Quebec authorities have begun to make use of the sweeping repressive powers contained in Bill 78—the emergency legislation the provincial Liberal government rushed through the National Assembly late last week to suppress the province-wide student strike. - On Tuesday evening, just hours after 150,000 people had demonstrated in Montreal to mark the 100th day of the strike and denounce Bill 78, police invoked the new law to declare a nighttime student protest illegal. In addition to criminalizing the student strike, Bill 78 makes all demonstrations in Canada’s second most populous province—irrespective of their cause—illegal, unless organizers have submitted to police more than eight hours in advance the protest route and duration and undertaken to abide by any changes demanded by the police. [H/T]

Laurence Bherer and Pascale Dufour: Our Not-So-Friendly Northern Neighbor
Keith Jones: Quebec: Huge protest supports striking students, denounces Bill 78

Andrew Gavin Marshall: 10 Things You Should Know About the Quebec Student Movement - The student strikes in Quebec, which began in February and have lasted for three months, involving roughly 175,000 students in the mostly French-speaking Canadian province, have been subjected to a massive provincial and national media propaganda campaign to demonize and dismiss the students and their struggle. The following is a list of ten points that everyone should know about the student movement in Quebec to help place their struggle in its proper global context.

The decision for the US to bring drones, still relative newcomers as tools of overseas assassination, to a part of everyday life in Everytown, USA has come quickly, with large numbers of agencies nationwide getting approval for the deployment of domestic spy drones. - Civil liberties groups were just starting to rally against the new and growing threat to privacy, and officials are now doubling down, with reports that some police agencies are considering arming their spy drones to attack people. The Montgomery County, TX (which includes part of Houston) Sheriff’s Dept. is looking to be the first to arm their drones, and promised that they would only use them when “there is criminal activity afoot.”

Amateur video of Israeli soldiers appearing to watch idly watching idly as settlers opened fire on Palestinians throwing stones has emphasized the growing power of "citizen journalism" in the occupied West Bank.

Shaky footage , captured on Saturday from two angles by residents of Aseera al-Qibliya village, shows bearded residents from the nearby settlement of Yitzhar aiming a hand gun and assault rifle at the crowd, followed by sounds of gunfire. A bloodied youth shot in the face was shown being carried away on the shoulders of fellow villagers. The video was soon posted on the Internet. Teacher Ibrahim Makhlouf, who filmed the incident, lives by the brush scorched in the clashes on the village's edge, beneath the gaze of the prefabricated suburbs of Yitzhar, which lie outside the official settlement boundary. "We want the whole world to see what Israel and the settlers do to us. They steal our land and they attack us, and the world said we were the terrorists and criminals," he said. "Now we can make it clear who's the aggressor and who's attacking whom. The truth contradicts their claims about our situation."

Germans have become markedly more critical of Israel over the past three years, with 59 percent describing it as aggressive, according to a survey for the weekly magazine Stern released on Wednesday. - The survey was conducted shortly before President Joachim Gauck visits Israel and the Palestinian territories May 28-31. A similar Stern survey in 2009 found 49 percent considered Israel aggressive. The survey, conducted by Forsa pollsters, found 70 percent of Germans agree with the statement that Israel pursues its interests without consideration for other nations. Three years ago, 59 percent agreed.

The National Security Agency is trying to expand U.S. cyber expertise needed for secret intelligence operations against adversaries on computer networks through a new cyber-ops program at selected universities. - The cyber-ops curriculum is geared to providing the basic education for jobs in intelligence, military and law enforcement that are so secret they will only be revealed to some students and faculty, who need to pass security clearance requirements, during special summer seminars offered by NSA. It is not easy to find the right people for cyber operations because the slice of the hacker community that would make a quality cyber operator inside the government is only a sliver. The "quality cyber operators" the NSA is looking for are few and far between, says Neal Ziring, technical director at the agency's Information Assurance Directorate. "We're trying to create more of these, and yes they have to know some of the things that hackers know, they have to know a lot of other things too, which is why you really want a good university to create these people for you," Ziring told Reuters in an interview at NSA's headquarters in Maryland.

Speaking in Beit Shemesh ahead of the Shavuot holiday, Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman, one of the leaders of the Lithuanian branch of haredi Judaism discussed the importance of the torah and said that the world was created for the righteous that learn and follow its teachings. Yet he also issues some more controversial statements. The rabbi's speech which was published in full in the haredi newspaper Yated Ne'eman, included statements on non-Jews:

"There are eight billion people in the world. And what are they? Murderers, thieves, brainless people… But who is the essence of this world? Has God created the world for these murderers? For these evil-doers? "

The rabbi, who has replaced Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv as the Lithuanian branch of Judaism's spiritual leader, reiterated his statements and went on to say: "Non-Jews have no connection to torah. The nations have nothing, no confidence (=faith) and no good principles."

One person was killed when a car exploded in the eastern Sudanese city of Port Sudan on Tuesday in what the government said resembled a blast last year that it blamed on an Israeli missile strike. - An Israeli government spokesman declined to comment on the explosion in Sudan's east, which analysts say is used as an arms smuggling route to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip via neighbouring Egypt. Yigal Palmor, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, told Reuters: "I'm not going to respond to generic allegations." A local journalist in the Red Sea port said he saw two small but deep holes near a gutted car and another hole beneath it. Photographs from the scene showed blood splashed on the road. Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti, the highest level official yet to comment on the blast, stopped short of directly blaming Israel, but said the explosion looked similar to an April, 2011 attack Khartoum blamed on an Israeli missile strike.

CIA's asset, Dr.Shakil Afridi

The US has said it will press for the release of a Pakistani doctor who has been jailed for 33 years for running a fake CIA vaccination programme as part of the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

But even as senior American politicians denounced the sentence as "outrageous", the Obama administration shied away from strong comment on the trial itself as officials said that the legal process is not at an end. Officials are hoping that the sentence can be shortened or overturned on appeal. Two US senators, John McCain and Carl Levin, denounced Afridi's conviction and demanded his immediate release. The sentence was announced just days after Barack Obama snubbed the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, by refusing to hold a formal meeting with him at the Nato conference in Chicago. US intelligence officials say the clandestine operation by Afridi did not succeed in determining whether Bin Laden was in the house and the raid went ahead without any certainty that the Navy Seal team would find its target. However, Pakistani security officials recently told the Guardian that although the nurses working for Afridi were not allowed inside the house to vaccinate any of the children, they did succeed in getting a mobile phone number for someone in the house. The Pakistani sources say that phone call allowed the CIA to make a voice match to Bin Laden's private courier, a man known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.

The Guardian: CIA's fake vaccination programme criticised by Médecins Sans Frontières
KPLU 88.5: Did CIA undermine global health by faking vaccines in hunt for Bin Laden?
The CIA's fake vaccination program in Pakistan reveals the moral bankruptcy of American spooks

The death toll of the U.S. drone strike launched early Thursday morning in Pakistan's northwest tribal area of North Waziristan has risen to 10, reported local Urdu TV channel Dunya. - The target hit by the U.S. drones is a mosque instead of a house, said the report quoting local residents. Two missiles were fired at the mosque when people were leaving after early morning prayers, it said, adding that many of the killed and injured were civilians. The report also said that it was the first time that the U.S. drones targeted a mosque and the mosque was destroyed in the attack. Rescue work was delayed due to fear of more strikes as five U.S. drones were seen hovering over the area following the strike, said the report. This is the second U.S. drone strike over the last two days.

Jason Ditz: Tensions Rise as US Drone Strike Kills 10 in Northwest Pakistan