Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota and a favourite of the conservative Tea Party movement, won the poll with 4,823 of the 16,892 votes cast in the fundraising event that garners massive US media attention ahead of each presidential election. - The long-standing political event is an early measure of popularity in the state that holds the first contest to choose the party's nominee to face President Barack Obama in November 2012 elections. Though the Iowa caucuses are not until February, Republican hopefuls have already spent weeks in the state hoping to woo the state's residents. The straw poll itself is a measure of political organization and the ability of each candidate to turn out supporters, but gives the winner little more than bragging rights. The winner of the poll has only gone on to be the party's nominee twice in the last five times the event has been held, choosing George W Bush in 2000 and Bob Dole in 1995. However, a poor showing at the event has in the past proved deadly to some presidential ambitions. Romney won the last straw poll in 2007, but went on to lose the nomination to Senator John McCain, who was defeated by Obama in the general election. But Romney chose not even to attend the event this year. He was on the ballot at the poll, but did not spend money to secure a tent to feed and meet with supporters or give a speech to the attendees.

Officials reject independent UK study's finding that up to 168 children have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan. - US officials have strongly rejected allegations in an independent UK study that a covert drone war in Pakistan has killed large numbers of civilians, saying the numbers are "way off the mark". On Friday, US officials criticised the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism report's finding that there had been many more CIA attacks on alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban targets and far more civilian deaths than previously reported. The report said that bombing raids by unmanned aircraft had killed up to 168 children in Pakistan over the last seven years.

AWIP: US drones killed 2,200 in Pakistan
AWIP: 168 Pakistani kids killed by US strikes
Chris Woods: The US has killed more than 168 children in Pakistan

Unidentified men have kidnapped a 63-year-old US national from his residence in Model Town area of Pakistani city of Lahore. - Senior Superintendent Police Investigation, Abdul Razaq Cheema, said on Saturday that the American man, identified as Justin Warner, was taken from his residence by a group of ten persons, Xinhua reported. Warner had been living at the compound for four or five years and only his guards and employees had been seen around his residence, neighbors said. The abduction took place at 4 a.m. local time and the gunmen also beat the guard at the main gate, witnesses said. No group has claimed responsibility for the incident.

Donald Rumsfeld is facing a civil suit as two US citizens claim they were wrongfully detained and tortured in Iraq. Lawyer Jennifer Harbury believes the former Pentagon chief should face criminal charges and go to jail. According to Harbury, the only outcome in the civil case is that Rumsfeld will be ordered to pay money damages to the plaintiffs, both of whom are US citizens. However, this will not mean that a non-US citizen who faced torture can also file a lawsuit. Under US laws, conspiring to commit torture outside the United States is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison, Harbury insists.

“Under our own laws Mr. Rumsfeld should be going to jail.”

The human rights activist and lawyer believes Rumsfeld should be personally facing the charges as he authorized he torture.

“Because he ordered those he certainly should be subject to suit,”[ she said.]

Harbury also stressed that other people who worked with Rumsfeld on policies of torture, including former President George Bush should be held responsible.

“If you break the law, you are supposed to face trial.”

Harbury hailed the fact that the civil suit can now be filed against Rumsfeld, but insisted that it is barely enough. “The great travesty here is that they are not facing criminal trials,” she said, pointing out the massive war crimes committed during the Bush era.

The British police watchdog has admitted that it may have deceived journalists into believing that officers killed black man Mark Duggan by live bullets after he [allegedly] fired at the police. - The police in north London Tottenham area shot dead the 29-year-old father of four last Thursday in an incident that triggered the worst civil unrest in Britain for decades while the media were quick to label Duggan a gangster that first fired at officers before they killed him. However, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said in a statement that the police fired all the shots and that a bullet lodged in an officer's radio, formerly reported to have been fired by Duggan's gun, was a “jacketed round” and police issue. Reports [lied] claiming after Duggan's killing that he was carrying a gun, illegally converted to fire live ammunition, but his friends and relatives said he was unarmed.

The Guardian: Mark Duggan death: IPCC says it "inadvertently" misled media

German chancellor Angela Merkel and president Christian Wulff join hundreds at a memorial marking the 50th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall. From the day construction started 50 years ago on 13 August 1961, to its fall on 9 November 1989, at least 136 people were killed trying to get through the wall that divided Berlin. Most were shot by East German border guards. More than 75,000 people were imprisoned for trying to leave East Germany - about 5,000 managed to escape.

Inquirer News: Berlin marks 50th Wall anniversary with minute of silence - BERLIN—Berlin on Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall started to go up with a memorial service and a minute of silence in memory of those who died trying to flee to the West. German President Christian Wulff, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in the East, and Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit attended a nationally televised commemoration followed by a ecumenical church service at a chapel built where the Wall stood for 28 years. Flags flew at half mast on the Reichstag (parliament) and church bells tolled at noon as Germans were called to observe a minute of silence in remembrance of the 136 people who are known to have died in Berlin between 1961 and 1989 while trying to cross the Wall. Overall figures of those killed while attempting to flee from East to West Germany stand at between 600 and 700. No one knows the true figure,” Wulff told those attending the commemoration in Berlin’s Bernauer Strasse, the scene of many escape attempts which today houses a memorial visited by half a million people every year. We bow our heads in remembrance of all who died at the Wall and of the hundreds who died on the inner German border,” he said.

[Editor's Comment:] Yes, we know. The photo is from Palestine, not Germany. We do empathize with the Germans and are happy that their wall came down. And yes, we sincerely regret that lives were snuffed out there. These were indeed criminal acts, perpetrated by a state against defenseless people. Ideology played an important part in Germany as it does in Israel today. Zionism is every bit as pernicious and evil as the communism of Eastern Europe. However, a great number of politicians in the Western world, who now are commemorating the fall of "die Mauer" in Berlin, are criminally indifferent to the building of another one, in Palestine this time. Not only that, a fair number of them are actively trying to help Israel commit her crimes againt people in Palestine and to steal ever more land there. Thousands of innocent Palestinians have been killed in recent years, but this means little to politicians in the West. Only lives lost to communism seems to count, but not the ones taken by Zionism. - Funny how being on Israel's payroll warps perception. Hypocrisy and bigotry have become the norm. In the words of a Stephen Stills song: "It's incredibly sick, you can feel it, as across the land it flows."