At least 2,200 people have been killed and more than 1,100 others injured by the unauthorized US drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004, a report says.

A new study conducted by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has also revealed that up to 168 children have lost their lives in more than 291 attacks since they began under George W. Bush, a Press TV correspondent reported on Friday. The aerial raids have escalated since President Barack Obama took office in 2009. At least 236 attacks have taken place during his term, the report added. Washington claims the attacks target al-Qaeda linked and pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan's northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. However, locals say the strikes kill civilians.

At least twenty-five people were killed in the latest drone attack in North Waziristan on Wednesday after the unmanned aircraft fired two missiles on a vehicle and a compound. Islamabad has repeatedly condemned the strikes as a violation of its sovereignty, asserting that such attacks have proved counterproductive in US-led war against terrorism.

PressTV Video: Pakistanis protest US drone strikes

One-fifth of US Congressmen have been scheduled to visit Israel over the next three weeks despite America's deepening economic crisis. - The Congressmen have announced their one-week trips, paid for by the so-called American Israel Education Fund, a non-profit affiliate of the politically powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a Press TV correspondent reported on Thursday. AIPAC is a major pro-Israeli political pressure group in the US that is widely believed to dictate US foreign policy in the Middle East. For instance, the draft of nearly all resolutions and bills passed by US legislators in Congress are entirely prepared by AIPAC, a fact often boasted by the pro-Tel Aviv lobby group on its website and propaganda publications. The first group of 26 Democrats is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Monday.

AWIP: Anthony Lawson: The Death of American Democracy - VIDEO

Senadores de PRI, PRD y PT advirtieron que el gobierno de Felipe Calderón debe aclarar todo lo relativo a la carta de entendimiento que firmó con el presidente Barak Obama, que ha posibilitado la actuación directa de personal de las agencias Central de Inteligencia y antidrogas (CIA y DEA, por sus siglas en inglés, respectivamente), así como del Pentágono, en operativos contra los cárteles de la droga en el país. Como no se trata de un tratado ni un convenio, no requiere de la ratificación de la Cámara de Senadores, pero "necesitamos saber en qué consisten los compromisos que Calderón tiene con el gobierno de Estados Unidos, porque se está yendo más allá de lo que ordenan los instrumentos internacionales en materia de cooperación". Agregó que la sociedad repudia que agentes de Estados Unidos estén trabajando aquí. "Queremos que combatan el elevadísimo consumo de drogas en su territorio, que detengan el contrabando de armas por la frontera; con eso sí contribuirían a frenar el narcotráfico". Ni el Congreso ni la sociedad deben permitir que Estados Unidos asuma el control de la lucha contra el narcotráfico, y menos que altos mandos mexicanos estén al servicio de los agentes de la DEA , la CIA y el Pentágono que operan en el país, insistió.

La Jornada: Altos mandos de PGR y SSP, sometidos por agencias de EU
Stephen Lendman: Plan Mexico: Plan Colombia Heads for Mexico

Officer Bubbles - A. Josephs

"Aggression during G20 rally ‘perpetrated by police,’ judge rules":

"A Toronto judge has ruled that “adrenalized” police officers acted as aggressors at a peaceful political rally that led to dozens of arrests during last year’s G20 summit.

“The only organized or collective physical aggression at that location that evening was perpetrated by police each time they advanced on demonstrators,” Justice Melvyn Green ruled on Thursday.

He was referring to a demonstration at Queen St. and Spadina Ave. on Saturday, June 26, 2010. Green stated police criminalized political demonstration, which is “vital” to maintain a “viable democracy.”"

He is just stating the obvious, but it is still nice to hear a judge say it. Now, where's the mass firings of the police brass?

The riots broke out late Thursday in Guizhou province and carried on all night, with 10 police officers wounded in the violence, the report said. Rioters also blocked the city's main roads using trucks, the state-run China National Radio reported on its website. Xinhua said the riots were set off when "chengguan" officials, responsible for low-level policing on China's streets, injured a female cyclist while trying to confiscate her bicycle for illegal parking. Chengguan officials, widely disliked in China and often accused of using excessive force against civilians, have been behind an increasing number of riots in recent years. Last month, hundreds of people in another southern Chinese city rioted after a chengguan was reported to have beaten up a one-legged fruit seller. The seller, who had apparently protested against the confiscation of his cart for illegal parking, later died of his injuries.

