Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54547

Libyan leader Muammar Al-Gaddafi has unleashed the bloodiest crackdown so far against pro-democracy protestors seeking his ouster, killing dozens of people in only four days of protests.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27531.htm

An America that understands that the settlements are the obstacle should have joined in condemning them. This weekend, a new member enrolled in Likud - and not just in the ruling party, but in its most hawkish wing. Located somewhere between Tzipi Hotovely and Danny Danon, U.S. President Barack Obama bypassed Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan on the right and weakened their position. The first veto cast by the United States during Obama's term, a veto he promised in vain not to use as his predecessors did, was a veto against the chance and promise of change, a veto against hope. This is a veto that is not friendly to Israel; it supports the settlers and the Israeli right, and them alone.

Link: http://www.thenewage.co.za/10953-1020-53-US_must_be_removed_from_Islamic_world_Khamenei

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday called on Muslims to "remove" the US from the Islamic world. "The main problem in the Muslim world is the presence of the United States. It is the biggest problem. We need to address that," he told a gathering of Shiite and Sunni scholars in Tehran for an international conference on Islam. "It is necessary to remove the US from the Islamic world," the all-powerful cleric and Islamic republic's commander-in-chief said, adding that the country's arch-foe was currently weak.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/20/wisc-governor-we-are-willing-to-take-this-as-long-as-it-takes/

As protests escalate in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker isn't showing any signs of backing down from his plan to slash union benefits and eliminate collective bargaining rights. Wisconsin's 14 Democratic state senators have gone into hiding to prevent Republicans from holding a vote on Walker's proposal.

Link: http://www.truth-out.org/greenspans-incompetence-badgers-wisconsins-workers67917

Alan Greenspan has been strangely missing from the fierce battle over the future of public sector unions in Wisconsin and other states. His absence is strange because he bears more responsibility for the current conflict than anyone else alive.

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/us-science-chief-warns-china-will-eat-our-lunch-2219974.html

Soviet Sputnik satellite launch in 1957 threatened American pre-eminence. Now Beijing poses a similar danger, says Obama adviser. China is in pole position to overtake the United States as the premier nation for scientific and technological innovation, and will do so if Americans fail to raise their game, President Barrack Obama's own science adviser has told The Independent on Sunday.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/20/palestinians-day-rage-us-veto

US decision to use UN security council veto sparks furious reaction in West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians are planning a "day of rage" on Friday in response to the US wielding its veto against a UN security council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. "Obama cannot be trusted," he wrote in an open letter to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. "We knew his promises were lies. The time has come to spit in the face of the Americans."

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/20/us-raymond-davis-lahore-cia

The American who shot dead two men on a Lahore street, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Pakistan and the United States, is a CIA agent who was on assignment at the time of the incident. Pakistani authorities charged him with murder, but the Obama administration has insisted he is an "administrative and technical official" attached to its Lahore consulate and is entitled to diplomatic immunity. Based on interviews in the US and Pakistan, the Guardian can confirm that the 36-year-old former special forces soldier is employed by the CIA. "It's beyond a shadow of a doubt," said a senior Pakistani intelligence official.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/20

The central issue in our political life is not being discussed. At stake is the moral basis of American democracy. The individual issues are all too real: assaults on unions, public employees, women's rights, immigrants, the environment, health care, voting rights, food safety, pensions, prenatal care, science, public broadcasting, and on and on. Budget deficits are a ruse, as we've seen in Wisconsin, where the governor turned a surplus into a deficit by providing corporate tax breaks, and then used the deficit as a ploy to break the unions, not just in Wisconsin, but seeking to be the first domino in a nationwide conservative movement.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/20-8

Fifty years ago six college students – two African American and four White – went to jail for sitting down at Patterson Drugstore lunch counter in Lynchburg, Virginia. Their plans had been amorphous: “let's just talk to Mr. Patterson”...they were honor students after all, and talking surely would convince the owner/manager that racial segregation was wrong.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/economy/149981/exposing_the_republicans%27_3-part_strategy_to_tear_the_middle_class_apart_--_let%27s_stop_them_in_wisconsin/

GOP forces are trying to deflect attention from the growing wealth transfer to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish. The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class - pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don't believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.

Link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-02-18-wisconsin-union-vote_N.htm?csp=hf

Wisconsin's Republican governor on Sunday rejected any compromise with pro-union protesters filling the Capitol for a sixth day, predicting that his state would lead the way across the country in weakening unions that have negotiated unaffordable compensation packages.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/02/2011220171526323276.html

Unrest spreads across Yemen
President Ali Abdullah Saleh renews offer for a dialogue as protests against his rule continue. Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemen president, has renewed his offer for a dialogue to end the unrest sweeping the country. The offer to the opposition came on Sunday after 3,000 university students demonstrated at the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, urging the president to step down from power.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/20112202148108558.html

Reports of clashes between anti-government protesters and Gaddafi supporters in Tripoli as demonstrations escalate. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is confronting the most serious challenge to his rule in 42 years. Security forces have shot dead scores of protesters in Libya's second largest city, where residents said a military unit had joined their cause. While Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi attempts on Sunday to put down protests against his four-decade rule centred on the eastern city of Benghazi, eyewitness reports are coming in of "disturbances" in the capital Tripoli as well.