major European banks has now hit historic levels, higher even than those recorded during financial crisis caused by the US financial group's implosion nearly three years ago. Credit default swaps on the bonds of Royal Bank of Scotland, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Intesa Sanpaolo, among others, flashed warning signals on Wednesday. Credit default swaps (CDS) on RBS were trading at 343.54 basis points, meaning the annual cost to insure £10m of the state-backed lender's bonds against default is now £343,540. The cost of insuring RBS bonds is now higher than before the taxpayer was forced to step in and rescue the bank in October 2008, and shows the recent dramatic downturn in sentiment among credit investors towards banks. "The problem is a shortage of liquidity – that is what is causing the problems with the banks. It feels exactly as it felt in 2008," said one senior London-based bank executive.

EU Observer: IMF issues warning about European banks - The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde on Sunday (28 August) called into question the health of European banks amid a stark warning about a global economic slowdown. Speaking to international bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Lagarde said the weakest EU lenders may need forced capital injections to stop the eurozone crisis spreading to other countries. Without "urgent" recapitalisation, "we could easily see the further spread of economic weakness to core countries, or even a debilitating liquidity crisis," she said, according to Bloomberg.

Investigation finds Taliban attackers may not have been to blame for death of 25-year-old Ahmed Omed Khpulwak in July. - A BBC journalist who died during a Taliban suicide attack may have been shot dead by US special forces, an independent investigation has found. Ahmed Omed Khpulwak was one of more than 20 people killed in attacks on a TV station in Uruzgan province, in the south of Afghanistan, on 28 July. The Taliban was initially blamed for the 25-year-old's death, but an investigation by the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts' Network (AAN) said Khpulwak may have been killed by US weaponry once the Taliban attackers were already dead.

Full video on http://www.youtube.com/user/TheParadigmShift. This video is mandatory viewing to all supporters of the war(s). Narration used in the video is DAHLIA WASFI. Her website is http://www.liberatethis.com/

Gore Flings Barnyard Epithet at 'Organized' Climate Change Critics. - Climate skeptics have "polluted" public debate on global warming using the same tactics tobacco companies once employed to deny the health risks of smoking, former Vice President Al Gore said last week.

"Some of the exact same people -- by name, I can go down a list of their names -- are involved in this," Gore said Thursday at an Aspen Institute forum in Aspen, Colo. "And so what do they do? They pay pseudo-scientists to pretend to be scientists to put out the message: 'This climate thing, it's nonsense. Man-made CO2 doesn't trap heat. It's not -- It may be volcanoes.' Bullshit! 'It may be sun spots.' Bullshit! 'It's not getting warmer.' Bullshit!"

The Week: Al Gore's 'expletive-laden' climate change rant

Raw Story: Al Gore compares climate change skeptics to racists - Al Gore continued his criticism of climate change skeptics in an interview with Climate Reality Project collaborator Alex Bogusky on UStream, going as far as to compare them to the racists of the 20th century.

Federal prosecutors filed a motion Friday, asking District Judge Leonie Brinkema to clarify and possibly reconsider, her July 29 ruling that a New York Times reporter would not be required to reveal confidential sources during the espionage trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. In the motion, the government's lawyers again argued that James Risen's testimony about the sources for his reporting on CIA efforts to undermine Iran's nuclear program is critical to making their case against Sterling, who's charged with illegally revealing CIA operations to Risen.

American democracy is a wide-open system, given First Amendment freedoms, the flood of money that corrupts the electoral process, and a wide array of media organizations and political journals that can be used to disseminate and amplify various views, even when they have no basis in fact. This situation allows small groups of people to have a profound impact on public attitudes and policy discourse, provided that they are well-organized, well-funded, and stay on message. Here's an excerpt from a Center for American Progress press release:

Following a six-month long investigative research project, the Center for American Progress released a 130-page report today [.pdf] which reveals that more than $42 million from seven foundations over the past decade have helped fan the flames of anti-Muslim hate in America. Over the past few years, the Islamophobia network (the funders, scholars, grassroots activists, media amplifiers, and political validators) have worked hard to push narratives that Obama might be a Muslim, that mosques are incubators of radicalization, and that "radical Islam" has infiltrated all aspects of American society -- including the conservative movement.

The irony in all this that the extremists examined in this report have gone to great lengths to convince Americans that there is a vast Islamic conspiracy to subvert American democracy, impose sharia law, and destroy the American way of life. Instead, what we are really facing is a well-funded right-wing collaboration to scare the American people with a bogeyman of their own creation, largely to justify more ill-advised policies in the Middle East. [H/T: xymphora]

Raw Story: Report: Foundations paid $42 million to spread anti-Muslim propaganda
Nahida Izzat: Eureka... !!! it's Eurabia!

