As part of Operation Cloud Pillar, Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades chief Ahmed Jabari killed along with his son after their car was targeted by Israeli missile; rockets fired toward Negev region; Islamic Jihad says Israel 'declared war,' while Hamas warns of 'quality attacks' in Israel.

Israel killed the military commander of Hamas in an airstrike on the Gaza Strip Wednesday, bringing the two sides to the brink of a possible new war. The attack came despite signs that Egypt had managed to broker a truce between Israel and Palestinian militants after a five day surge of violence which saw more than 100 missiles fired out of Gaza and repeated Israeli strikes on the enclave. Islamist Hamas said Ahmed Al-Jabari, who ran the organization's armed wing, the Izz al-Dinn Al-Qassam Brigades, died along with a passenger after their car was targeted by an Israeli missile.

Washington Post: New wave of Israeli airstrikes rock Gaza City, targeting Hamas buildings; at least 6 dead
The Telegraph: Hamas military chief killed in Gaza air strike

Foreign Ministry draft position paper says only viable option in case Palestinian Authority receives non-member state status at UN would be 'to overthrow Abbas'. - A Foreign Ministry draft position paper states that should the Palestinian Authority receive the status of a non-member state at the United Nations, the only viable option would be "to overthrow Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas." The paper, drafted ahead of the Palestinians' November 29 UN bid, said that "a soft response would be tantamount to an Israeli admission that it cannot handle the challenge." The draft paper, which has been adopted by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, stated that the "reality of a UN-recognized Palestinian state would crush Israel deterrence and completely undermine its credibility which would render any future settlement impossible." The document further reveals that Abbas has serious concerns that he will meet the same fate as Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and ousted Tunisian leader Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali.

AFP: Israel ministry proposes 'toppling' Abbas over UN
Haaretz: Lieberman mulling offer to Palestinians: Drop UN bid and Israel will recognize state within provisional borders

The new details of what uncovered Petraeus' months-long relationship with his biographer come as the FBI continue to search military documents Broadwell admitted to stashing in her home. - Security officials have revealed she had 'substantial' classified information on her computer which should have been stored more securely. The computer was taken from Broadwell's Charlotte, North Carolina home on Monday night after she admitted to FBI investigators that she had taken classified military documents, a source told ABC. President Obama said on Wednesday there was no indication so far that any classified documents had been found but said he will not prejudge the investigation results. Officials continue to investigate exactly how Broadwell acquired the files, but as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Military Reserve, she had security clearance to review the documents. The government had demanded she return the documents and organised the visit to her home. Prosecutors are now deciding whether to charge her with a crime. Broadwell, who has kept a low profile since the scandal broke, was seen taking refuge at her brother's home in the Petworth suburb of Washington D.C. on Tuesday night.

Pentagon joins president in supporting Afghanistan commander looped into Petraeus scandal as email investigation widens. - Both Barack Obama and the Pentagon insisted on Tuesday that they were standing by the top US commander in Afghanistan, John Allen, after he became the latest general to find himself entangled in the widening Petraeus emails scandal. Allen is under investigation by the defence department over his communications with Jill Kelley, the Tampa woman who sparked the FBI investigation that stumbled across David Petraeus' affair after she complained about "harassing" emails that were traced to his mistress Paula Broadwell. The Pentagon's inspector general was examining 20,000 to 30,000 pages of documents, including many emails between Allen and Kelley, who has been described as an unpaid social liaison for senior officers at MacDill air force base in Tampa, home of US central command.

Times of India: David Petraeus scandal widens; US general's emails 'flirtatious'
Reuters: Petraeus scandal widens, snares U.S. commander in Afghanistan
AWIP: Working for Israel: Five Facts About the Petraeus Affair’s Mystery Woman

A Mississippi man was sentenced to 15 years behind bars and another three under supervised release this week after pleading guilty to selling five counterfeit DVDs and one bootleg music CD to an undercover agent.

Patrick Lashun King, 37, was sentenced by Judge Lamar Pickard of Copiah County Circuit Court after he pleaded guilty to six counts of selling pirated material, charges that he was lobbed with after an undercover agent attempted to purchase just a half-dozen homemade copies of music and movies the defendant wasn’t authorized to have up for sale. When investigators searched King’s home and businesses, they eventually turned up 10,510 counterfeit discs and the computer equipment they believe he used to manufacture the bootlegs. The Clarion Ledger notes that authorities also uncovered a number of weapons, including an assault rifle, from King’s Hazlehurst, MS home, but it was only the six counts of piracy that will put him away until 2027. King’s sentencing is the second of two piracy cases resolved in Mississippi court as of late that resulted in hefty sentences for the accused. On October 31, Antwun Sharell Jones of Meridian, MS was sentenced to two years for selling a single pirated movie.

09:39 GMT: A general strike has been organized in Portugal with anti-austerity rallies in 40 towns and cities throughout the country. Transport services have effectively ground to a halt, with only 10 per cent of train services expected to run.
09:31 GMT: Police have arrested 42 people across Spain for damaging public property and disorderly behavior as protests began this morning. In addition, 18 people have been injured in scuffles with police throughout the country.
09:25 GMT: Mass anti-austerity rallies are unfolding throughout the EU as thousands of workers voice their rage at crippling government cuts as part of the European Day of Action and Solidarity. General strikes have already begun in Portugal, Greece, Italy and Spain where the EU’s financial downturn has hit hardest.

