Israel moves to grab more Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank as residents are given demolition orders, Press TV reports. ● On Thursday, Israeli forces handed 12 demolition orders to Palestinian residents in al-Khalil (Hebron), which includes six houses and six water wells. The orders were handed to residents of the village of Sa’ir in the southern al-Khalil hills. The orders are meant to confiscate more land from the Palestinians to expand illegal Israeli settlements in the area. The Israeli military has closed the village and given the residents one month to file a complaint before carrying out the demolitions. Human rights groups say that the demolition orders are part of a strategy by the regime in Tel Aviv to annex the southern al-Khalil hills to Israel and a greater strategy to maintain military control over the Jordan Valley, the Negev and the southern al-Khalil hills.

On the ground in Syria, over a thousand people have now been killed during inter-rebel fighting, with radicals connected to al-Qaeda now waging war against more-moderate groups. Let's talk more on that with Pepe Escobar, roving correspondent for Asia Times, he joins me live from London.

Britain’s Guardian and Channel Four television news programme yesterday released documents from former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden detailing yet another mass US surveillance operation. Under the codename Dishfire, the NSA has been intercepting and permanently storing the metadata and content of billions of mobile phone text messages sent by ordinary people around the world. The latest material from Snowden has been published at the same time as President Barack Obama is attempting to legitimise ongoing domestic surveillance of US citizens, under the guise of intelligence “reform” (see: “Obama’s NSA ‘reform’ defends illegal spying”). The details of the ongoing Dishfire operation further expose the Obama administration’s empty rhetoric about respecting the rule of law and the rights of the people. The internal NSA PowerPoint slide outlining Dishfire’s capacities makes clear from the very beginning that it is aimed not at intercepting the communications of specific individuals deemed terrorists or security threats, but rather at collecting the text messages of everyone in every country around the world.

Russia Today: NSA collects millions of SMS messages worldwide

An execution carried out Thursday morning, using an experimental two-drug mixture, resulted in 53-year-old Ohio death row inmate Dennis McGuire writhing in agony for 25 minutes before being pronounced dead. | McGuire’s lawyers last week sought to halt the execution. They argued that the use of an untried lethal combination of drugs could lead to a medical condition known as “air hunger” and cause McGuire to suffer “agony and terror” while struggling to breathe. That is apparently what happened, as the prisoner made loud snorting noises before finally succumbing. [...] Republican Senator Bruce Burns of Wyoming in a comment to the press this week said he would propose legislation to re-introduce firing squads as a means of execution. Fueling these fascistic sentiments is an effort by states to find cheaper ways of administering lethal drugs to prisoners. Many states have turned to using federally unregulated compounding pharmacies to mix their concoctions. Ohio had reportedly purchased its drugs from one such vendor. The proper response to the atrocity committed Thursday in Ohio is to criminally prosecute and convict all of the state officials responsible for McGuire’s execution, and to impeach and prosecute the federal judge who denied the prisoner’s motion for a stay of execution.

PressTV: Family of US man plans lawsuit over execution - Video