The boy, small and frail, is struggling to stay awake. His head lolls to the side, at one point slumping on to his chest. "Lift up your head! Lift it up!" shouts one of his interrogators, slapping him. But the boy by now is past caring, for he has been awake for at least 12 hours since he was separated at gunpoint from his parents at two that morning. "I wish you'd let me go," the boy whimpers, "just so I can get some sleep." During the nearly six-hour video, 14-year-old Palestinian Islam Tamimi, exhausted and scared, is steadily broken to the point where he starts to incriminate men from his village and weave fantastic tales that he believes his tormentors want to hear.

In the case of Islam, the boy in the video, his lawyer, Ms Lasky, believes the video provides the first hard proof of serious irregularities in interrogation. In particular, the interrogator failed to inform Islam of his right to remain silent, even as his lawyer begged to no avail to see him. Instead, the interrogator urged Islam to tell him and his colleagues everything, hinting that if he did so, he would be released. One interrogator suggestively smacked a balled fist into the palm of his hand. By the end of the interrogation Islam, breaking down in sobs, has succumbed to his interrogators, appearing to give them what they want to hear. Shown a page of photographs, his hand moves dully over it, identifying men from his village, all of whom will be arrested for protesting.

Stephen Lendman: Israeli Persecution of Palestinian Children
Stephen Lendman: Israel Shooting and Electric-Shocking Palestinian Children
Stephen Lendman: Israel Toughening Conditions for Palestinian Detainees
PIC: UN official: Israel killed 1,300 Palestinian children since 2000
AWIP: Israel harasses Palestinian children
AWIP: Israel's War on Jerusalem's Children: 1,200 Arrested in One Year

An Italian radio program's story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. We may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion. As one European country after another fails or risks failing, imperiling the Euro, with repercussions for the entire world, the last thing the powers that be want is for Iceland to become an example. Here's why:

Five years of a pure neo-liberal regime had made Iceland, (population 320 thousand, no army), one of the richest countries in the world. In 2003 all the country’s banks were privatised, and in an effort to attract foreign investors, they offered on-line banking whose minimal costs allowed them to offer relatively high rates of return. The accounts, called IceSave, attracted many UK and Dutch small investors. But as investments grew, so did the banks’ foreign debt. In 2003 Iceland’s debt was equal to 200 times its GNP, but in 2007, it was 900 percent. The 2008 world financial crisis was the coup de grace. The three main Icelandic banks, Landbanki, Kapthing and Glitnir, went belly up and were nationalised, while the Kroner lost 85% of its value with respect to the Euro. At the end of the year Iceland declared bankruptcy.

Contrary to what could be expected, the crisis resulted in Icelanders recovering their sovereign rights, through a process of direct participatory democracy that eventually led to a new Constitution. But only after much pain.

Prison Director Knut Bjarkeid and police lawyer Pål-Fredrik Hjort Kraby do not wish to comment on the matter. However, Professor of Psychology, Frode Thuen, tells VG he is “stunned”, alleging the women who write such letters need some form of help.

“There is every reason to believe that these are quite misguided and deranged women who struggle with themselves. They often have a kind of notion that they can make a difference, a desire for a type of healing, salvation and care. They think they should get him on back on track and take some sort of responsibility for his rehabilitation.”

Other experts are slightly puzzled. There is little research why some members of the public wish to contact a mass murderer.

[Heretic Productions present CNI Centre for the National Interest... Slave! http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/costs.html] Our uniquely massive support for Israel has cost trillions of dollars and multitudes of lives. It has diminished our moral standing in the world, lessened our domestic freedoms, and exposed us to unnecessary and growing peril. us-casketsThe majority of Americans -- as well as our diplomatic and military experts -- oppose this unique relationship. Yet, the lobby for Israel continues to foment policies that are disastrous for our nation and tragic for the region. If we are to have Middle East policies that serve the national interest, that represent the highest values of our founders and our citizens, and that work to sustain a nation of honor, decency, security, and prosperity, then it is essential that all Americans become active and informed.