The Guardian: Anti-austerity strikes and protests across Europe - Live

New National Coalition claims its 'accountability and unity' has assuaged concerns about arming rebels. - The Syrian opposition says it has been promised western military support in return for forming a united front, in advance of a donors' conference in London on Friday intended to consolidate the new rebel coalition. British diplomats said Friday's expert-level meeting would discuss purely non-lethal aid to the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, formed on Sunday in Doha, but neither the UK nor French governments are ruling out arming the opposition in the coming months in an attempt to break the bloody deadlock in Syria. The conflict showed more signs of spreading as Israeli tanks fired at Syrian positions for the second time in as many days in response to Syria mortar fire landing on the Israeli-held Golan Heights, and a Syrian government jet bombed a rebel-held village just yards from the Turkish border.

Russia Today: France recognizes Syrian opposition coalition

Tony Cartalucci: West Conjures Fake "Syrian" Government - Smokescreen meant to cover open-backing of foreign Al Qaeda terrorists inside Syria, while panicking & disrupting Syrian unity. Predictably, the Western arranged confab in Doha, Qatar has seen the selection and approval by the US and its allies of a "new opposition coalition" to serve as the face of militants fighting inside Syria. This was in response to overwhelming international condemnation to what has become an open proxy war fought against Syria by Western interests and its regional allies. It is a repeat of the now catastrophically failed NATO intervention in Libya that has left the nation mired in genocidal sectarian and tribal violence, a weak, ineffectual client-regime, and human rights abuses dwarfing in reality, the now confirmed fabrications used by NATO ahead of military operations early in 2011.

Peter Dale Scott: Why Americans Must End America’s Self-Generating Wars - Drawing on historical precedents, Peter Dale Scott exposes the contradictions and perverse effects of the "war on terror", which adds insecurity to instability and increases the number of terrorists it pretends to be fighting. The most urgent political challenge to the world today is how to prevent the so-called “pax Americana” from progressively degenerating, like the 19th-century so-called “pax Britannica” before it, into major global warfare. I say “so-called,” because each “pax,” in its final stages, became less and less peaceful, less and less orderly, more and more a naked imposition of belligerent competitive power based on inequality. Above all the War on Terror is a self-generating war, because, as many experts have warned, it produces more terrorists than it eliminates. And it has become inextricably combined with America’s earlier self-generating and hopelessly unwinnable war, the so-called War on Drugs. [Source]

US army prosecutors request court-martial and death penalty for Sergeant Robert Bales, accused of killing 16 villagers.

Army prosecutors have called for a US soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers to face a full court-martial and the death penalty. Bales faces 16 counts of murder, six of attempted murder, seven of assault, two of using drugs and one of drinking alcohol. Wrapping up their case in the pre-trial hearing, prosecutors described the "heinous and despicable" alleged massacre in March by Sergeant Robert Bales, details of which were given during an eight-day hearing at a military base south of Seattle. "Based on the sheer brutality and nature of the crimes, it is our recommendation to proceed to a general court-martial," said prosecutor Major Rob Stelle at Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Tacoma, Washington. "Because of the heinous, brutal and methodical [nature of the alleged crimes], we ask that the sentencing authority have the full range of punishment," including the death penalty, he added. The family of Bales insisted he was innocent until proven guilty, calling him "courageous and honourable," while his lawyer raised questions about the role of alcohol, drugs and stress in the tragedy.

Less than a week after a New Orleans suburbanite petitioned the White House to allow Louisiana to secede from the United States, petitions from seven states have collected enough signatures to trigger a promised review from the Obama administration. - By midnight Tuesday, more than 660,000 digital signatures appeared on 69 separate secession petitions covering all 50 states, according to a Daily Caller analysis of requests lodged with the White House’s “We the People” online petition system. A petition from Vermont, where talk of secession is a regular feature of political life, was the final entry. Petitions from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas residents have accrued at least 25,000 signatures, the number the Obama administration says it will reward with a staff review of online proposals. Daily Caller

The United Nations General Assembly has voted, for the 21st year in a row, to denounce the United States’ trade embargo against the Republic of Cuba. - On Tuesday, a record 188 countries at the General Assembly voted to condemn the five-decade old US sanctions against Cuba. The United States, Israel, and the Republic of Palau voted against the UN resolution while the Marshall Islands and Micronesia abstained. Speaking at the General Assembly, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez condemned "the inhuman, failed, and anachronistic policy of 11 successive US administrations." Havana and Washington have been at odds since the Cuban revolution, led by Fidel Castro, toppled Fulgencio Batista’s regime in 1959.

The King David Hotel bombing was an attack carried out by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organisation, the Irgun, on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946. ... The attack was the deadliest directed at the British during the Mandate era (1920--1948) and more people were killed than by any bombing carried out in the subsequent Arab-Israeli conflict. The event has been called by British authorities, major international publications including the New York Times, and academics as a terrorist attack aimed at civilians. ... Israel continues to deny any wrongdoing...

The email accounts of Generals David Petraeus and John Allen aren’t the only ones being targeted by the feds. Google has released its bi-annual transparency report and says that the government's demands for personal data is at an all-time high. - Internet giant Google published statistics from their latest analysis of requests from governments around the globe this week, and the findings show that it is hardly just the inboxes of the Pentagon’s top-brass that are being put under the microscope. Details pertaining to nearly 8,000 Google and Gmail accounts have been ordered by Uncle Sam during just the first six months of the year, and figures from the periods before suggest that things aren’t about to get any better for those wishing to protect their privacy.