London is his home, Britain is his home. He has rights too.
[The "Boris" referred to is Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, a major league a**hole.]

Social networking sites have fallen victim to the British Prime Minister's ire after the worst unrest in a generation, as defined by UK authorities, rocked the country. - Prime Minister David Cameron made a statement to the parliament on Thursday warning to unleash a clampdown on social media including social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Research in Motion (Rim), the maker of BlackBerry devices. Cameron said the government would consider banning people from social networks if they were suspected of inciting violence online. The Prime Minister cautioned these social media that they should take more responsibility for content posted on their networks. Britain was rocked by an unprecedented unrest in 30 years, which was sparked by the death of a black man in the London suburb of Tottenham. Mark Duggan, 26, was killed in a shooting spree by armed officers in Ferry Lane in Tottenham last Thursday, after police stopped his minicab to carry out an arrest as part of a pre-planned operation.

The Guardian: A social media crackdown is the wrong response to riots - "If the UK government restricts social networking in answer to the riots, what separates it from the Arab tyrannies and China?"

Google+: David Cameron's comments on social media and rioters in full: "Mr Speaker, everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organised via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. [And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them.] "So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality. I have also asked the police if they need any other new powers." UPDATE: the bit in square brackets above was in the scripted statement but the prime minister did NOT actually say it in the House of Commons.

Julie Hyland: Parliament demands violent repression of British youth riots - In his opening statement, Prime Minister David Cameron rejected that the disturbances were in any way connected to the police killing of 29-year old Mark Duggan last Thursday in Tottenham. Duggan’s death was “used as an excuse by opportunist thugs in gangs”, he claimed, to carry out “criminality”. It is now known that Duggan was shot and killed in a pre-planned operation, and that police claims they had opened fire in self-defence are lies. His death was only the latest in the toll of some 340 fatalities that have occurred in police custody over the last decade or so, for which not a single police officer has been convicted. Cameron is indifferent to police lawlessness, however.

A reclusive maths genius who won $20 million on scratchies is either the luckiest person on earth or knows something the rest of us don't. - Her luck is being called into question by some who think winning the lottery four times is more than just a coincidental spell of good fortune. Joan R. Ginther from Texas won multi-million dollar payouts each time. The reclusive Ms Ginther, 63, who has amassed $US20 million ($19.7m) through scratchies, is a Stanford-educated maths genius who may have cracked the code that determines how winning tickets are distributed.

First, she won $5.4 million, then a decade later, she won $2million, then two years later $3million and in the summer of 2010, she hit a $10million jackpot. The odds of this has been calculated at one in 18 septillion and luck like this could only come once every quadrillion years. Harper's reporter Nathanial Rich recently wrote an article about Ms Ginther, which calls the the validity of her "luck" into question. First, he points out, Ms Ginther is a former math professor with a PhD from Stanford University specialising in statistics. A professor at the Institute for the Study of Gambling & Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno, told Mr Rich: 'When something this unlikely happens in a casino, you arrest ‘em first and ask questions later.'

A new report reveals the non-UN sanctioned US drone strikes have killed up to 168 children in Pakistan over the last seven years.

Research by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found that CIA drone attacks on Pakistan's tribal belt have led to far more deaths than previously mentioned. It says just over four percent of the nearly 2,900 people killed in the drone attacks have been militants. It reports the CIA has carried out 291 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004 -- a figure eight percent higher than in previous research. Over 80 percent of all strikes have been carried out under President Barack Obama administration. This breaks down to one strike every four days.

Washington claims its air raids target militants who cross the Pakistani border into Afghanistan to help the Taliban fight US-led foreign forces. However, locals say civilians are the main victims of the non-UN-sanctioned attacks. A recent report by the Brookings Institution says the illegal strikes have taken the lives of 10 civilians for every militant killed.

Islamabad has repeatedly condemned the strikes as a violation of its sovereignty, asserting that such attacks have proved counterproductive in US-led war against terrorism. The United Nations says the US-operated drone strikes in Pakistan pose a growing challenge to the international rule of law. Philip Alston, UN special envoy on extrajudicial killings, said in a report in late October 2010 that the attacks were undermining the rules designed to protect the right of life. Alston also said he feared that the drone killings by the US Central Intelligence Agency could develop a "playstation" mentality.

