The Libyan army is continuing its assault of the anti-regime stronghold of Bani Walid for the second day. A year after the killing of Colonel Gaddafi the Libyan government seeks to crush the remnants of his loyalist followers entrenched in the town. - Fighting has gripped the town for the last two weeks as security forces and militia attempt to enter the town to arrest individuals accused of a series of kidnappings. “All the families are still here, nobody decided to leave,” a town official, Abdul Salem Al Fukahi, said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg. “They will stay in their homes and live or die.” Mohammed Megaryef, Libya’s de facto head of state after the Congress fired PM Mustafa Abushagur, said that the fight for is not over yet.

Tarpley.net: The CIA’s Libya Rebels: The Same Terrorists who Killed US, NATO Troops in Iraq

Stephen Lendman: Besieged Gaddafi Stronghold Bani Walid Under Attack - Washington's war on Libya rages. Fighting didn't stop after NATO said its seven-month 2011 "mission" ended. Ravaging a nonbelligerent country wasn't good enough. Occupation harshness inflicts more pain. Jamahiriya Green Resistance is strong. Its struggle continues. It won't stop until Libya regains freedom. Loyalists want no part of NATO control, puppet leaders, imperial plundering, and ordinary Libyans used and abused. Frequent freedom fights erupt. Tribes are involved. Local militias have their own agenda. Insurgents battle each other and Green Resistance for control. Government forces serve Washington and key NATO partners.

Israeli troops on Saturday commandeered a Gaza-bound ship that tried to break through Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled seaside strip, the military said. European lawmakers and other pro-Palestinian activists aboard did not resist, and the Finnish-flagged vessel was diverted to an Israeli port.

The trip by the ship, Estelle, marked the latest challenge to the air, land and sea embargo of Gaza that Israel imposed after the Islamic militant Hamas group seized the territory in 2007. Israeli officials say they need to enforce the blockade to prevent weapons smuggling. Hamas called for more attempts to break the sea blockade. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement praising the military for enforcing the blockade, said there "is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza" and accused the activists of trying to "to provoke and slander Israel's name." "If human rights were really important to these activists they would have sailed for Syria. We will continue to protect our borders," he said. Six Israeli naval vessels stopped the Estelle when it was about 30 nautical miles from Gaza, and masked soldiers boarder the ship and ordered it to sail to Israel's Ashdod port, said Victoria Strand, a spokeswoman for the activists.

PressTV: Gaza-bound aid ship Estelle attacked by Israeli forces

In an unwavering voice, Muslim Odeh recounted how Israeli riot police took him from his bed earlier this week, blindfolded him, subjected him to hours of intense interrogation and held him overnight in a Jerusalem prison compound. - Odeh vomited after Israeli police punched him four times in the stomach on his way to his prison cell. Odeh’s calm demeanor, only days after his ordeal, was evidence of how this was his tenth arrest in three years. More shocking, however, is the fact that this resident of Silwan in East Jerusalem is only 12-years-old. "I miss my house," Odeh told The Electronic Intifada, as he stared longingly from the balcony of his uncle’s home — where he is under house arrest until next Wednesday, 24 October — onto his family’s house below.

The Gallup national tracking poll now shows a very strong lead for Mitt Romney. As of Wednesday, he was ahead by six points among likely voters. Mr. Romney's advantage grew further, to seven points, when Gallup updated its numbers on Thursday afternoon. The Gallup poll is accounted for in the forecast model, along with all other state and national surveys. However, its results are deeply inconsistent with the results that other polling firms are showing in the presidential race, and the Gallup poll has a history of performing very poorly when that is the case... Usually, when a poll is an outlier relative to the consensus, its results turn out badly.

A U.S. judge ordered prosecutors Wednesday to hand over hundreds of emails by officers overseeing the detention of WikiLeaks suspect Pvt. Bradley Manning, who has alleged he suffered mistreatment at a Marine Corps brig. Lawyers for Manning, a U.S. Army private accused of passing a trove of secret government documents to the WikiLeaks website, had asked for the emails to bolster their argument that the soldier suffered illegal treatment when he was held at the Quantico Marine base in Virginia starting in 2010. At a pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade, Md., Judge Denise Lind said more than 600 emails withheld by prosecutors should be handed over to the defense.