'Free Syrian Army chosen proxies of Foreign powers’ – activist Brian Becker, director of the ANSWER anti-war coalition, told RT that Western states are pushing forward the idea of a proxy government as a part of their colonial agenda in the Middle East. And such a move would lay a strong basis for a full-scale military intervention, he added.

RT: The French leader has called on the Syrian opposition to form a provisional government, saying France would recognize it… What do you make of this?
Brian Becker: It’s most important to remember that France is the former colonizer of Syria, the colonizer along with the British in the Middle East. It is very odd and ironic, in fact completely hypocritical to have the French government saying to the Syrian opposition ‘you form a government and we will recognize you.’ I mean that’s just a script from the good old days when the colonial powers operated through proxies in Syria, Egypt, wherever the colonialism was, and that was most parts of the world. What we are seeing now is an escalation of foreign intervention. If France, and if Britain and the United States, if the NATO powers in fact recognize this government by the Syrian opposition, by French colonialism in its new form, then we will see the basis being laid for downright full-scale military intervention to defend this new government which the West will say is the legitimate voice of the Syrian people.

Jason Ditz: Syria FM: US Is Major Player in Civil War
RIANovosti: Syrian Opposition Asks U.S. to Introduce No-Fly Zone
PressTV: Egypt opposes foreign military intervention in Syria

Alex Lantier: French President Hollande calls for formation of Syrian opposition government - Hollande’s move comes one week after US President Barack Obama threatened to invade Syria if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appeared ready to use chemical weapons against US-backed anti-Assad fighters. This marked the first open threat of direct military intervention into Syria by the imperialist powers. Until then, they had organized the funding and arming of their proxy forces, largely Sunni Islamist fighters, through the offices of the Saudi and Qatari monarchies and the Turkish government. Hollande’s comments addressed a range of international issues, but centered on the crisis in Syria and the Middle East. They amount to an official declaration by the French government, worked out with Washington, that it is pursuing regime-change by military force in Syria.

The two-day ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has convened in the Iranian capital, Tehran. - At the opening ceremony of the NAM ministerial meeting, Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi hailed Egypt’s efforts during the past three years which “have had considerable effect on the progress of NAM’s programs.” On Sunday, during the opening ceremony of the NAM expert-level meeting, Iran assumed the rotating presidency of the movement for three years. Egypt's Ambassador to the United Nations Mootaz Khalil formally handed over the presidency to Iran. More than 100 countries are partaking in the NAM meeting which kicked off at the expert level in Tehran on Sunday.

PressTV: UN chief to meet Leader of Islamic Revolution, Iran president

Gaza will no longer be “livable” by 2020 unless urgent measures are taken to improve the area’s water supply, power, health and schooling, according to a UN report. The coastal strip is extremely isolated due to an Israeli blockade which Tel Aviv refuses to lift, [falsely] claiming it prevents arms from reaching Gaza’s governing Hamas organization.

“Action needs to be taken right now on fundamental aspects of life: water sanitation, electricity, education, health and other aspects,” UN humanitarian coordinator Maxwell Gaylard told journalists. Those services are "not keeping pace with the needs of the growing population," the report states. According to AFP, the document predicts the population of the Gaza Strip will increase from 1.6 million people today to 2.1 million people in 2020 – calling into question whether the region can actually sustain such growth. At the moment, the region is suffering from its worst-ever fuel shortage and power cuts, as well as unemployment levels of around 45 per cent. But while the population grows, these problems are predicted to only get worse.

Gaza’s lack of clean drinking water should be the first thing that is addressed, according to UNICEF Special Representative Jean Gough. According to Reuters, the report estimates a 60 per cent increase in Gaza’s future water needs, while urgent action is already needed to protect the area’s existing water resources. At present, only a quarter of Gaza's waste water is treated. The rest, including raw sewage, goes straight into the Mediterranean Sea. According to a report released in June by Save the Children and Medical Aid for Palestinians, the levels of water contamination in Gaza are around ten times higher than what is deemed safe for consumption. However, many poor families have no choice but to drink the water.

BBC: Gaza 'will not be liveable by 2020' - UN report
Stephen Lendman: Palestinians Living in Firing Zones

Family of Corrie, who was crushed by an IDF bulldozer during a pro-Palestinian protest in Gaza in 2003, filed lawsuit in Haifa accusing Israel of intentionally killing their 23-year-old daughter. - The Haifa District Court rejected on Tuesday accusations that Israel was at fault over the death of American activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed by an army bulldozer during a 2003 pro-Palestinian demonstration in Gaza. Corrie’s family had accused Israel of intentionally and unlawfully killing their 23-year-old daughter, launching a civil case in the northern Israeli city of Haifa after a military investigation had cleared the army of wrong-doing. In a ruling read out to the court, judge Oded Gershon called Corrie’s death a “regrettable accident”, but said the state was not responsible because the incident had occurred during what he termed a war-time situation. At the time of her death, during a Palestinian uprising, Corrie was protesting against Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. “I reject the suit,” the judge said. “There is no justification to demand the state pay any damages.”

