The United States has perpetually contaminated the world, particularly the Middle East, by using massive amounts of depleted uranium (DU) in its wars, an analyst tells Press TV. - Vietnamese-American writer and journalist Linh Dinh described the US use of depleted uranium as a “tremendous crime against humanity,” reiterating that it will affect innocent people and new-born infants “for generations to come and literally, for billions of years to come.” "Once depleted uranium gets into the environment, into the water, into the soil, into the air, it remains there for billions of years and it doesn't just stay in these (Middle Eastern) countries, although these populations are the ones who are most affected immediately, because once airborne it will spread all over across the globe," he said. The Philadelphia-based writer noted that the use of DU, the destructiveness of which the US denies, is 'frankly genocidal.'

PressTV: 'DU destroying Afghans' gene pool'
Abel Bult-Ito: Nothing depleted about 'depleted uranium'

A recent report has revealed that the Israeli regime has increased the number of its overseas covert operations in countries such as Sudan, Lebanon and Iran over the past year. - "Most of the details about the operations are classified, including the exact number, but according to foreign reports, the IDF has operated in places such as Sudan, Lebanon and Iran," the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post reported on Tuesday. The daily said that the Israeli military has “a number of units that specialize in covert operations.” Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz “decided in December to establish the 'Depth Corps' -- a new unit that will oversee operations deep in enemy territory,” the report added. The report comes as Iranian officials have many times pointed to the fact that Israel is behind terrorist attacks against Iranian scientists.

The Food and Drug Administration secretly monitored the personal e-mail of a group of its own scientists and doctors after they warned Congress that the agency was approving medical devices that they believed posed unacceptable risks to patients, government documents show. - The surveillance — detailed in e-mails and memos unearthed by six of the scientists and doctors, who filed a lawsuit against the FDA in U.S. District Court in Washington last week — took place over two years as the plaintiffs accessed their personal Gmail accounts from government computers. Information garnered this way eventually contributed to the harassment or dismissal of all six of the FDA employees, the suit alleges. All had worked in an office responsible for reviewing devices for cancer screening and other purposes.

President Barack Obama readily confirmed the drone war in northwest Pakistan in an interview Monday, breaking with the protocol which normally demands U.S. officials not speak publicly about the classified program.

“I want to make sure people understand actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties,” President Obama said in an hour long interview hosted by Google. “For the most part, they’ve been very precise, precision strikes against against al-Qaeda and their affiliates.” The claim mirrors previous attempts to downplay the civilian casualties of the drone war. John Brennan, President Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor, told the public back in June that zero civilian casualties have occurred as a result of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. This was an obvious lie, but the Bureau of Investigative Journalism helped prove it so in August by cataloguing their lengthy findings on civilian casualties in the drone war, counting hundreds of civilians by name who were killed in drone strikes, including at least 168 children. Investigative reporter Noor Behram, who had been on the ground in Pakistan tallying the dead, estimated that “for every 10 to 15 people killed, maybe they get one militant.” A Washington Post report [has] said that the drone war in Pakistan has resulted “in an estimated 1,350 to 2,250 deaths.” But the public simply doesn’t have a good idea of how many have been killed, because “the identities…remain classified, as does the existence of the drone program itself.” [Image: Associated Press]

BIJ: Drone War Exposed – the complete picture of CIA strikes in Pakistan

Two ships of the US Navy, the nuclear submarine USS Annapolis and the destroyer USS Momsen have passed through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. Although their destination is confidential, they are now getting dangerously close to the Persian Gulf. - The ships’ passage was a major operation for the Suez administration as due to safety reasons they had to close off the canal to all other traffic and even shut down the bridge, disrupting the link between the banks for some four hours. The traffic on the roadways alongside the canal was also restricted, Interfax news agency reports. There are no reports regarding the destination of the vessels, but the news come amid the ongoing crisis in the relationship between the US and Iran. There is mounting speculation that the Annapolis and the Momsen are heading to the Persian Gulf to reinforce the US naval forces already present in the region. Currently the US has two aircraft carrier groups in the region headed by USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Carl Vinson. It is expected that another aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, will join the strike force in March.

On January 13th the Atlanta Jewish Times featured a column by its owner-publisher suggesting that Israel might someday need to “order a hit” on the president of the United States. - In the column, publisher Andrew Adler describes a scenario in which Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu would need to “give the go-ahead for U.S. based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel.” The purpose? So that the vice president could then take office and dictate U.S. policies that would help the Jewish state “obliterate its enemies.” On January 13th the Atlanta Jewish Times featured a column by its owner-publisher suggesting that Israel might someday need to “order a hit” on the president of the United States.

There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy. - The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.

