Fresh US-led bombings across war-torn Afghanistan have claimed the lives of at least 11 civilians, leaving many more injured. Earlier, in Afghanistan’s northwestern province of Badghis, at least five people were killed and 15 others injured. Also, in the country’s southern Helmand Province, another six civilians lost their lives in US-led air raids. A mother and her five children were killed in the incident. NATO has not yet made any comments on the attacks. On Saturday, at least four civilians were killed in another US airstrike in Afghanistan’s northeastern Kapisa Province. Hundreds of civilians have lost their lives in the US-led operations in various parts of Afghanistan over the past few months, with Afghans becoming increasingly outraged at the seemingly endless number of the deadly assaults. The United States launches airstrikes on Afghan residential locations, claiming to be targeting militants. However, the main victims of the US-led offensives are civilians. The US-led invasion of Afghanistan was launched in 2001. The offensives removed the Taliban from power, but insecurity continues to rise across the country.

PressTV: US-led bomb attack kills Afghan mother, 5 children in Helmand

Testimony by commander of the Israeli Prison Service's elite 'Masada' unit sheds light on IDF methods in countering demonstrations against barrier. - Undercover soldiers hurled stones in the "general direction" of IDF soldiers as part of their activity to counter weekly demonstrations in the Palestinian village of Bil'in, the commander of the Israeli Prison Service's elite "Masada" unit revealed during his recent testimony in the trial of MK Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash). Barakeh has been charged with assaulting a border guard in Bil'in who was attempting to arrest a demonstrator.

Several "Masada" fighters testified two weeks ago in Barakeh's trial in the Tel Aviv Magistrate's court. The fighters testified from behind a curtain and their identity is to remain secret. The central witness was "Fighter 102," an officer in "Masada," who told the court that "we were sent to counter the disruptions at the separation barrier in Bil'in. It was the first time I was undercover. Two men were arrested, they were Palestinians." When quizzed by defense attorney Orna Kohn if the undercover soldiers hurled stones, "102" answered that they did. When asked if he hurled stones toward IDF soldiers, he answered "in the general direction."

Could it be that Netanyahu is the person in charge who has gone crazy and is gambling on a minor apocalypse to prevent a major apocalypse, whereas Barak is the bluffer who will flinch at the moment of truth? - When Gunter Grass said a frightened Israel is dangerous not only to itself but to the entire world, Israelis refused to address this harsh statement. The Israeli tribal defense in the face of Grass' remarks focused on the speaker's insolence, past and character. As for what he said - nothing. It's easier to criticize the "messianic" Israeli leadership, which thrives on "falsehoods and deceptions," [emphasis added] when the criticism comes from the heart of the security establishment - the former head of the Shin Bet security service. Yet even here, Israeli tribalism's response has been mainly denial. Few people have addressed the content of Yuval Diskin's remarks. The debate has dealt mainly with the speaker and his political motives.

In 2004, Fallujah, Iraq became the theater of major violence. But even though the sounds of this harsh battle have died down a long time ago the consequences are only showing now. And they are of the toxic kind. Babies are born with malformations, kids are affected with leukemia, and cancer has multiplied. The situation reminds one of 1945 post atomic Hiroshima. Meanwhile, in the USA, the marines who took part in the battle are developing strange diseases.

What really happened in Fallujah?
Has a generation of Iraqis been sacrificed?
Which weapons were used? White phosphorus? Depleted uranium?

The five men accused of plotting the deadly September 11, 2001, attacks [which were actually carried out by the US government] in the United States were formally charged on Saturday with crimes that include murder and terrorism. Confessed [after being waterboarded 183 times] mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four other accused opted to plead neither innocent nor guilty, but rather to defer their plea to a later date. The special military tribunal charged Mohammed, 47, and the four others with "conspiracy, attacking civilians, murder and violation of the law of war, destruction, hijacking, terrorism" for their role in the strikes in which Al-Qaeda [al-CIAduh] militants flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.

