The UN Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission took evidence from 112 eyewitnesses, reviewed forensic evidence, including autopsy reports and inspected the Mavi. It found that, because a humanitarian crisis exists in Gaza, Israel’s blockade is ulawful and ‘cannot be sustained in law…regardless of the grounds” used as justification. Israel’s blockade is collective punishment and in violation of article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, inflicting civilian damage disproportionate to any military advantage. Therefore, since Freedom Flotilla neither presented an imminent threat to Israel nor was designed to contribute to any war effort against Israel, intercepting the flotilla was ‘clearly unlawful’ andcould not be justified as self-defense.

Israel refused to cooperate with this UN panel even though the United Nations and governments all around the world called for just such an independent investigation of the events. Instead, the Israeli government set up its own investigatory panel, The Turkel Commission, led by Israeli retired Supreme Court Judge Jacob Turkel and three other Israelis issued a report on January 23, 2011 exonerating the commandos, then saying the blockade was legal. The commission did not interview a single passenger or crew member from any of the boats but only received testimony from the Israeli military.

Robert Stevens: UN issues apologia for Israeli massacre on Gaza aid ship
Stephen Lendman: UN Report on Mavi Marmara
NYT: Report Finds Naval Blockade by Israel Legal but Faults Raid
Justin Raimondo: This Says It All: Israelis kill American – Joe Biden says: "What's the big deal?"
AWIP: UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis "Executed" US Citizen Furkan Dogan

Turkey expelled Israel's ambassador and said Friday it is cutting military ties with the country over its refusal to apologize for last year's raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that killed nine people. - Turkey's move came before the anticipated publication Friday of a U.N. report on violence aboard a Gaza-bound protest flotilla. The fatalities included eight Turkish nationals and one Turkish-American activist. The report, obtained by The New York Times and posted on its website, said Israel's naval blockade of Gaza is a "legitimate security measure." But it also said Israel's use of force against the flotilla was "excessive and unreasonable," according to the newspaper. An Israeli official said the report showed Israel's naval blockade was in keeping with international law. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the report had yet to be officially released. He said Israel expected it to be made public by the U.N. later Friday. Turkey has made an Israeli apology a condition of improving diplomatic ties. Israeli officials say the report does not demand an Israeli apology, establishing instead that Israel should express regret and pay reparations.

Occupied Palestine/Al Jazeera: Turkey downgrades ties with Israel
The Guardian: Turkey expels Israel's ambassador over Gaza flotilla row

The Muslim community in the United States lives in a state of fear, as intelligence services in the country mount pressure on the minority group, an American Islamic activist told Press TV. - “The Muslims of America actually live in a state of fear; fear of [lack of] privacy in their own homes, fear of going to businesses, fear of even going to prayer or Eid celebrations. The Muslims feel very oppressed and spied on here in America,” said Abdul Alim Musa, Imam of Masjid al-Islam in Washington. He made the remarks in reaction to new reports indicating that the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have singled out Muslim communities for surveillance after 9/11 attacks. “This is a gross violation of the rights of the Muslims and we believe there is a contrived effort by the government to spread an air of suspicion and distrust amongst the Muslims about each other,” Musa pointed out. The Muslim activist contended that Israel and the US government are ones that benefit from the mounting pressure on the Muslim community. “If you go to the root of it, the ones that feel most threatened by an Islamic revival are the Zionists, the occupiers of Palestine. Then that is associated with the US government where it feels that any progress that we make is a threat to their stability.” he said.

PressTV: US Empire foments Islamophobia

Leader of the Revolution, Muammar Qaddafi, addresses the Libyan people on the 42nd anniversary of the Great Al Fateh Revolution.

Gaddafi in the audio message released in writing on the screen for the television station Alrai, urged the Libyan people to "continue the resistance," after saying "no surrender" and "continue to fight."

The Libyan leader stressed that there are differences between armed groups within the TNC and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and therefore reiterated his call to resistance from his supporters.

"There are differences between the Alliance of aggression and its rebel players," he said on the TV station which is headquartered in Damascus, capital of Syria. NATO has destroyed all Libyan web sites and TV stations since 2 weeks, with only Mathaba independent news agency still remaining on the web.

On August 25, Gaddafi urged Libyans to fight the rebels to free Tripoli from their terror and last night his son Seif Al Islam also made a speech urging Libyans to continue to fight to free their land, as the Libyan army is intact and only some government ministers had to give way due to their families being held hostage.

"Do not fear the infidels. Liberate Tripoli. All the people must come out and move towards Tripoli. Fight street by street," Gaddafi also said at that time in an audio message also broadcast by international television channel Al-Rai.