More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour? - Each day, hundreds of schoolchildren appear before courts in Texas charged with offences such as swearing, misbehaving on the school bus or getting in to a punch-up in the playground. Children have been arrested for possessing cigarettes, wearing "inappropriate" clothes and being late for school. "It's very much tied in with some of the hyperbole around the rise in juvenile crime rate that took place back in the early 90s," said Deborah Fowler, deputy director of Texas Appleseed, an Austin legal rights group, and principal author of a 200-page study of the consequences of policing in Texas schools. "They ushered in tough, punitive policies. It was all part of the tough-on-crime movement." Part of that included the passing of laws that made the US the only developed country to lock up children as young as 13 for life without the possibility of parole, often as accomplices to murders committed by an adult.

Justice Center: Breaking Schools’ Rules: A Statewide Study on How School Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement

Not even a month after President Barack Obama signed his name to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, the US government is already using the legislation to justify its ongoing detainment of a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. - Musa'ab al-Madhwani had barely entered adulthood when he first arrived at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 2002. But in the months between his capture in Pakistan and transfer to Gitmo, the Yemeni national experienced more than most would see in a lifetime. Before he turned 23, he says he was beaten and kicked, threatened with death and suspended by his hands in an underground torture chamber. Now for the prisoner, about to celebrate the 10-year-anniversary of his arrival at Gimo, the rest of that lifetime looks to be spent behind bars thanks to the NDAA.

The ACLU [has] set up a special page allowing people to compare multiple versions of documents with just a simple mouseover. This came out a few months ago, but I didn't get a chance to write it up until now. It's pretty enlightening to see just what makes the censor's cut, and (not surprisingly) raises significant questions about the government's temptation to simply excise stuff they don't like, rather than information that there are valid reasons to keep hidden.

Greece's financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all - their children. - One morning a few weeks before Christmas a kindergarten teacher in Athens found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils. "I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her," it read. "Please take good care of her. Sorry. Her mother." In the last two months Father Antonios, a young Orthodox priest who runs a youth centre for the city's poor, has found four children on his doorstep - including a baby just days old. [...] One of the children cared for by Father Antonios is Natasha, a bright two-year-old brought to his centre by her mother a few weeks ago. The woman said she was unemployed and homeless and needed help - but before staff could offer her support she had vanished, leaving her daughter behind. "Over the last year we have hundreds of cases of parents who want to leave their children with us - they know us and trust us," Father Antonios says. "They say they do not have any money or shelter or food for their kids, so they hope we might be able to provide them with what they need." Requests of this kind were not unknown before the crisis - but Father Antonios has never until now come across children being simply abandoned. His organisation, Kivotos, tries to prevent children being separated from their parents. They currently have 30 apartments they use to house families in need.

Across southern Florida, rabbits, raccoons, bobcats and foxes have been disappearing at dramatic rates over the past decade, and invasive Burmese pythons are to blame, a US study said Monday.

The United States formally banned the import of Burmese pythons earlier this month, but the study suggests they have already caused enormous damage to the ecosystem in the Florida Everglades with unknown implications for the future.

The research was based on data from surveys in which dead and live animals are counted along roadways. From 1993-1999, before the invasive snakes had established a population in south Florida, raccoons, opossums and rabbits were the most frequent roadkill. But from 2003-2011, surveys spotted a 99.3 percent decrease in racoons, 98.9 percent fewer opossums and no rabbits or foxes, said the article authored by Michael Dorcasa at Davidson College in North Carolina and colleagues at the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and the National Park Service. Surveys also saw 94.1 percent fewer white-tailed deer and 87.5 percent fewer bobcats. These “severe apparent declines in mammal populations… coincide temporally and spatially with the proliferation of pythons in Everglades National Park,” said the study. During that period, annual removals of Burmese pythons have risen from less than 50 per year to 300-400 annually.

Libyan judicial police have started taking control of makeshift prisons in the country after human rights organizations complained of rampant torture of inmates, the country's deputy justice minister said on Sunday. - The deputy minister, Khalifa Ashour, said uniformed police have been dispatched to some prisons where former rebels have been holding people accused of being loyalists of deposed ruler Moammar Gadhafi. During last year's civil war, former rebels trying to protect their neighborhoods held anyone deemed suspicious of being a Gadhafi loyalist or mercenary, locking them up in makeshift prisons in schools, homes and empty government buildings. According to the U.N., various former rebel groups are holding as many as 8,000 prisoners in 60 detention centers around the country.

Stephen Lendman: Torture and Abuse in Libya
Stephen Lendman: Violence Rages in Libya

Hundreds of police clad in riot gear and wielding a variety of weapons attacked a procession of protestors in Oakland, California, on Saturday. It was the largest altercation between police and protestors in Oakland since the October 25 confrontation that left several wounded, including Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen. - In order to contain the crowd of between 1,000 and 2,000 protestors, the City of Oakland mobilized police and sheriff departments across the San Francisco Bay Area. More than 400 protestors were arrested over the course of the evening, with marches continuing late into the night. Police used rubber bullets, flash bangs, smoke grenades, bean bag guns, batons, and tear gas to suppress the demonstration. Images of children wearing tear-gas masks surfaced in the wake of the demonstrations, and one women was reportedly shot in the back from point-blank range by a police officer. (Video here).

