Fight for Tripoli: Gaddafi's son vows to fight on [link]

Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam has appeared with his supporters on the streets of Tripoli. It had been reported that he was in the custody of opposition fighters. A short time ago the National Transitional Council said that Saif either escaped, or because of the inexperienced nature of some of the rebels, was mistakenly set free.

"We are here. This is our country. These are our people and we live here and we die here. And we are going to win because the people are with us, that's why we are going to win. Look at them, look at them, in the streets - everywhere," Saif told the crowds.

Al Bawaba: Rebel leadership stunned as Gaddafi son appears free in Tripoli hotel
Express Tribune: Tripoli 'under control' of Qaddafi forces, son says
Al Jazeera: Defiant Saif al-Islam refutes capture claims
Bloomberg: Qaddafi loyalists counter-attack in Tripoli

The fighting is not yet over in Tripoli, but the scramble to secure access to Libya’s oil wealth has already begun. - Western nations — especially the NATO countries that provided crucial air support to the rebels — want to make sure their companies are in prime position to pump the Libyan crude. Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy said on state television on Monday that the Italian oil company Eni “will have a No. 1 role in the future” in the North African country. Mr. Frattini even reported that Eni technicians were already on their way to eastern Libya to restart production. (Eni quickly denied that it had sent any personnel to the still-unsettled region, which is Italy’s largest source of imported oil.) Libyan production has been largely shut down during the long conflict between rebel forces and troops loyal to Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

“Colonel Qaddafi proved to be a problematic partner for the international oil companies, frequently raising fees and taxes and making other demands. A new government with close ties to NATO may be an easier partner for Western nations to deal with. Some experts say that given a free hand, oil companies could find considerably more oil in Libya than they were able to locate under the restrictions placed by the Qaddafi government.”

Bill Van Auken: Fierce fighting continues in Tripoli
Stephen Lendman: NATO: America's Imperial Tool

As the rebels in Libya push closer to ending the regime of embattled Col. Moammar Gadhafi, U.S. warplanes have been increasing their attacks on government positions as part of the NATO campaign. New numbers released by the Pentagon on Monday show that the number of U.S. air attacks on Libyan air defenses, ground forces and other targets has nearly doubled over the past 12 days, compared with air attacks in the first 132 days of the NATO mission. There was an average of 1.7 strike sorties a day from April 1 to August 10, compared with 3.1 strike sorties in the past 12 days. The Pentagon release indicates that attacks by armed Predator unmanned planes have more than doubled to 1.4 attacks a day, compared with .6 attacks a day between April 1 and August 10. The cost to the U.S. taxpayers for America's share of the Libyan mission, known as Operation Unified Protector, is approaching $1 billion.

Stephen Lendman: NATO'S Planned Bloodbath In Tripoli

Yossi Gurvitz’s 972 Magazine post [...] goes over some of the ground here, but adds a few interesting points I either didn’t know or hadn’t considered, which further buttress the argument that Bibi and Barak are perpetrating a fraud of massive proportions. - First, Gurvitz argues that Israel always releases the names and home villages of captured or killed terrorists within hours of the attack. For Israel, it is a way of pinning blame where Israel feels it belongs. But in the case of this incident, not only hasn’t Israel released this information, but IDF spokesperson Avital Leibowitz, when asked for it by Gurvitz, flatly refused to provide it. Sorry fellas, but something ain’t right here. Israel is a creature of habit. It follows a time honored routine in matters like this. The fact that it’s deviating from SOP is a major “tell.” Also, Gurvitz notes that B’Tselem has tried to identify, through Gaza sources, who the attackers might’ve been, and has failed. In addition, any Gaza family which discovers a relative was killed in a terror attack would do the Jewish equivalent of sit shiva. This would be a public ritual and known to everyone in Gaza. Yet somehow mysteriously there are no such mourning tents for the dead attackers. Something ain’t right about this picture.