AWIP: Family of slain US activist awaits verdict

In jail in San Francisco after being arrested at an anti-war rally three years ago, Lily Haskell had a decision to make. Give a DNA sample, as felony arrestees in California must do, or refuse the cheek swab and get charged with an additional misdemeanor. She chose the latter. Now Haskell's the lead plaintiff in a suit that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is rehearing next month. It's a test case dealing with one of the hottest Fourth Amendment issues the country faces — the expectation of privacy that people have over their DNA.

Meanwhile, waiting in the wings is the California Supreme Court's review of a state court of appeal panel's forceful decision finding the DNA collection unconstitutional. And the U.S. Supreme Court has telegraphed in the past month that it is likely to take up a criminal case in Maryland that raises the same question. The lawyer bringing the federal challenge to California's DNA swab law, Michael Risher of the ACLU of Northern California, hopes that the Ninth Circuit will stop the state from adding arrestee DNA to its already sprawling databank of criminal DNA profiles.

The FBI recently announced that it will distribute free facial recognition software to law enforcement agencies following a pilot program of the system, reported Slate.com. Police will be able to use the Universal Face Workstation (UFW) program, which grants access to a central database of about 13 million images. Police departments will also be able to submit and enhance their own image files to be cross-referenced with existing images in the database to identify matches. UFW, which was piloted in February in Michigan, is part of a $1 billion biometrics FBI program called Next Generation Identification, which will create a database for scars and tattoos. The program is expected to launch within a few weeks, while full operational capability for facial recognition is scheduled for summer 2014, according to a statement from the FBI. Officials in Hawaii, Maryland, South Carolina, Ohio, New Mexico, Kansas, Arizona, Tennessee, Nebraska and Missouri have expressed interest in participating in the facial recognition pilot program. Amid recent news like the WikiLeaks report on the national TrapWire system, some are concerned with privacy issues surrounding facial recognition technology, but the FBI insists such technology is only being used to supplement current biometrics, such as fingerprinting, to identify criminals.

RT: Stratfor emails reveal secret, widespread TrapWire surveillance system
AWIP: TrapWire investigation links transit systems and Anonymizer in global surveillance network

The U.S. military on Monday dealt out punishment to six Army soldiers for burning Qurans at Bagram Air Base that ignited deadly protest in Afghanistan, and to three Marines for their roles in urinating on Taliban corpses.

The Army handed out administrative discipline to four officers and two non-commissioned officers for the Quran burning but found no ill intent on the part of the soldiers so none will face criminal charges. The administrative punishment, however, will likely result in the end of their military careers. The investigation against one sailor was dropped when it was determined he was simply ordered to drive the truck with the material to the burn site at the base. The burning of the Muslim holy books in February sparked weeks of protests that led to 30 Afghan deaths. U.S. officials said at the time the books were mistakenly sent along with garbage for disposal after detainees had written messages in them. The investigation found up to 100 Qurans and other religious materials were burned in the incinerator at Bagram Air Field on Feb. 20. An Army report released on the incident Monday shed new light on what happened that day.

PressTV: 3 US Marines get slap on wrist for acts of desecration in Afghanistan
AWIP: US forces urinate on dead Taliban

A 28-year-old man has been given a six-month suspended sentence by a court in the Netherlands for threatening and insulting Queen Beatrix – on social networking service Twitter. - In a ruling that may have set a Dutch legal precedent, judges said tweets by the man, who has not been named, could be considered "threatening, insulting and hurtful" even if they had not actually been read by the person at whom they were aimed – in this case, the queen. The detailed contents of the tweets were not revealed in open court, but the judges found them “offensive to her dignity” and said that whether Queen Beatrix herself had read them was “irrelevant” to their decision to convict.

The Mars rover Curiosity is indulging in a flurry of multimedia activity ahead of its science mission proper. It sent the first image from its 100mm telephoto lens, already spotting an intriguing geological "unconformity". Nasa also released a colour panorama of Mount Sharp, the rover's ultimate goal. On Monday, the rover relayed "the first voice recording to be sent from another planet", and on Tuesday it will broadcast a song from artist will.i.am as part of an educational event.

But alongside these show pieces, Curiosity - also known as the Mars Science Laboratory - is already warming up its instruments for a science mission of unprecedented scope on the Red Planet. Nasa said that the rover was already is returning more data from Mars than all of the agency's earlier rovers combined. It will eventually trundle to the base of Mount Sharp, the 5km-high peak at the centre of Gale Crater, in which the rover touched down just over three weeks ago. For now it is examining the "scour marks" left by the rocket-powered crane that lowered the rover onto the planet's surface, giving some insight into what lies just below it.

The rover will now employ its Dan instrument, which fires the subatomic particles neutrons at the surface to examine levels of hydrogen- and hydroxyl-containing minerals that could hint at Mars' prior water-rich history. Another tool in its arsenal, the ChemCam, which uses a laser to vapourise rock and then chemically examine the vapour, will also have a look at the scour marks. And the Sample Analysis at Mars or Sam instrument, itself a package of three analysis tools, has now been switched on and is being run through its paces ahead of "sniffing" the Martian atmosphere; the tests include analysing a sample of Earth air that was left in it at launch.