Muammar Qaddafi's eldest son Mohammed surrendered to rebels on Sunday, the Libyan rebel transitional council coordinator said, shortly after Colonel Qaddafi’s second son Seif Al Qaddafi was captured by rebels in their advance on Tripoli.

Embattled Libya leader Col. Qaddafi made a second appeal late Sunday for his people to "save Tripoli" from a rebel offensive, in an audio message played on state television on Sunday. He called on the people of Tripoli on Sunday to "purge the capital" after rebels seized various parts of the city in their drive to unseat him.

The people should "go out now to purge the capital," Col. Qaddafi said, adding that there was "no place for the agents of colonialism in Tripoli and Libya." "Go back where you came from," he added, addressing the rebels. "It is the obligation of all Libyans. It is a question of life or death," he said. Colonel Qaddafi had made a similar appeal earlier in the evening on state television, as rebels streamed into the capital.

Jason Ditz: Gadhafi Sons Captured in Battle in Tripoli: Is the End Near?
Patrick Martin: NATO-backed forces move into Tripoli
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya: Mahdi Nazemroaya from Tripoli early 22 August - Video
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya: LIVE FROM TRIPOLI: Western Media Complicit in NATO's "Humanitarian Bloodbath"

Tripoli, Libya, Aug. 22, 2011, 1 AM CET– On Saturday evening, at 8pm, when the hour of Iftar marked the breaking of the Ramadan fast, the NATO command launched its “Operation Mermaid Dawn” against Libya. - The Sirens were the loudspeakers of the mosques, which were used to launch Al Qaeda’s call to revolt against the Qaddafi government. Immediately the sleeper cells of the Benghazi rebels went into action. These were small groups with great mobility, which carried out multiple attacks. The overnight fighting caused 350 deaths and 3,000 wounded. The situation calmed somewhat on Sunday during the course of the day.

Syrian forces scrambled Saturday to destroy evidence of last week's bloody crackdown in Latakia that killed dozens and sent Palestinian refugees fleeing, activists said as UN investigators arrived in Damascus. - Security forces were seen scrubbing blood off the streets and walls of al-Ramel refugee camp ahead of the cross-agency mission’s anticipated arrival in the port city. The delegation was dispatched from Geneva in response to a damning report to the Security Council on Syrian leader Bashar Assad's "apparent shoot-to-kill" policy. That report had urged an end to excessive use of force against demonstrators and the killing of protestors, torture and ill-treatment of detainees and enforced disappearances. A European diplomat says the last-minute cleanup in Latakia confirms existing suspicions and appears timed to coincide with the arrival of UN officials.

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Maan/Occupied Palestine: Doctor: Israel using new weapons against Gaza

Stephen Lendman: Palestinian Right of Self-Defense
Jason Ditz: Barak: Enemies Will Be ‘Decapitated’
Occupied Palestine: Gaza Under Attack – in pictures

GAZA, (PIC)– The Gaza Health Ministry has confirmed that Israeli forces are continuing to attack civilians directly as the number of civilian casualties goes on the rise. - The ministry has called on Gazans to avoid gathering in targeted areas and to make way for medical crews to provide care for casualties. On Sunday, a Palestinian child sustained critical injuries from shrapnel after an Israeli war plane targeted a group of Palestinians in Beit Lahya in northern Gaza Strip. Seven others were wounded in another airstrike that targeted a police position to in west Gaza City. Also on Sunday, Israeli occupation forces opened fire on two Palestinian men in Dheisha refugee camp in the southern West Bank. The troops also proceeded to arrest the men after raiding the home of Bethlehem province mufti Abdul-Majid Ata. One of the men shot and arrested was the mufti’s son. The troops prevented rescue vehicles from arriving at the scene and arrested the men as they were injured.

PIC: Health ministry warns of medical crisis as Israeli attacks escalate
Occupied Palestine: Gaza Under Attack – in pictures
PCHR: In the Widest Military Operation since 2004, IOF Arrest Dozens of Palestinian Civilians in Hebron

70 people from across the US and Canada were arrested at the White House this morning for the first day of a two week sit-in aimed at pressuring President Obama to deny the permit for a massive new oil pipeline. Over 2,000 more people are expected to join the daily civil disobedience over the coming days. - At stake is what has quickly become the largest environmental test for President Obama before the 2012 election. The President must choose whether or not to grant a Canadian company a permit to build a 1,700 mile pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to refineries on the gulf of mexico. Environmentalists warn that the pipeline could cause a BP disaster right in America’s heartland, over the largest source of fresh drinking water in the country. The world’s top climatologist, Dr. James Hansen, has warned that if the Canadian tar sands are fully developed it could be “game over” for the climate.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s former “right-hand man” Daniel Domscheit-Berg didn’t just leave the organization last year, he also claims to have destroyed some 3,500 unpublished files, including the complete US no-fly list and 5 GB of Bank of America documents. Domscheit-Berg insisted he did so because he didn’t trust Assange to handle the documents responsibly. WikiLeaks has condemned the move, saying it “spits on every courageous whistleblower who leaked data,” adding “leak organizations don’t destroy information whistleblowers risked their lives to leak.”

Der Spiegel: Ex-Wikileaks Spokesman Destroyed Unpublished Files

NEW YORK - The sexual assault charges that cost Dominique Strauss-Kahn his job as head of the International Monetary Fund likely will be dropped by prosecutors, a person familiar with the case has said. - The likely developments would bring a formal end to the case at Strauss-Kahn's next court date on Tuesday, when prosecutors may ask a judge to dismiss the charges and might elaborate on their reasoning. The Manhattan District Attorney's office probably will tell Strauss-Kahn's accuser Monday that it won't pursue the case, both because prosecutors don't have evidence proving a forced sexual encounter and because she has a history of lies and inconsistencies that make it impossible to ask a jury to believe her, the person said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters not yet made public. The case upended French politics before it was riven by questions about his accuser's credibility.

LA Times: More hope for Dominique Strauss-Kahn

PARIS — Microfossils found in Australia show that more than 3.4 billion years ago, bacteria thrived on an Earth that had no oxygen, a finding that boosts hopes life has existed on Mars, a study published Sunday says. - Researchers from the University of Western Australia and Oxford University say the remains of microbes, located in ancient sedimentary rocks that have triggered debate for nearly a decade, have been confirmed as the earliest fossils ever recorded. The sample came from the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia, a site called Strelley Pool, where the microbes, after dying, had been finely preserved between quartz sand grains. Pilbara has some of the planet's oldest rock formations, set down in the so-called Archean Eon when the infant Earth was a primeval water world, with seas that were the temperature of a hot bath.