Stephen Lendman: Another Israeli False Flag?

COPENHAGEN — Denmark on Monday presented its "Arctic Strategy" for the next decade, confirming that it intends to lay claim to the North Pole sea bed by 2014 at the latest. - The 58-page report said Denmark and its autonomous Arctic territories of Greenland and the Faroe Islands had agreed on a common strategy for the region, including producing "documentation for claims to three areas around Greenland, including an area north of Greenland which among other areas covers the North Pole." That claim, which the report said would be made in 2014 at the latest, could put the Scandinavian country on a collision course with Russia, the United States, Canada and Norway.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some internal Bank of America files obtained by WikiLeaks have been destroyed, according to a former close collaborator of Julian Assange, the whistleblowing website's founder. - In an email to Reuters, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who last year was fired by Assange as WikiLeaks' co-spokesman, confirmed that he had destroyed "roundabout" 3,000 submissions WikiLeaks received related to Bank of America. Domscheit-Berg said that he had decided to destroy the material "in the interest of the security of sources." In the past he had alleged that the source-protection system used by WikiLeaks under Assange's stewardship was inadequate. Domscheit-Berg, who has been working on the creation of a rival to WikiLeaks called OpenLeaks, said that the Bank of America material which he destroyed was sent to WikiLeaks between January 2010 and September 2010. In September 2010 Assange ousted Domscheit-Berg, who then used the pseudonym "Daniel Schmitt", as one of WikiLeaks' principal frontmen. Domscheit-Berg said that the 3,000 Bank of America submissions that he destroyed consisted of "about 10-15% documents and the rest random junk people sent in." He did not characterize the destroyed material's content further.

AWIP: Former Assange Aide Destroyed Mass of Unpublished Leaks

Gilad Atzmon: The following is a letter from Cafe Palestine Freiburg. I urge you to show your support, attend or/and donate for the cause. As one would expect, some individuals and organisations within the Jewish ‘anti’ Zionist network are desperate to damage the conference. As always they spread lies, they smear, they defame but let me reassure you, they do not stand a chance. I will use this opportunity to vow to you all: all individuals and organisations involved in this shameful attempt against our most basic human rights and freedoms will be named and shamed.

CONFERENCE STATEMENT

The conference 'Palestine, Israel and Germany - Boundaries of Open Discussion' (11th September, Freiburg Germany ) will address a number of critical issues including media suppression of the truth about Palestine/Israel; fabrication of history and the Palestinian narrative; the mainstream media´s complicity in Islamophobia and racial hatred; and the deliberate confusion between anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and the criticism of Israel.

One would expect that a gathering of this nature would challenge Israeli and Zionist propagandists to react negatively. What a surprise? So far we have had very little trouble from Israeli or Zionist individuals, groups and institutions. In fact those who work diligently at trying to discredit and destroy the conference are a few who, for some reason, identify themselves as "Jewish ‘anti’- Zionists".

You may ask yourself why these people want to silence such an important meeting of academics, experts and activists. What are they scared of? What interests do they serve? Are they genuinely "anti-Zionist"?

At the conference we will try to discuss, analyze and identify currents and ideologies that interfere with our basic fundamental rights. We plan to deploy reasoning and adopt tactics to define these 'freedoms’. We want to strategize how we can regain some of the basic values which we believe in.

Australian and English researchers may have stumbled upon the world's oldest fossil, presumed to be at least 3.4 billion years old. - The research teams, from the University of Western Australia and Oxford University in England, came across the fossils in Western Australia in a remote part of the state called Strelley Pool. The microscopic fossils include evidence that cells and bacteria lived in an oxygen free world 3.4 billion years ago, when the Earth was still in its early stage of existence. "At last we have good solid evidence for life over 3.4 billion years ago. It confirms there were bacteria at this time, living without oxygen," said Professor Martin Brasier of the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford. Brasier led the team with David Wacey of the University of Western Australia.