Fresh US sanctions against Iran, targeting not only the country’s oil industry but also foreign banks have sparked a furore. China warned Washington of a worsening in Sino-American relations, while Iran said the penalties amounted to "military war." - The new set of sanctions is aimed at forcing Iran to end its supposed development of nuclear arms. The financial penalties will target the Chinese Kunlun bank and the Iraqi Elaf Islamic bank as they have participated in million dollar transactions with Iranian banks and are as such subject to sanctions. These banks will be cut off from the US economy in an effort to discourage them from doing business with Iran.

Ban's anti-Syria stance threatening UN existence: American author. - An analyst says UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon should be impeached for his move in 'turning the world body into an instrument malleable in the hands of the Western military alliance (NATO) against independent countries.' Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Damascus says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence while the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings. The Western states have been calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, while Russia and China are strongly opposed to the Western drive. The Syrian government says the crisis is being orchestrated from outside the country. Press TV has conducted an interview with author and historian, Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley, to further discuss the issue.

New graphic footage has emerged showing armed men killing their captives in the northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo simply for supporting President Bashar al-Assad. - The two-minute video, posted on YouTube and reported by the AFP, shows armed men killing elder members of the Syrian al-Berri tribe. Amnesty International has already warned about reports of “summary executions” in Aleppo, calling them serious violations of international law. In two letters addressed to the head of the UN Security Council and the UN secretary general, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said the rebels backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are using civilians in Aleppo as human shields, and killing anyone who does not support their crimes.

Ahmadinejad did not specifically name Romney, but his comments were an unmistakable jab at the Republican contender's stop this week in Israel.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is calling a visit to Israel by U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney as "kissing the foot" of the Jewish state to boost his bid for the White House. Ahmadinejad did not specifically name Romney, but his comments were an unmistakable jab at the Republican contender's stop this week in Israel. Romney strongly backed Israel's drive to stop Iran from possibly seeking nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the claims. Ahmadinejad questioned why Romney would make "concessions to get some pennies for [his] campaign?" The Iranian president made the comments during a speech Tuesday broadcast on state TV.

Steve Weissman: Romney’s overseas tour: The scary part

US Hid Phony Bomb on Vehicle for Training, Forgot It Was There. - The US State Department has officially apologized today for causing a city-wide panic in Oslo, Norway forcing the evacuation of the nation’s royal palace and much of the city’s downtown after the discovery of a fake bomb on an embassy vehicle. The bomb had been placed on the vehicle as part of a training drill, and then they forgot it was there until security guards discovered it when the vehicle was trying to reenter embassy grounds. The discovery sparked a full scale security alert, leading to special forces deployments around the embassy and panic in the surrounding area. A car bomb in downtown Oslo was the beginning of last year’s massacre by Anders Breivik, and security was needless to say spooked by the discovery.

AWIP: Bomb scare closes US Embassy in Norway

Gore Vidal was a literary juggernaut who wrote novels including 'Lincoln' and the satirical 'Myra Breckinridge,' and essays critics consider among the most elegant in the English language.

Gore Vidal was impossible to categorize, which was exactly the way he liked it. The reading public knew him as a literary juggernaut who wrote 25 novels —from the historical "Lincoln" to the satirical "Myra Breckinridge" — and volumes of essays critics consider among the most elegant in the English language. He also brought shrewd intelligence to writing Broadway hits, Hollywood screenplays, television dramas and a trio of mysteries still in print after 50 years. When he wasn't writing, he was popping up in movies, playing himself in "Fellini's Roma," a sinister plotter in sci-fi thriller "Gattaca" and a U.S. senator in "Bob Roberts." The grandson of a U.S. senator, he also made two entertaining but unsuccessful forays into politics, running for the Senate from California and the House of Representatives from New York.

Los Angeles Times: Gore Vidal | 1925 - 2012 - Photos
New York Times: Prolific, Elegant, Acerbic Writer

After you walk past the guard towers and razorwire-topped fences and walk into a Texas prison, one of the many things you can’t help noticing on a summer day is how many inmates walk around in their underwear. And after a few minutes walking around the concrete and steel cell blocks, you realize why: the temperature. “(It’s) hot,” said State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston. “I was hot.”

So hot it’s killing Texas prison inmates, prison activists said. During July and August of last year at least ten inmates died heat-related deaths, they said, and all of them lived in cells that were not air conditioned. “The old, the weak, the infirm, people with other complications like liver cancer, hepatitis-C related stuff, have been dying from heat prostration for some time,” said Ray Hill, a prison activist and longtime host of a radio show on prison issues.

Dozens of Texans died during the heat wave that swept the state last year. The numbers vary, depending on whose count you want to believe, but the National Weather Service concluded that 46 Texans died of heat-related causes during 2011.

Sin ningún tipo de explicación, Wikileaks a través de su cuenta en Twitter anunció, este martes, que el gobierno sueco rechazó la petición de las autoridades ecuatorianas para entrevistar a Julian Assange en el Reino Unido.

El canciller ecuatoriano Ricardo Patiño solicitó al gobierno de Suecia que tome en la sede de su embajada en Londres las declaraciones del fundador de Wikileaks, quien es acusado ante la justicia sueca por supuesta agresión sexual. Patiño, indicó que el embajador ecuatoriano en Suecia inició los respectivos trámites para solicitar al Estado sueco interrogue a Assange, en la sede de su embajada en Londres en donde se encuentra refugiado, señaló el canciller tras aclarar que se está haciendo todo lo posible para “proteger la vida” de Assange, declaró el canciller en rueda de prensa junto a la madre del australiano, Christine, quien desde el sábado visita Quito.

Russia Today: Sweden denies Ecuadorian request to interview Assange in UK - Video
Hindustan Times: Ecuador asks Sweden to question Assange in London

A former CIA analyst says the United States and Israel seek to come up with a pretext for attacking Iran by fabricating intelligence, a ploy similar to the one adopted by the United States for justifying the war on Iraq a decade ago.

“As we saw 10 years ago with respect to Iraq, if one intends to whip up support for war, one needs to find a casus belli - however thin a pretext it might be,” Ray McGovern wrote in an article. “How about juxtaposing ‘weapons of mass destruction’ with terrorism. That worked to prepare for war on Iraq, and similar rhetorical groundwork for an attack on Iran is now being laid in Israel,” his article further read.

Referring to the recent attack on a number of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, McGovern said, “Netanyahu broke all records for speed in blaming Iran and Hezbollah” for the bombing.

Ray McGovern: Is Israel fixing the intelligence to justify an attack on Iran?