Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/pers-a25.shtml

The Obama administration and Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE) government are working in tandem to prevent the prosecution of top Bush officials. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero were both popularly elected because of their professed opposition to the war in Iraq and abhorrence of unlawful detention and torture in the so-called “war on terror.” Instead, they have colluded in a global effort to protect the authors of these crimes.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/tort-a25.shtml

In the face of mounting opposition from the Republican Party and the national security apparatus, President Obama and leading Democrats have indicated they will block any independent commission to investigate the widespread torture of prisoners under the Bush administration in “the war on terror.”

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/paki-a25.shtml

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned Pakistani authorities that US-Pakistan relations will be imperiled unless Islamabad heeds Washington’s admonitions and bloodily suppresses a growing Islamacist insurgency that has been fueled by the US occupation of Afghanistan.

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m53691&hd=&size=1&l=e

Jewish armed settlers backed by Israeli occupation forces fired at Palestinian citizens in Ourif town, south of Nablus, wounding 13 civilians amidst widespread confrontations between West Bank Palestinians and IOF troops and settlers on Friday.

Link: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0904/S00245.htm

The Fed's $12.8 trillion of monetary stimulus has triggered a six week-long surge in the stock market. Think of it as Bernanke's Bear Market Rally, a torrent of capital gushing from every rusty pipe in the financial system. The Fed's so-called "lending facilities" have gone far beyond their original purpose which was to backstop a broken system. Now they're leaking liquidity into the equities markets and sending stocks soaring while the "real" economy sinks to the bottom of the fish tank. That's how the Fed does business these days; plenty of tasty crepes for the Wall Street kingpins and table-scraps for the lumpen masses.

Link: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=30917

Roxana Saberi, the young American-Iranian journalist who was sentenced to eight years in prison on a spying charge in Tehran on 18 April, has been on hunger strike for the past five days, her father has told Reporters Without Borders. He said she called him today from prison to tell him this. She is “determined and ready to go all the way,” Reza Saberi said, adding that he was “very worried.”