Russia Today: Stun gun vs Occupy DC: Cops tase protester in pyjamas (VIDEO)
Russia Today: Oakland: Cops bend law in brutal arrest wave
PressTV: 500 protesters nabbed in Oakland
Washington Post: One protester tased, arrested at Occupy D.C.
CNN: Park service to crack down on Occupy DC camps
Keeping track of the apprehensions: Occupyarrests.com

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has dispatched a team of inspectors to Iran this weekend, and they began an intensive three-day inspection visit today under growing threats of an Israeli attack against Iran’s civilian nuclear sites. - The visit was being loudly welcomed by top Iranian officials, with their nuclear chief saying that the inspection would finally end international allegations that the program was anything but a legal, civilian program. Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi added that the IAEA inspectors would be given free and full access to any nuclear sites they requested. The inspection team includes weapons experts, with the expectation that they will grill Iran over the alleged military ambitions of their program. Previous inspections have failed to uncover any solid evidence that there is any military program at all, which has only fueled further accusations from Western nations that Iran is hiding them. The IAEA’s current chief Amano Yukiya, has mostly gone along with these allegations, issuing a report warning that they couldn’t prove Iran didn’t secretly have a weapons program.

America’s frenzy over “diabolic” Iran has its roots not on the Potomac riverside, but rather on the banks of Tel Aviv’s Yarkon River: appeasing the US Jewish community has become an inevitable idiosyncrasy of the US presidential campaign. - When America beats the drums of war over Iran, it may not always be driven by the Islamic state's alleged nuclear intentions. Would-be US presidential candidates aren't shy when it comes to voicing their anti-Iran rhetoric in front of America's influential Jewish community. And America almost never misses an opportunity to praise its best ally. “Our iron-clad commitment, and I mean iron-clad, to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries, in history,” announced US President Barack Obama from a rostrum in Washington. And the American President did not forget to point a proverbial punch at Israel’s greatest adversary. “Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal,” Barack Obama insisted. However, for many American Jews and Israeli supporters, Obama’s war of words against Tehran doesn't go far enough.

A prominent British journalist says the West is selling the possibility of confrontation with Iran by exaggerating the threat of Tehran's nuclear program through media manipulation. - “Manipulation of the media and public opinion through systematic threat exaggeration through which the growing confrontation with Iran is being sold by the US, Israel and West European leaders is deeply dishonest,” wrote Patrick Cockburn in an article published in The Independent on Sunday. Cockburn added that “the supposed aim of imposing sanctions on Iran's oil exports and central bank is to force Iran to abandon its nuclear program before it reaches the point where it could theoretically build a nuclear bomb.” The United States and the European Union have recently slapped unilateral sanctions against Iran's oil and banking sectors based on the allegation that Tehran's nuclear program may consist of a covert military aspect. Iran has repeatedly refuted the allegations, arguing that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tehran has a right to use nuclear technology for peaceful use.

Patrick Cockburn: Sanctions can only deepen the Iran crisis
Stephen Lendman: Selling War

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking for a better way to spy on Facebook and Twitter users. The Bureau is asking companies to build software that can effectively scan social media online for significant words, phrases and behavior so that agents can respond.A paper posted on the FBI website asks for companies to build programs that will map sentiment and wrongdoing. [...] Although the police, including in Britain, already use Facebook routinely to ascertain the whereabouts of criminals, automatically filtering out irrelevant information remains challenging. The new FBI application will be able to automatically highlight the most relevant information. The FBI is seeking responses by 10 February.

State Dept. Drones Cover All of Iraq to 'Protect Embassy'. - Another irksome aspect of the lingering American presence beyond its military withdrawal, the US State Department has fielded a whole fleet of surveillance drones to fly over Iraq. They say the flights are meant to protect the city-sized US Embassy on the outskirts of Baghdad. For the Iraqi government, however, the unwelcome overflights amount to a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty, and they have a point. It is hard to imagine the US would give unfettered access to the whole of its airspace to any other nation’s surveillance drones, no matter how big its embassy was. The State Department’s Diplomatic Security branch hasn’t exactly been keeping the drones a secret, but it hasn’t broadcast them very loudly either. Their mention is a single paragraph buried near the back of its recent annual report.

The Israeli military says a drone that can fly as far as Iran has crashed in central Israel on a routine experimental flight.