McClatchy: 9/11 defense attorneys denounce Guantanamo court system as 'rigged,' 'unjust'
Jason Ditz: Gitmo 9/11 Tribunal ‘Could Take Years’

[Editor's Comment:] This is the way we look at it: The Gitmo Tribunal "could take years", as Jason Ditz correctly comments, and for two simple reasons. Firstly, These kangaroo courts are set up not as a system of justice but as a permanent propaganda institution. In many ways the Gitmo courts resemble the Medieval Inquisition, which was a "fight against heretics", the purpose of which was...for punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit [emphasis added]. It seems to us that the Muslims and anyone supporting them are today's heretics. But it's wider than that: anyone could become a heretic - anyone resisting the "global war on terror" (GWOT); anyone suspected of actually resisting it, or even of just considering resisting it ("1984"). Secondly, they torture the prisoners into compliance & cooperation with the Government's own entrapment & state terror program. The camps themselves are (false flag) terror factories. The GWOT is intended to be permanent, and so are the camps & tribunals. Only two things could possibly put an end to this state terror matrix: The American public (in theory), but they seem too stupid & indifferent to play their historical part. This leaves us with the very real possibility of the collapse of the entire imperial system because of internal contradictions, America as we know it. - Come the day!

Greek parliamentary elections on Sunday resulted in a stunning collapse in the vote for the two main governing parties, PASOK and New Democracy, which received only 35 percent of the vote between them.

The result is a clear popular repudiation of the policies of austerity, dictated by the EU, international banks and the Greek ruling class. The main beneficiaries of the shift in popular sentiment to the left, however, do not represent a genuine alternative. The social democratic PASOK party, which has led the government since 2009, saw its vote plummet from 43.9 percent in the last elections to 15.5 percent. The vote for the conservative New Democracy Party, which forged a coalition with PASOK in December last year, fell from 33.5 in 2009 to 20 percent. The two-party system that has existed in Greece since the end of military dictatorship has been effectively terminated. Official projections late Sunday predicted that PASOK and New Democracy would fall one seat short of being able to form a majority in parliament. That they are even close to the required number is only due to an anti-democratic provision that automatically allocates 50 seats to the party winning the highest percentage of the vote—in this case, New Democracy. [Chart]

PresseEurope/Kathimerini: Far right reaps benefits from crisis
The Guardian: Golden Dawn: leader of far-right party lashes out at Greece's 'traitors'
NewsCode.gr: Α.Σαμαράς: Ο ελληνικός λαός έστειλε το μήνυμά του [The Greek People Sent a Message]
Zero Hedge: The Banks' Nightmare Is Coming True: Greek Left Calls For Anti-Bailout Coalition
Daily Mail: Chaos in Greece as no political party wins enough votes to form a government

François Hollande has won the presidency of France, turning the tide on a rightwards and xenophobic lurch in European politics and vowing to transform Europe’s handling of the economic crisis by fighting back against German-led austerity measures. - The 57-year-old rural MP and self-styled Mr Normal, a moderate social democrat from the centre of the Socialist party, is France’s first leftwing president for 17 years. Projections from early counts, released by French television, put him on 51.9% and Nicolas Sarkozy on 48.1%. His emphatic victory is a boost to the left in a continent that has gradually swung right since the economic crisis broke four years ago. He said his mission was to go to European leaders to demand measures for “growth, jobs and prosperity”. Hollande’s first move as president will be to push Germany to renegotiate Europe’s budget discipline pact to include a clause on growth. Hollande said France had voted for “change”, but he had a “heavy” responsibility to drag the country out of economic crisis. Vowing that France would no longer be fractured, divided or riven by discrimination, or those in the poor high-rise suburbs and abandoned rural areas cast aside, he said: “No child of the republic will be abandoned.”

