The United Nations wants to use drones for the first time to monitor fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where Rwanda has been accused of aiding rebels, officials said Friday. - Peacekeeping chiefs have been in contact with the governments of DR Congo and of Rwanda about the sensitive move, which could set a precedent that would worry some United Nations members, diplomats said. Rwanda itself was one of the first to register concerns. Olivier Nduhungirehe, first counselor for Rwanda's UN mission, said: "This is controversial, not all countries agree with this."

Hamas leader says he'll move to a peaceful path contingent on the "end of the occupation" and Palestinian statehood.

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal declared a position on Palestinian statehood that is nearly identical to that of his Fatah rival, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in an interview with CNN aired Wednesday. "I accept a Palestinian state according [to] the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as the capital, with the right to return," the Hamas leader told Christine Amanpour in Cairo. Pushed about his party's refusal to recognize Israel, Mashaal said such a declaration could only be made once a Palestinian state has been created. "After this state is established, it decides its standing toward Israel," the Hamas leader said. Asked if Hamas is willing to renounce violence, he said, "We are ready to resort to a peaceful way, purely peaceful way without blood or weapons."

Norman G. Finkelstein: The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall - CNN aired Christiane Amanpour’s “exclusive” interview with Khaled Meshal. Despite, or perhaps because of, her silly histrionics (“What do you want?” she tearfully pleaded), Meshal came across as remarkably articulate. Meshal also explicitly endorsed a settlement on the June 1967 border, which won’t please the BDS/One-State cultists.

Reports suggest Barack Obama is considering laying the cost of his second inauguration at the feet of corporate sponsors rather than private donors. - This would represent a reversal of his 2005 inauguration, when he banned donations from corporations. The ostensible reason he is reversing himself, according to Obama’s fundraisers and campaign advisers, is that donors are worn out from supporting his $1 billion reelection campaign. They also cite their perspective that inaugurations are more of a civic event than a partisan affair.

A major conference aimed at banning nuclear weapons in the Middle East has been cancelled over concerns that criticism at Israel would further isolate the Tel Aviv regime. - The major event has reportedly been scrubbed on US worries that its long-time ally in the region, the Israeli regime, would come under fire as the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. "We would not support a conference in which any regional state would be subject to pressure or isolation," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, alluding to the Israeli regime. Israel is widely known to possess between 200 and 400 nuclear warheads.

Britain’s House of Lords member Lord Gilbert on Friday advised his government to drop a neutron bomb in the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, in order to eliminate the safe heavens of militant outfits.

During a debate over eliminating nukes across the world, the member of the upper house of the UK’s parliament said that the borders could be made safe after dropping ERRB warheads commonly known as neutron bombs in the respective areas.

“Your Lordships may say that this is impractical, but nobody lives up in the mountains on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan except for a few goats and a handful of people herding them. If you told them that some ERRB warheads were going to be dropped there and that it would be a very unpleasant place to go, they would not go there. You would greatly reduce your problem of protecting those borders from infiltration from one side or another.”

A pretrial hearing in the case against accused LulzSec hacker Jeremy Hammond this week ended with the 27-year-old Chicago man being told he could be sentenced to life in prison for compromising the computers of Stratfor. Judge Loretta Preska told Hammond in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday that he could be sentenced to serve anywhere from 360 months-to-life if convicted on all charges relating to last year’s hack of Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, a global intelligence company whose servers were infiltrated by an offshoot of the hacktivist collective Anonymous.

After Anons gained access to Stratfor’s servers, they collected a trove of internal emails and more thousands of credit card details belonging to the firm’s paid subscribers that were released last Christmas. A class action suit was filed against Strafor over the breach of security, and in June the company settled with its customers at an estimated cost of $1.75 million. Just now, though, it’s been learned that Judge Preska may have a vested interest in seeking a prosecution by any means necessary. Among the thousands of Statfor client’s whose credit card data was compromised in the hack alleged to be linked to Hammond is Thomas J. Kavaler, a partner at the law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP and the husband of Judge Preska. The archived document dump released by LulzSec last year includes personal information from Mr. Kavaler that suggests he was victimized in the attack and thus qualifies for the class action settlement.

At least one Palestinian has been killed and seven others injured by Israeli fire in the southern Gaza Strip despite an Egypt-mediated ceasefire. - Medical sources said a 21-year-old Palestinian lost his life on Friday as Israeli forces opened fire in the village of Khuzaa, east of Khan Yunis. The Palestinian emergency service identified the dead man as Abdelhadi Qdeih Anwar, a farmer who wanted to check on his farm which lies adjacent to the heavily-guarded border with the occupied lands. Reports say seven other Palestinians also suffered gunshot wounds.

Jean Shaoul/Chris Marsden: Israeli forces break Gaza ceasefire as Netanyahu outlines his political calculations