New voting laws in 23 of the 50 states could keep more than 10 million Hispanic U.S. citizens from registering and voting, a new study said on Sunday, a number so large it could affect the outcome of the November 6 election. - The Latino community accounts for more than 10 percent of eligible voters nationally. But the share in some states is high enough that keeping Hispanic voters away from the polls could shift some hard-fought states from support for Democratic President Barack Obama and help his Republican rival, Mitt Romney. The new laws include purges of people suspected of not being citizens in 16 states that unfairly target Latinos, the civil rights group Advancement Project said in the study to be formally released on Monday.

Syria's ragtag rebel army is being turned into a disciplined military force, with the help of tens of millions of dollars of funding from the Middle East and under the watchful gaze of foreign former special forces. - Hidden under olive groves in the rolling countryside of Syria’s northern Idlib province, of which a vast swathe is now in opposition hands, more than a dozen training camps have been set up in which young men prepare for the fight against President Bashar al-Assad’s military. In one camp seen by The Daily Telegraph this week, recruits were put through their paces on an arduous obstacle course. Timed to the shouts of Commander Abdel Kadr, a military officer who has defected, the men vaulted walls, scrambled under razor wire mesh and swung along ropes in the tree tops. Two men looked on from the tented sleeping quarters nearby. Tall with shaven heads, fair skin, bulging pectoral muscles, and biceps covered in tattoos, they were incongruous among the scrawny young fighters. They could not speak Arabic and were extremely unhappy in the presence of The Daily Telegraph. The men, who use the code names Radwan and Mohammed, come from Scandinavia, but have requested that the country not be disclosed. Though they refused to speak, saying only that they were “here to help”, recruits in the Free Syrian Army told this newspaper that the men were ex-special forces working as military advisers.

Felicity Arbuthnot: The Neocon’s PNAC: Taking Syria Give US Further Strategic Depth in Region

Dozens of Taiwanese vessels and coastguard ships have entered waters around a disputed island chain also claimed by the world’s second and third largest economies, China and Japan. - "Tens of fishing boats entered the waters. They were accompanied by six Taiwanese coastguard ships," a spokesman for the Japanese coastguard said on Tuesday. The arrival of the Taiwanese boats may further escalate tensions in the region over the disputed islands. "We have made contact with the Taiwan authorities, and told them that they cannot enter our territorial waters," Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura told a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday. Media reports say the Taiwanese boats have finished their 'protest move' against "Japan's illegal purchase" of the Islands and will return to a port in northeast Taiwan's Yilan county at noon on Wednesday.

Reuters: Japan fires water cannon to turn away Taiwan boats

The Star: Who owns Diaoyu Islands? - Historical documents dating back to the Ming Dynasty establish Diaoyu Islands as Chinese territory. The challenge to Chinese ownership came from Japanese annexation of the islands in 1894-5 following the first Sino-Japanese War. It is a pity that this is happening especially when Chinese-Japanese economic ties have reached a new level since the end of last year with the two countries agreeing to use their respective currencies in their bilateral trade, instead of the US dollar. [-Cui bono?]

Report claims just one in fifty victims of 'surgical' US strikes in Pakistan are known militants. Jerome Taylor reports on a deadly new strategy. - As the drone circled it let off the first of its Hellfire missiles, slamming into a small house and reducing it to rubble. When residents rushed to the scene of the attack to see if they could help they were struck again. More and more, while the overall frequency of strikes has fallen since a Nato attack in 2011 killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and strained US-Pakistan relations, initial strikes are now followed up by further missiles in a tactic which lawyers and campaigners say is killing an even greater number of civilians. The tactic has cast such a shadow of fear over strike zones that rescuers often wait for hours before daring to visit the scene of an attack.

Glenn Greenwald: New Stanford/NYU study documents the civilian terror from Obama's drones

The doctors prescribing the drugs don't know they don't do what they're meant to. Nor do their patients. The manufacturers know full well, but they're not telling. - Reboxetine is a drug I have prescribed. Other drugs had done nothing for my patient, so we wanted to try something new. I'd read the trial data before I wrote the prescription, and found only well-designed, fair tests, with overwhelmingly positive results. Reboxetine was better than a placebo, and as good as any other antidepressant in head-to-head comparisons. It's approved for use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (the MHRA), which governs all drugs in the UK. Millions of doses are prescribed every year, around the world. Reboxetine was clearly a safe and effective treatment. The patient and I discussed the evidence briefly, and agreed it was the right treatment to try next. I signed a prescription. But we had both been misled.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) Counter-Terrorism Division operates a controversial International Liaison Program (ILP) that places officers overseas, in at least 11 cities. None of the NYPD liaison officers has any legal standing for dealing with the local authorities. The detectives travel on tourist passports, stay in hotels, and do not report to the U.S. ambassador, nor to the CIA Chief of Station. The FBI would like to see all the offices shut down as they confuse foreign police forces as to whom they should be speaking to. There have been some memorable gaffes, as when NYPD officers show up at the scene of a terrorist attack, start waving their badges in the air, and demand access. The ILP has perhaps not surprisingly been most active in Israel, where it opened a branch in early 2003.

Ruling raises questions about the ability of the American justice system to seize material held by media outside the United States.