Gaddafi loyalists were also targets of apparent extrajudicial killings. Those deaths have cast a dark shadow over Libya's new-found freedom and call into question whether the rebels will break with Colonel Gaddafi's blood-soaked style of governance or merely mimic it. - Diana Eltahawy, Libya researcher for Amnesty International, said a trail of abuse, torture and the extrajudicial killing of captured pro-Gaddafi fighters had followed the rebels from east to west as they took over the country. In the wreckage of a Tripoli fire station and field hospital on Friday, five fighters loyal to Colonel Gaddafi lay in agony and blood, apparently left to die by their vanquishers. They had been without food, water or medical attention for two days. Rebel fighters patrolling the compound knew the men were there, but scarcely seemed to care. ''We would take them to the hospital, but there are no hospitals,'' said Salah Mansoor, a law school graduate and shopkeeper. ''There are no cars to take them,'' he added, as a taxi cruised by. A few minutes' drive from the fire station, at least 15 bodies, most of them Colonel Gaddafi's black African supporters, lay rotting in the sun at a traffic junction outside his Bab al-Aziziyah complex. Several of the dead wore green pieces of cloth wrapped around their wrists to signal loyalty to Gaddafi.

Zimbabwe Mail: Black Africans executed in cold-blood by rebels in Libya
Stephen Lendman: Rebel Assassins Terrorizing Libyans

Living conditions in Tripoli are becoming increasingly desperate, with most of Libya's capital without water, electricity or proper sanitation. - Hospitals are running short of stocks, and food and fuel are difficult to come by, reporters say. The National Transitional Council (NTC) said fuel to power electricity and water supplies will arrive on Sunday. Spokesman Mahmoud Shammam said the council was doing its best to restore stability but to not expect "miracles". "We're going to make this difficult period as short as we can," he told a news conference.

Part 2 + Part 3.
Links to Tripoli 1.7.2011 Protest Againt NATO Aggression/NATO War On Libya HERE.

MathabaNet: ARCO - Open Letter To Brother Leader Mummar Gaddafi

Voters in two Vermont towns on Tuesday approved a measure that would instruct police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for "crimes against our Constitution," local media reported. - The nonbinding, symbolic measure, passed in Brattleboro and Marlboro in a state known for taking liberal positions on national issues, instructs town police to "extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them." Vermont, home to maple syrup and picture-postcard views, is known for its liberal politics. State lawmakers have passed nonbinding resolutions to end the war in Iraq and impeach Bush and Cheney, and several towns have also passed resolutions of impeachment. None of them have caught on in Washington. Bush has never visited the state as president, though he has spent vacations at his family compound in nearby Maine. Roughly 12,000 people live in Brattleboro, located on the Connecticut River in the state's southeastern corner. Nearby Marlboro has a population of roughly 1,000.

People around the world have participated in the International Quds Day to show their solidarity with the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation.

In Iran, millions took to the streets across the country to denounce Israel's atrocities against the Palestinian people and voice their anger at world hegemony and Israeli policies. Iranian protesters also condemned the violent crackdown against opposition protesters in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Saudi-backed Bahraini regime forces attacked anti-government demonstrators, protesting both the banning of International Quds Day rallies and the government's criticism of Sheikh Issa Qassim, one of the country's top clerics, who has been accused of inciting sectarian tension.

This is the second consecutive year that Quds Day rallies have been banned in Bahrain. Anti-regime protesters say the regime ban is due to its fear that the gathering will turn into an anti-regime demonstration. Several Bahraini protesters were reportedly injured as regime forces fired tear-gas to disperse the crowds that had been on the streets since Thursday evening. Many were also arrested in the demonstrations. Anti-Israel rallies were also held in several Saudi Arabian cities including the town of Awamiyah in the al-Qatif region where protestors voiced their support for the people of Bahrain and condemned the Riyadh government for aiding the Al Khalifa regime's brutal crackdown on peaceful Bahraini protesters.

Earlier in the week British nationals from different backgrounds took part in the annual Quds Day demonstration in London. Quds Day demonstrations have also been planned in Pakistan, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and several other countries.

Tamim Al-Barghouti: In Al-Quds “In Jerusalem” -تميم البرغوثي ... في القدس - VIDEO
The Nation: Rallies-mark-AlQuds-DayRallies mark Al-Quds Day
Jason Ditz: US Vows to Stop All Aid If Palestinians Seek Statehood

Another NATO air strike has killed a number of civilians today in the Logar Province. The attack, which took place shortly after midnight, came after a clash between NATO troops on the ground and Taliban in the Baraki Barak District, and left six civilians dead. - NATO confirmed the attack but said they could not confirm the death toll. They did, however, say foreign forces were “looking into the matter,” while insisting that NATO is taking every measure possible to prevent civilian deaths. Every measure except for halting the bombing of civilian areas, of course. The latest attack came after the firefight with Taliban but was termed a “retaliation” attack. That the attack retaliated against a civilian home and killed an entire family appears to them only a minor detail.

