Almost 16,000 people given emergency shelter, casualty toll may rise as rescuers reach more villages.

Two strong earthquakes killed 180 people and injured another 1,300 in northwest Iran where rescuers frantically combed through the rubble of dozens of villages on Sunday. Thousands fled their homes and remained outdoors after Saturday’s quakes, as at least 20 aftershocks hit the area. Casualty numbers could well rise, Iranian officials feared, as some of the injured were in critical condition, others were still trapped under the rubble and rescuers had yet to reach some of the affected villages. Some 60 villages had sustained more than 50 percent damage, Iranian media said. Iran is straddled by major fault lines and has suffered several devastating earthquakes in recent years, including a 6.6 magnitude quake in 2003 which turned the southeastern historic city of Bam into dust and killed more than 25,000 people. Provincial official Khalil Sa’ie said 180 people had been killed and some 1,300 injured, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. The second quake struck near the town of Varzaghan. “The quake was so intense that people poured into the streets through fear,” Fars news agency said of the town. The U.S. Geological Survey measured Saturday’s first quake at 6.4 magnitude and said it struck 60 km (37 miles) northeast of the city of Tabriz at a depth of 9.9 km (6.2 miles). A second quake measuring 6.3 struck 49 km (30 miles) northeast of Tabriz 11 minutes later at a similar depth.

Fars News Agency: Victims of Saturday Quake Rise to 180
New Zealand Herald: Iran quake kills at least 180, injures 1300

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan will be named Mitt Romney's running mate on Saturday, ending weeks of speculation about the No. 2 slot on the GOP ticket. - Ryan, 42, is best known as the chairman of the House Budget Committee and author of a dramatic plan to overhaul Medicare, the government-run health insurance program for senior citizens. Romney is set to reveal his running mate here at a museum next to the U.S.S. Wisconsin, a retired battleship, before setting out on a bus tour of key swing states to highlight his economic plans for the middle class. In an interview with NBC on Thursday, Romney said he was looking for someone with "a strength of character" and "a vision for the country that adds something to the political discourse about the direction of the country." With Ryan as his running mate, Romney appears ready to have a national conversation about federal spending and the growth of entitlements with one of the GOP's leading budget authorities at his side.

Robert Schlesinger: The Illogic of Romney Picking Paul Ryan for Vice President

Israel's prime minister and defense minister would like to attack Iran's nuclear sites before the U.S. election in November but lack crucial support within their cabinet and military, an Israeli newspaper said on Friday. - The front-page report in the biggest-selling daily Yedioth Ahronoth came amid mounting speculation - fuelled by media leaks from both the government and its detractors at home and abroad - that war with Iran could be imminent even though it might rupture the bedrock ties between Israel and the United States. "Were it up to Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, an Israeli military strike on the nuclear facilities in Iran would take place in the coming autumn months, before the November election in the United States," Yedioth said in the article by its two senior commentators, which appeared to draw on discussions with the defense minister but included no direct quotes. Spokesmen for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Barak declined to comment.

Jason Ditz: Netanyahu Decision to Attack Iran ‘Almost Final’

Domain Awareness System is a joint venture between city and Microsoft. Commissioner Ray Kelly says system is able to access information through live video feeds and allow cops to get reading on radioactive substances.

The NYPD is starting to look like a flashy, forensic crime TV show thanks to a new super computer system unveiled Wednesday near Wall St. The Domain Awareness System designed by the NYPD and Microsoft Corp. uses data from a network of cameras, radiation detectors, license plate readers and crime reports, officials said. “We’re not your mom and pop police department anymore,” Mayor Bloomberg crowed. “We are in the next century. We are leading the pack.” The system, which cost somewhere between $30 and $40 million to develop, could also help pay for itself with the city expecting to earn 30% of the profits on Microsoft sales to other city’s and countries, Bloomberg said.

Moonbattery: Bloomberg’s Domain Awareness System
Russia Today: Stratfor emails reveal secret, widespread TrapWire surveillance system

The US Justice Department announced Thursday evening it was ending a one-year criminal investigation and would not file charges against the giant Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs or any of its employees. - Four years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, not a single major bank or top bank executive has been prosecuted, even though their crimes have been amply documented and new bank scandals continue to break out on a weekly basis.

The Obama administration, like its Republican predecessor, is at the center of a corrupt nexus between Wall Street and all of the branches of the government—the presidency, Congress and the courts. The financial oligarchy operates with impunity, standing above the law as it manipulates and swindles to capture an ever greater share of the social wealth. Every government agency, from the White House on down, is directly or indirectly on the bankers’ payroll.

Witnesses said a US drone fired a missile at a compound, leaving three people dead and many injured. The US military has also used drones in Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and Iraq. Washington claims that its airstrikes target militants, but local sources say civilians have been the main victims of the attacks. The UN has called the US drone attacks targeted killings that flout international law.

At least 10 civilians have been killed in a mortar attack carried out by insurgents in the Syrian village of Damina al-Sharqiya in the Homs governorate, Press TV reports. The attack was conducted on Friday. Meanwhile, Syrian security forces have regained control of the main square in the Mashhad district of the northern city of Aleppo, but Syrian forces are currently still fighting insurgents in the district as well as in several other parts of the city, including the Hanano, Saif al-Dawla, Sukkari, and Bab al-Hadid neighborhoods.

Palestinians Passing Through Bethlehem Checkpoint on
their Way to Pray at al-Aqsa Mosque

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Systematic Attacks against Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)

Shootings: During the reporting period, a Palestinian activist was killed and another was wounded when an IOF aircraft targeted them in the south of the Gaza Strip. The IOF also wounded many Palestinian civilians and Israeli and international human rights defenders in peaceful demonstrations in protest of the annexation wall and settlement activities in the West Bank. On 05 August 2012, the IOF positioned at the border with Israel near Karm Abu Salem crossing in the south of Rafa fired shells at the vicinity of Gaza International Airport and the eastern outskirts of Rafah. Helicopters flying in the sky of the area also opened fire for approximately two hours. The local population panicked, but no casualties were reported. During the reporting period, the IOF used force to disperse peaceful demonstrations organized in protest of the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities in the West Bank. As a result, 2 Palestinian civilians were wounded, including a journalist, Ashraf Abu Shawish (42), who sustained wounds from a tear gas canister to his right leg. The other civilian sustained wounds from a tear gas canister to his right hand. Dozens of demonstrators also suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Incursions: During the reporting period, the IOF conducted at least 36 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. During these incursions, the IOF arrested 17 Palestinians, including 4 children. [...]

The world is depleting underground water reserves faster than they can be replenished due to over-exploitation, according to scientists in Canada and the Netherlands. - The researchers, from McGill University in Montreal and Utrecht University in the Netherlands, combined groundwater usage data from around the globe with computer models of underground water resources to come up with a measure of water usage relative to supply. That measure shows the groundwater footprint - the area above ground that relies on water from underground sources - is about 3.5 times bigger than the aquifers themselves. The research suggests about 1.7 billion people, mostly in Asia, are living in areas where underground water reserves and the ecosystems that rely on them are under threat, they said.