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.