Military's delay in searching through files and handing them over is denying Manning a fair trial, defence attorney argues.

Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of being behind the biggest leak of state secrets in US history, is being denied a fair trial because the army is withholding from him crucial information that might prove his innocence or reduce his sentence, his defence team is arguing. With Manning's court-martial approaching in September, his legal team has released details of what they claim is a shocking lack of diligence on the part of the military prosecutors in affording him his basic constitutional rights. The stakes are high, with Manning facing possible life imprisonment for a raft of charges that include "aiding the enemy". Manning's main civilian lawyer, David Coombs, has filed a motion with the military court in Fort Meade, Maryland, that sets out a catalogue of delays and inconsistencies in the army's handling of the case.

The Amnesty International 2012 annual report was released on Wednesday. The report is highly critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, charging that the Israel Defense Forces frequently uses excessive, sometimes lethal, force against demonstrators in the West Bank and civilians in Gaza. The IDF this year has killed 55 civilians in the West Bank and Gaza, including 11 children, the report said. The report charges that Israeli authorities were prolonging the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip with the continued implementation of blockade.

Amnesty International: Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories - Road to Nowhere
Stephen Lendman: Daily Kristallinacht in Palestine

An illegal network of organ harvesters and traffickers, which exploits both the organ donors and recipients, has been uncovered in Israel. - According to Ha’aretz, at least 10 Israeli citizens were arrested for membership in the organ trafficking gang. Investigation into the ring began after representatives of several countries contacted the Israeli authorities and provided them with the names of suspects, who are all Israeli citizens. In a November report, CNN said that the organs of the individuals trying to enter Israel from the Sinai desert had been trafficked. The Italian New Generation Foundation for Human Rights and the Everyone Group has presented evidence indicating that Sinai locals harvest the organs of the people they transfer to Israel. In this connection, a number of mass graves have been found containing the corpses of Africans who were missing some of their organs.

Police in Quebec have arrested almost 700 in the latest demonstrations against the government's plan to increase tuition fees. The protests came despite a new law restricting freedom of assembly in the Canadian province.

A growing social crisis in the Canadian province of Quebec claimed its second political victim on Thursday, when Premier Jean Charest sacked his top aide, replacing him with a former chief of staff. It's believed that Daniel Gagnier's main job will be to attempt to find a way of ending months of student unrest on Quebec's streets. The move came just hours after police arrested almost 700 demonstrators in the mainly French-speaking province's two major cities, Montreal and Quebec City, the website of Canada's public broadcaster, CBC reported.

Top Israeli officials have refused to meet the US envoy to the P5+1 group, who arrived in Jerusalem with a report on recent talks with Iran. The diplomatic démarche comes as relations between the two countries strain over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. - Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman arrived in Israel on May 25, a day after the group of six (Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States plus Germany) ended their unsuccessful negotiations in Baghdad. She had intended to brief Israeli officials about negotiations between Iran and the P5+1. But both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak became unexpectedly unavailable to meet her.

Russia Today: Deal or no deal, Iran may be bombed – Israeli minister

The Vatican's inquisition into the source of leaked documents has yielded its first target with the arrest of the pope's butler, but the investigation is continuing into a scandal that has embarrassed the Holy See by revealing evidence of internal power struggles, intrigue and corruption. - The detention of butler Paolo Gabriele, one of the few members of the papal household, capped one of the most convulsive weeks in recent Vatican history and threw the Holy See into chaos as it enters a critical phase in its efforts to show the world it's serious about complying with international norms on financial transparency. - The tumult began with the publication last weekend of a book of leaked Vatican documents including correspondence, notes and memos to the pope and his private secretary. It peaked with the inglorious ouster on Thursday of the president of the Vatican bank. And it concluded with confirmation on Saturday Pope Benedict XVI's own butler was the alleged mole feeding documents to Italian journalists in an apparent bid to discredit the pontiff's No 2.

"If you wrote this in fiction you wouldn't believe it," said Carl Anderson, a member of the board of the Vatican bank which contributed to the whirlwind with its no-confidence vote in its president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. "No editor would let you put it in a novel."

Reuters: Vatican leakers say cardinals among plotters in scandal

Department of Homeland Security forced to release list following freedom of information request. Agency insists it only looks for evidence of genuine threats to the U.S. and not for signs of general dissent. - The Department of Homeland Security has been forced to release a list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats against the U.S. The intriguing the list includes obvious choices such as 'attack', 'Al Qaeda', 'terrorism' and 'dirty bomb' alongside dozens of seemingly innocent words like 'pork', 'cloud', 'team' and 'Mexico'. Released under a freedom of information request, the information sheds new light on how government analysts are instructed to patrol the internet searching for domestic and external threats. The words are included in the department's 2011 'Analyst's Desktop Binder' used by workers at their National Operations Center which instructs workers to identify 'media reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities'.