The BBC has been ordered by an American court to surrender unused footage filmed for a documentary about former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to American victims of suicide bombings in Israel. It now has until 1 October to lodge a further appeal or produce the material along with a sworn statement from a BBC employee confirming its authenticity. The Corporation said yesterday it was still considering the ruling. The material is being sought by lawyers representing victims and relatives of those killed by suicide bombs in attacks around Jerusalem. The group is attempting to bring a civil damages claim against the Palestinian Authority and others for allegedly funding terrorist groups behind the bombings. The victims believe that the BBC interviews with a leader of Fatah, the political movement founded by Arafat, and an alleged terrorist in the Al Aqsa Brigades in the West Bank city of Jenin, contain statements which will help prove a link between the bombings and the PA and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The BBC resisted the application, arguing that complying with the demand would compromise its editorial independence and damage its ability to gather news. The judgment will have the effect of forcing a non-American broadcaster to surrender unbroadcast footage from a documentary - Arafat Investigated - made almost a decade ago for a British audience. It is part of a growing trend in America for courts to order the disclosure of journalistic material. Research has shown a sharp rise in subpoenas to media organisations, in particular broadcasters who receive 10 applications for every one sent to newspapers.

The European court of human rights has cleared the way for the extradition to the United States of five terrorism suspects, including Abu Hamza al-Masri and Babar Ahmad, after legal battles dating back to 2004. The decision was immediately welcomed by the home secretary, Theresa May, who said the Home Office would work to hand over the five to the US authorities as quickly as possible. The home secretary will be keen to avoid the confusion that delayed the removal of Abu Qatada to Jordan earlier this year. The five suspects are expected to be on a plane within weeks.

Colin Todhunter: Britain: A Client State of America

The cabinet today approved changes to cabinet protocol, which broaden the prime minister’s powers, giving him greater control over ministers’ work. The 51-page document lists amendments drawn up Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser as part of staff work to facilitate the cabinet’s decision-making process. These are the first changes to the cabinet procedures since Israel’s independence in 1948, when the original procedures were written. The amendments are even more significant at this time in view of reports of a possible strike by Israel against Iran within months.

■ The amendments allow the prime minister to decide, when distributing the cabinet agenda, that ministers absent from the meeting will not be allowed to vote in absentia, which they can currently do, and may only vote if they have prearranged another minister to vote on their behalf.
■ Another amendment allows the prime minister to change the agenda set by the ministerial committee, and decide whether to hold or to postpone a cabinet meeting “due to special grounds that will be notified to the committee chairman”.
■ The problem with this authority granted to the prime minister is that he will be able to submit an issue for a vote several times until it is passed; alternatively, he can remove an issue from the agenda at his sole discretion.
■ Other amendments state that telephone votes by the cabinet will be signed within 12 hours of the vote, and that the prime minister can shorten this time as he sees fit.
■ He also now has the right to appeal decisions by ministerial committees, and he will also have the right to decide that a cabinet decision against which a ministerial committee has appealed will not be valid until the cabinet again discusses the issue.

Swiss activist Manfred Petritsch says the West is waging a war against Islam and spirituality in general and Muslims are protesting against the attitude of the West toward Islam, Press TV reports. - In an exclusive interview on Monday, Petritsch told Press TV that “people are not protesting specially against the film, they are protesting against the whole attitude of the West towards the Islamic countries.” “A lot of people believe that the cause for all this protest is the film, but I think it’s not the film, the film was just the ignition point… There was a whole explosive mixture existing because of the American foreign policy or the foreign policy of the West as a whole against all Islamic countries; against the war they are fighting; against this double standard they are doing; against the killer drones, which are killing hundreds of civilians,” Petritsch said.

“We have to see this as a general picture of a war against spirituality. That means, they are not particularly attacking Islam, but they are attacking spirituality as a whole,” he added. He went on to say that the assault on Christianity began a long time ago and “Christianity is more or less destroyed,” adding that “they are now attacking Islam.”

Anti-Islamic advertisements will go up across New York City’s subway system next week after a federal judge ruled that the city’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority could not legally refuse to host the signs on the basis of "demeaning" language. As early as next Monday, ten NYC subway stations will showcase adverts declaring, "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad." The campaign was created by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), an organization considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center watch group. Pamela Geller, the executive director of the AFDI, stands by her signage despite rampant complaints circulating before the campaign has even begun. "I will not abridge my freedoms so as not to offend savages,” Geller tells Sky News. Geller has long advocated against so-called "Islamist propaganda" in America and has campaigned in the past to call for the shutting down of a Washington, DC museum exhibit that highlighted Muslim contributions to science. The installation was declared "Best Touring Exhibit" by the Museum Heritage Awards in 2011, but Geller claimed "It has indoctrinated hundreds of thousands of children into a rosy and romanticized view of Islam that makes them less appreciative of their own culture’s achievements and more complacent about Islamization in the West.”

For her overt actions waged against Islamic culture, the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League has said Geller "fuels and fosters anti-Muslim bigotry in society." Those ideals will be brought to New York subway stations next week despite a legal battle that ended in July with a Manhattan federal judge agreeing that the First Amendment allowed Geller to have her ads run in the metro system. "I live in America and in America we have the first amendment,” Geller tells Sky News. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, responded to the outlet by condemning Geller’s actions, but agreeing with the federal judge’s decision regardless. "Our basic position is that the first amendment means that everyone is free to be a bigot or even an idiot like Pamela Geller,” Hooper tells Sky. "We wish she wasn't provoking and inciting hatred, but in America that's her right." [Ad corrected: Anonymous Central]

ABC News: Controversial 'Support Israel, Defeat Jihad' ad could be headed to Chicago
PressTV: Anti-Islam advertisement banners appear in New York subway stations