AWIP: Tripoli 1.7.2011 Protest Againt NATO Aggression/NATO War On Libya - Video

Confirming reports that it's lost control of its cache of US diplomatic cables, WikiLeaks on Thursday announced a security breach resulting in the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of unredacted documents. - According to The Wall Street Journal, WikiLeaks quickly accused its former publishing partner, The Guardian, for portions of the leak. The Guardian responded with a statement Thursday saying, "It's nonsense to suggest the Guardian's WikiLeaks book has compromised security in any way. Wired reported August 30 that the cache of documents was floating around online for months with the filename "cables.csv". Wired also pointed out that unlike previous cables that had been censored to protect intelligence agents and informants, the rogue file listed full identities of agents in Israel, Jordan, Iran and Afghanistan. Regardless of the accusations, it's unknown who hacked the files, but the news comes just days after WikiLeaks rushed to publish more than 100,000 previously unreleased cables.

Cablegate's cables: Full-text search
The Guardian: WikiLeaks publishes full cache of unredacted cables
Raw Story: WikiLeaks threatens to release unredacted cables

A California nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of wildlife has discovered what seems to be a massive oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico near the area of the original Deepwater Horizon spill. - In a flight over the Gulf Tuesday, OnWingsOfCare.org founder and pilot Dr. Bonny Schumaker spotted an oil slick that stretched for nearly 10 miles. Last week, two Louisiana State University men took a boat into the Gulf and returned with video evidence of large blooms of crude oil swelling up to the water’s surface where the doomed oil rig once hovered. BP had firmly denied that the well is continuing to leak.

Devastated by a banking collapse, the North Atlantic nation welcomed a Chinese real estate tycoon's plan to buy a remote, treeless tract of wilderness for a resort. Then critics raised questions and Iceland had second thoughts. - Was this cover for Beijing to gain a strategic foothold? A way to gain access to a deepwater harbor — even though it lies some 50 kilometers (35 miles) away — or water from a glacier-fed river? And should a foreigner be allowed to buy the equivalent of 0.3 percent of Iceland's territory?

El derrumbe de los tres rascacielos del World Trade Center fue una obra maestra de la demolición controlada / Ésta es la conclusión a la que llegan el doctor Niels Harrit y otros nueve científicos en el artículo "Material Termítico descubierto en los restos del World Trade Center". ¿Podría ser el más audaz ataque terrorista de la historia, una compleja obra maestra de demolición? Esto es lo que el catedrático de química Niels Harrit ha estado preguntando, a raíz de su investigación de los escombros del World Trade Center, que han revelado restos de explosivos. Esta es la tercera entrevista concedida por Niels Harrit en Televisión; las dos primeras se retransmitieron en la TV danesa y esta tercera en Rusia Today.

After Israel’s Interior Ministry attempted to deport the first migrant workers’ child educated in the Israeli school system, human rights groups are calling on the Israeli government to develop a clear immigration policy and an official protocol that will minimise the psychological impact of detaining and deporting young children. - In July 2009, the Israeli government announced its intention to deport 1,200 children of undocumented migrant workers. After a great deal of criticism, an inter-ministerial committee finally approved the deportation of 400 children last August, while the remaining 800 were told they could apply for permanent status in Israel if they met certain requirements. This criteria included that the children speak fluent Hebrew, be enrolled in the Israeli school system in the first grade or higher, have been born in Israel or entered before the age of 13, have been in Israel for five consecutive years, and have parents who entered Israel legally. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time:

"We all feel and understand the hearts of children. But on the other hand, there are Zionist considerations and ensuring the Jewish character of the state of Israel. We don't want to create an incentive for the inflow of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrant workers."

A lawsuit is providing a rare glimpse into a secretive program, known as rendition, in which the Central Intelligence Agency transported terrorism suspects to covert overseas prisons for interrogations that are free of American legal constraints. - Charter company Richmor Aviation sued Sportsflight, a tiny aviation company that transported sports teams before the CIA contracted it, for breach of contract. The contract in question allowed Sportsflight to rent planes from Richmor to fly suspects across the world, to places that included Cairo, Tripoli and Bucharest. Now some of the details of those journeys are part of the court record. The government hasn't yet invoked the "state secrets" privilege, which compels a court to bar evidence that the government deems too sensitive to be made public. "I kept waiting for [the government] to contact me. I kept thinking, 'Isn't someone going to come up here and talk to me?' " William F. Ryan, the attorney for Richmor, told The Washington Post. "No one ever did."

Chris Floyd: Contract With Atrocity: Flying With the Torture Profiteers - The Guardian reports on a remarkable case uncovered by the legal rights charity Reprieve: private contractors who flew American Terror War captives to torture hellholes around the world coming to blows in court over a grubby dispute over expenses. The case reveals the inner workings of the infamous "rendition" program, where contractors charged U.S. taxpayers for wine and chocolate as they carried kidnap victims to "black sites" and proxy torturers across America's global gulag.

Senator Obama: I'll Stop Torture, Abide By The Geneva Conventions, Roll Back NSA Wiretapping Programs. No More Spying On Americans. No More ignoring the law when it's convenient. This is not who we are.

Al Jazeera: Is the US government spying on Americans?