Chris Woods: The US has killed more than 168 children in Pakistan - Drone War Exposed – the complete picture of CIA strikes in Pakistan. The Obama administration has come to rely heavily on CIA drone strikes to attack alleged militants in the country’s western tribal areas. To date, at least 236 drone attacks have been ordered in Obama’s name. CIA drone strikes have led to far more deaths in Pakistan than previously understood, according to extensive new research published by the Bureau. More than 160 children are among at least 2,292 people reported killed in US attacks since 2004. There are credible reports of at least 385 civilians among the dead. In a surprise move, a counter-terrorism official has also released US government estimates of the numbers killed. These state that an estimated 2,050 people have been killed in drone strikes – of whom all but an estimated 50 are combatants.

In a new documentary, former national-security aide Richard Clarke suggests the CIA tried to recruit 9/11 hijackers patsies —then covered it up. Philip Shenon on George Tenet’s denial. - With the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks only a month away, former CIA Director George Tenet and two former top aides are fighting back hard against allegations that they engaged in a massive cover-up in 2000 and 2001 to hide intelligence from the White House and the FBI that might have prevented the attacks. The source of the explosive, unproved allegations is a man who once considered Tenet a close friend: former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, who makes the charges against Tenet and the CIA in an interview for a radio documentary timed to the 10th anniversary next month. Clarke says it is fair to conclude “there was a high-level decision in the CIA ordering people not to share information.” Asked who would have made the order, Clarke replies, “I would think it would have been made by the director,” referring to Tenet.

[Flanked by Jackie Kennedy (R) and his wife, Ladybird, Vice President Lyndon Johnson is sworn in as president of the United States of America by Dallas Federal District Judge Sarah T. Hughes (L) on November 22, 1963. They were aboard the presidential airplane Air Force One returning from Dallas to Washington following president Kennedy's assassination. Photo: UPI]

Jackie Onassis believed that Lyndon B Johnson and a cabal of Texas tycoons were involved in the assassination of her husband John F Kennedy, ‘explosive’ recordings are set to reveal.

The secret tapes will show that the former first lady felt that her husband’s successor was at the heart of the plot to murder him. She became convinced that the then vice president, along with businessmen in the South, had orchestrated the Dallas shooting, with gunman Lee Harvey Oswald – long claimed to have been a lone assassin – merely part of a much larger conspiracy. Texas-born Mr Johnson, who served as the state’s governor and senator, completed Mr Kennedy’s term and went on to be elected president in his own right.

The tapes were recorded with leading historian Arthur Schlesinger Jnr within months of the assassination on November 22, 1963, and had been sealed in a vault at the Kennedy Library in Boston. The then Mrs Kennedy, who went on to marry Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, had ordered that they should not be released until 50 years after her death, with some reports suggesting she feared that her revelations might make her family targets for revenge. She died 17 years ago from cancer aged 64 and now her daughter, Caroline Kennedy, has agreed to release the recordings early.

Cy.Talk: Secret Jackie Kennedy tapes not as sordid as reported, ABC says

Western governments have helped prepare a blueprint for a post-Gaddafi Libya that would retain much of the regime's security infrastructure to avoid an Iraq-style collapse into anarchy. - The 70-page plan, obtained by London's The Times, charts the first months after the fall of the Gaddafi regime. The document was drawn up by the National Transition Council in Benghazi with Western help. Officials say the blueprint draws on lessons from the disastrous regime change in Iraq in 2003 and the rebel takeover in eastern Libya in March. The plans are highly reliant on the defection of parts of the Gaddafi security apparatus to the rebels after his overthrow. This is likely to prove not only risky, but controversial, with many rebel fighters determined to sweep away all vestiges of the regime. The document includes proposals for a 10,000-15,000 strong "Tripoli task force", resourced and supported by the United Arab Emirates, to take over the Libyan capital, secure key sites and arrest high-level Gaddafi supporters. It claims 800 serving Gaddafi government security officials have been recruited covertly to the rebel cause and are ready to form the "backbone" of a new security apparatus. The blueprint contains plans for about 5000 police officers now serving in units not ideologically committed to the Gaddafi regime to be transferred immediately to the interim government's forces to prevent a security vacuum. The documents claim that the rebel groups in Tripoli and surrounding areas have 8660 supporters, including 3255 in the Gaddafi army. A mass defection by high-ranking officials is considered highly likely, with 70 per cent of them judged to support the regime out of fear alone. The authors of the report also believe the escalation of NATO attacks to an "unbearable" level is a strong possibility.