At least five killed in southern Abyan province, while sectarian clashes in north of country claim two more lives. ● Five people have been killed by two drone strikes in Yemen's southern province of Abyan, the country's interior ministry says. A ministry statement released on Friday said that the men were al-Qaeda suspects, and that they were killed on Thursday. The statement did not whether the drones were launched by Yemen or the United States. However, local officials in Abyan, which was a stronghold for Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and other armed groups during an uprising that ousted veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh last year, told the Reuters news agency that the drones were American.

At least 18 people have been killed in an airstrike carried out by US-led forces in southern Afghanistan, Press TV reports. ● The attack was launched on Saturday in the Arghandab district in the restive southern province of Zabul. Local officials said the victims of the airstrike were all members of the Taliban militant group. The Taliban have not yet commented on the report. On October 31, six people died in a US-led airstrike in Afghanistan’s southeastern province of Paktia. Three people had lost their lives in a similar incident in the eastern province of Wardak on October 28. Afghans have become increasingly outraged at the seemingly endless number of the deadly US airstrikes.

Afshin Rattansi goes underground on Britain's reputation abroad following the Edward Snowden revelations -- with the help of journalist Pepe Escobar; discusses the cuts to Legal Aid - a top lawyer calls for an overhaul of the entire justice system. Plus, Simon Cowell's in bed with... The Israeli Defence Forces?!

Sherrie Questioning All: U.K. trying to stop Reporting of Government Criminal Activity ■ Guardian Newspaper ordered to appear before Parliament over Snowden leak publication. Accused of helping the 'Terrorist'. The U.K government is saying, terrorist are now switching how they communicate due to the Guardian printing Snowden leak information. So, this is the way they are going to stop any real news information and reporting? They are going to make it a crime to reveal the criminal actions of governments by saying the newspapers or journalist are aiding and helping 'terrorist'. The U.K government is saying, terrorist are now switching how they communicate due to the Guardian printing Snowden leak information. Isn't it amazing? When governments have been caught committing criminal acts against their citizens and other countries in the world. Instead of owning up to it. They are going to accuse those of leaking the information of aiding terrorist! What an upside down world we live in now. I have no doubt that the U.S. is behind the move to call the Guardian editor to the U.K parliament. Will they try and press charges upon them? If anyone believes we will have any sort of freedom of the press afterwards they are completely mistaken.

The Guardian: Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger to be questioned by MPs over NSA leaks

Iran and six major world powers are holding a third day of negotiations in the Swiss city of Geneva over Tehran’s nuclear energy program. ● The talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - Russia, China, France, Britain and the US- plus Germany stretched into an unscheduled third day as negotiators pressed for a deal on Iran’s civilian nuclear work. Top officials from both sides described the two days of intense negotiations in Geneva as constructive. On Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry, British Foreign Secretary William Hague, French Foreign Minister Lauren Fabius and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle joined the talks in Geneva. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and a Chinese deputy foreign minister are also heading to Switzerland to participate in the talks.

PressTV: US lawmakers threaten Iran with new sanctions
Roi Tov: Israel: "USA Crossed Red Line"

● Super Typhoon Haiyan, known in the Philippines by its local name Yolanda, hit the central Philippines with sustained wind speeds of 195 miles per hour and gusts of up to 235 mph. When it hit the shores of the eastern Philippine island of Samar at 4:40 am local time on Friday November 8, it was “the strongest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in world history,” according to meteorologist Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground. “There aren’t too many buildings constructed that can withstand that kind of wind,” he added. “There are very few storms that have stayed at category 5 strength [the highest level] for so long.”
● The typhoon ran through the Visayan islands in the central Philippines: Samar, Leyte, Bohol, Cebu, Negros, and Panay. Approximately 1 million people were forced to evacuate their homes, and the Visayas region’s entire population of over 20 million was affected. The World Food Program expects that at least 2.5 million people will need food supplies. Both power and communications have been knocked out in most of the region, so damage and casualty reports are still preliminary. Three people have been confirmed dead not during the storm itself but in the earlier process of evacuation, two of them dying by electrocution from a downed power line.
● The death toll is likely to rise dramatically, however, as communications are slowly restored throughout the region and the full scope of the devastation becomes known. When the somewhat weaker Typhoon Bopha (Pablo) hit the Southern Philippine island of Mindanao in December 2012, over 1,100 people were killed. As this article went to publication, Captain John Andrews, deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, reported that over 100 dead bodies were “lying in the streets” in the city of Tacloban on the island of Leyte. Many more deaths seem certain to be reported. Mirror News: More Photos

South China Morning Post: More than 100 dead in Philippines typhoon: officials

Loss follows U.S., Israeli failure to pay dues in protest over world governments' decision to make Palestine a UNESCO member in 2011. ● American influence in culture, science and education around the world took a high-profile blow Friday after the U.S. automatically lost voting rights at UNESCO, after missing a crucial deadline to repay its debt to the world's cultural agency. The U.S. hasn't paid its dues to the Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in protest over the decision by world governments to make Palestine a UNESCO member in 2011. Israel suspended its dues at the same time and also lost voting rights on Friday. Under UNESCO rules, the United States had until Friday morning to resume funding or explain itself, or it automatically loses its vote. A UNESCO official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, said nothing was received from either the U.S. or Israel.

The Guardian: US loses Unesco voting rights after stopping funds over Palestine decision

A French reporter has provided details on how the US, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have been supplying tons of weapons to the militants operating inside Syria, Press TV reports. ● Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper revealed how the CIA is leading massive arms deliveries to the militants in Syria. “The Americans hold the key to these arms deliveries. Without them, they couldn’t happen. CIA agents lead convoys of arms deliveries joined by the Free Syrian Army and Jordanian secret services. The Saudis work behind the scene in charge of financing and arranging arms deliveries from eastern Europe to Jordan,” Malbrunot said. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Saudi Arabia and Jordan have supplied about 600 tons of weapons in 2013 alone to the militants in Syria.

Environmental improvements including cleaner water and a fish ladder prompt salmon to spawn.
●The salmon, scarred and exhausted, swim slowly around each other as they near the end of their final journey. Hook-jawed males snap at each other as they joust for position alongside female fish, which thrash on their sides in the shallows to clear a spot in the gravel bed in which to deposit their precious eggs, before dying. ● It's a poignant scene that has played out in countless wildlife documentaries. But the backdrop to this drama is not some remote Canadian wilderness. These chum salmon are spawning in the heart of metropolitan Vancouver, for only the second time in at least half a century. ● A Skytrain rumbles past, carrying commuters oblivious to the life-and-death struggle playing out just metres away in tiny Still Creek. One block to the south is a huge Wal-Mart. One block north is Broadway, Vancouver's main east-west thoroughfare. These salmon have made their way under highways and past rail lines, warehouses and tracts of suburbia to end their lives and beget a new generation next to a hardware store's car park. ● River restoration expert Dr Ken Ashley said the return of the chum salmon to Still Creek was a pivotal moment for urban streams, which are often overlooked. "It makes me very happy. It's taken a lot of hard work to get here," said Ashley, director of the Rivers Institute at the British Columbia Institute of Technology.