BBC: Socialist Francois Hollande wins French presidency
20Minutes.fr: Les Français ont voté François Hollande d'abord pour faire partir Nicolas Sarkozy
Les Echos: Pourquoi Nicolas Sarkozy a perdu l'élection présidentielle: Nicolas Sarkozy a permis au pays de passer au bord du gouffre, voilà son bilan
Presse Europe/Financial Times: Who said anything about a revolution?
Reuters: Le Pen appeals to disenchanted Sarkozy party members
Le Monde: Marine Le Pen veut incarner "la véritable opposition"
Stephen Lendman: Choice Not on Ballot in French Election
Alex Lantier & Kumaran Ira: Socialist Party candidate Hollande wins French presidential elections

Russian riot police beat protesters about the head with batons and detained more than 400 on Sunday after clashes broke out at a Moscow rally by thousands of people against Vladimir Putin on the eve of his return to the presidency. - Opposition leaders Alexei Navalny, Boris Nemtsov and Sergei Udaltsov were among those detained during violence that showed the depth of divisions and tensions in Russia as the former KGB spy starts his six-year third term on Monday. Police struck out with batons and hit several protesters on the head as they pushed back a crowd of thousands which advanced towards them holding white metal crowd barriers and throwing objects, Reuters reporters at the rally said. The demonstrators fought back with flagpoles but police formed a line with riot shields to prevent them moving towards a bridge leading across the Moscow river to the Kremlin.

UPI: Putin sworn in as Russia's president
Russia Today: Caviar and salute: Russia’s inauguration splendor

Bahraini authorities have arrested Nabeel Rajab, rights activist and foremost critic of the Al Khalifa regime, as they continue their brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters. It comes after he was interviewed on Julian Assange’s “The World Tomorrow.”

Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights was detained at Bahrain’s international airport on his return from Lebanon. The authorities have not commented on the reasons behind the arrest.

Julian Assange, whose talk-show featuring Rajab will be broadcast on RT on May 8, believes the activist was arrested because of the program.

Rajab has played a significant role in anti-regime demonstrations over the past months. The Bahrain Center for Human Rights has been focusing on drawing attention to the crackdowns on demonstrators and abuses by Bahrain’s security forces. Rajab is also affiliated to international groups such as Human Rights Watch.

For fourteen months Al Khalifa forces have been using stun grenades, tear-gas and pepper-spray on protesters, though this was not enough to draw the attention of Western media. The abuses only came into the spotlight because of the protests surrounding the prestigious F1 Grand Prix event.

The unemployment crisis in America is much worse than you are being told. Did you know that there are 100 million working age Americans that do not get up in the morning and go to work? No wonder why it seems like there are so many people that do not have jobs! - According to the federal government, there are 12.6 million working age Americans that are considered to be "officially" unemployed, but there are another 87.8 million working age Americans that are not working either. The federal government considers those Americans to be "not in the labor force" so they are not included in the unemployment rate. In fact, this is one of the key ways that the government manipulates the unemployment numbers. The Obama administration would have us believe that the unemployment rate is going down and that that since the start of the last recession about as many Americans have left the labor force as we saw during the entire decades of the 1980s and 1990s combined. Of course that is a bunch of nonsense, but that is what the Obama administration would have us believe. The truth is that the percentage of working age Americans that are employed is just about the same right now as it was two years ago. It was incredibly difficult to get a job back then and it is incredibly difficult to get a job right now. So don't believe the hype that things are getting much better. If you still do have a good job, you might want to hold on to it tightly, because there is not much hope that things are going to improve significantly any time soon.

On Friday, 4th May, Israel's channel 2 revealed that Israeli occupation army appointed Lt. Col. Eisner, who attacked a Danish ISM activist in the face with his rifle at the end of the confrontation on April 14, as a deputy commander of the Tactical Training Center in Tze'elim.

In his new position, Eisner will be responsible for training battalions of infantry and armor in battlefield simulations. A Hebrew-language newspaper reported that through a private conversation taped by a third part and was broadcasted on Channel 10, Israeli officers and students from the military school supported Eisner. Chief of Staff Benny Grantz who issued a decision to remove Eisner from his post as deputy commander of the Jordan Valley Brigade following the incident of April, also supported Eisner and contradicted the decision he has taken earlier. Though Israeli army has announced the attack on the Pro-Palestinians activist and Eisner's removal was on "Moral grounds", Israeli officers described the incident as Just "professional and command failures."

Khalid Amayreh: An epitome of Israeli barbarism
AWIP: Israeli officer who attacked activist suspended