Rebels have stormed and looted Colonel Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli after three days of fighting in the Libyan capital. Angry crowds vented their anger at the portraits and luxuries at the compound - while the location of Gaddafi himself is still not known. He made his second radio address in the space of 24 hours, calling on his supporters to cleanse the capital. He claims that his retreat from the compound was a tactical move and promised to fight to the death.

ANSWER Coalition's Brian Becker on Russia Today

In a much anticipated speech Friday before a gathering of central bankers and international financial officials, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke sought to reassure panicky markets while proposing no measures to ease the worsening jobs crisis in the US and internationally. - Bernanke acknowledged that US economic growth was far slower than previously forecast by the Fed and ruled out any prospect for an early end to mass unemployment, but he limited himself to reiterating the Fed’s assurance earlier this month that its benchmark interest rate would remain at near-zero for at least two years and hinting that more aggressive monetary easing might be in the offing.

AWIP: 'Secret' Fed Loans Reveal Divide Between 'Wall Street Aristocracy' And Ordinary Americans - "Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Loans from Fed." The amount cited in the headline is somewhat misleading, as it refers only to the highest single-day amount of outstanding Fed loans under seven emergency programs the US central bank launched to cover the bad debts of the Wall Street elite. The $1.2 trillion figure is undoubtedly lower than the total amount in loans disbursed over the course of the programs' existence, including loans to banks that came to the Fed for money multiple times.

An aerial view of the Amazon river. (F. Lanting/Corbis)

Scientists estimate the subterranean river may be 6,000km long and hundreds of times wider than the Amazon.

Covering more than 7 million square kilometres in South America, the Amazon basin is one of the biggest and most impressive river systems in the world. But it turns out we have only known half the story until now.

Brazilian scientists have found a new river in the Amazon basin – around 4km underneath the Amazon river. The Rio Hamza, named after the head of the team of researchers who found the groundwater flow, appears to be as long as the Amazon river but up to hundreds of times wider. Both the Amazon and Hamza flow from west to east and are around the same length, at 6,000km. But whereas the Amazon ranges from 1km to 100km in width, the Hamza ranges from 200km to 400km. The underground river starts in the Acre region under the Andes and flows through the Solimões, Amazonas and Marajó basins before opening out directly into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Amazon flows much faster than the Hamza, however, draining a greater volume of water. Around 133,000m3 of water flow through the Amazon per second at speeds of up to 5 metres per second. The underground river's flow rate has been estimated at around 3,900m3 per second and it barely inches along at less than a millimetre per hour.

ABUJA, Nigeria - A car bomb tore through the United Nations' main office in Nigeria's capital Friday, flattening one wing of the building and leaving an unknown number of people dead. - A U.N. official in Geneva confirmed to CBS News that it was a bomb attack, and a Nigerian security official told Reuters news agency it was the result of a car bomb. "I saw scattered bodies," said Michael Ofilaje, a UNICEF worker at the building. "Many people are dead." He said it felt like "the blast came from the basement and shook the building." A medical worker at the scene told Reuters at least 10 people were killed and local media said as many as 40 more were injured, but the death toll was not immediately confirmed by officials and many more victims could still be buried by rubble.

In what amounts to a fight over who gets to write the history of the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath, the Central Intelligence Agency is demanding extensive cuts from the memoir of a former FBI agent who spent years near the center of the battle against Al Qaeda [the CIA]. The agent, Ali H. Soufan, argues in the book that the CIA missed a chance to derail the 2001 plot by withholding from the F.B.I. information about two future 9/11 hijackers living in San Diego, according to several people who have read the manuscript. And he gives a detailed, firsthand account of the CIA's move toward brutal treatment in its interrogations, saying the harsh methods torture used on the agency's first important captive, Abu Zubaydah, were unnecessary and counterproductive.

Jason Ditz: CIA’s Onerous Cuts Into Agent’s 9/11 Book Include Public Testimony

The British government has taken another step to violate the UN resolution, as its Special Forces are revealed to be on the ground in Libya to hunt for fugitive Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi. - According to the Daily Telegraph, soldiers from 22 SAS Regiment started leading Libyan opposition fighters after being ordered in by Prime Minister David Cameron. Defence sources admitted that SAS soldiers have been in Libya for several weeks. Adding they had been sent to the country to direct air strikes on major military targets and have been ordered to aid Libyan opposition forces on the ground to find Gaddafi. As a £1 million bounty was proposed on Gaddafi's head, the British soldiers, who dressed in Arab citizen clothes and holding revolutionary forces weapons, have been ordered to look for Libya's falling dictator.

Washington Post: Bodies scattered around Libya’s capital raise specter of mass killings
William Bowles: What is going on in Libya?