The military says there were no injuries in Sunday’s crash, and it was investigating the incident. The Heron TP drone is also known locally as the Eitan. It has a wingspan of 86 feet (26 meters), making it the size of a Boeing 737 passenger jet. It is the largest unmanned aircraft in Israel’s military arsenal.

The drone figures to be featured prominently in any potential Israeli operation against Iran and its expanding nuclear program. Heron TP could provide surveillance, jam enemy communications and connect ground control and manned air force planes. It’s unclear if is could carry a deployable payload in a potential strike.

PressTV: Israeli drone crashes during test flight

The Palestine New and Info Agency, WAFA, reported that a Jewish settler illegally took over Palestinian land near the northern West Bank city of Jenin by enclosing the land in a fence and uprooting it, claiming that it belongs to him. - The land in question is located near Nazlat Zeid village, and is located behind the Israeli Annexation Wall. WAFA said that, last week, the settler, Known as Eli, fenced off a land that belongs to Abdul-Raouf Barry and some of his relatives, and claimed that he “rented the land from the Israeli government." The land is privately owned by the Barry family. Abdul-Raouf added that the family always planted the land, but was prevented from reaching it after Israel built the Annexation Wall, as the land became isolated behind it. It is worth mentioning that settlers of the Shikda and Hananit illegal settlements are conducting ongoing attacks against Palestinian orchards that belong to several residents of Nazlet Zeid village, Al-Arqa village, and Ya’bod town. Approximately 120 Dunams of lands became totally isolated behind the Wall in that area.

Stephen Lendman: Profile of a Rogue State

BEIRUT - In dozens of tanks and armored vehicles, Syrian troops stormed rebellious areas near the capital Sunday, shelling neighborhoods that have fallen under the control of army dissidents and clashing with fighters. At least 62 people were killed in violence nationwide, activists and residents said. - The widescale offensive near the capital suggested the regime is worried that military defectors could close in on Damascus, which has remained relatively quiet while most other Syrian cities descended into chaos after the uprising began in March. The rising bloodshed added urgency to Arab and Western diplomatic efforts to end the 10-month conflict. The violence has gradually approached the capital. In the past two weeks, army dissidents have become more visible, seizing several suburbs on the eastern edge of Damascus and setting up checkpoints where masked men wearing military attire and wielding assault rifles stop motorists and protect anti-regime protests.

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has warned that his country faces 'the specter of bankruptcy and all the dire consequences that it entails.' - Lucas Papademos said on Sunday that Greece would default on its debts and might not be able to pay off its loans, and thus forced out of the eurozone unless the country's international creditors agreed to a new bailout. The warning comes as Greece's international lenders say the country needs EUR145 billion of public money from the eurozone for its second bailout to escape economic failure. The figure is more than the planned EUR130 billion because of the deteriorating economic situation in Greece. The European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have presented Greece with two rescue packages so far in return for specific austerity measures, which include cutting public sector salaries and pensions, increasing taxes and overhauling the pension system.

Stefan Steinberg: Berlin calls for EU-run bankers’ dictatorship over Greek economy

The Roots of Christian Zionism: How Scofield Sowed Seeds of Apostasy from WHTT on Vimeo.

Ever wonder why so many Christians support America’s many wars, especially in the Middle East? A new Christianity has emerged from the Twentieth Century called Christian Zionism or what could be called, "Angry Evangelicalism," or "Dispensationalism on Steroids." What motivates a nationally known, evangelical preacher like John Hagee to call for a preemptive strike against Iran when it is contrary to what Jesus taught and commanded his followers to do? This “Roots of Zionism” presentation may be the first of its kind with a factual explanation of how Christianity’s latest apostate epidemic was launched with the publishing of C. I. Scofield's reference Bible in 1909, and the influence of the notes in it. While purposefully reaching and helping many under Christian Zionist influence by featuring its identification and cure, this 2nd edition offers hope to all people, regardless of faith, who may also wish to leave it’s grasp. Film clips include action inside Gaza Strip and a moving interview with Shareen, a young Palestinian woman living in Gaza. Check out our website: whtt.org for the latest news on Christian Zionism and the "Angry" evangelicals. Or listen to our free podcasts at whtt.podbean.com.

An Iranian lawmaker says the Majlis (parliament) Energy Committee has finalized a draft bill to stop the country's oil exports to EU member states in reaction to the bloc's recent decision to ban oil imports from Iran. - Nasser Soudani, deputy chairman of the committee, said on Saturday that the double-urgency bill for halting Iran oil exports to Europe had been finalized in four clauses. “According to one of the main clauses, the Islamic Republic of Iran will halt all oil exports to European countries as long as they continue to ban oil imports from Iran,” he added. The lawmaker said the bill may undergo further modifications as some Iranian parliamentarians believe that oil exports to EU should be stopped for five years.

PressTV: '70 EU refineries to shut for Iran oil ban'