WikiLeaks, a whistle-blower site publishing thousands of leaked documents, was taken offline in the United States after posting allegedly stolen documents: individuals' banking records that suggest a Cayman Islands branch of a Swiss bank was helping customers practice money laundering and tax evasion across the globe. A federal judge on Friday allowed whistle-blower site WikiLeaks to resume operation in the United States, a week after ordering its U.S. hosting company and domain registrar to shut down and lock the renegade's site from the internet. The judge conceded the futility of attempts to censor information, in this instance private banking records, after it has been posted to the internet. "When this genie gets out of the bottle, it's out for all purposes," U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said after a more than 3-hour-long hearing here. Earlier, White said he had "an obligation to get it right" and that "I took an oath to uphold the Constitution." WikiLeaks: Bank Julius Baer: Grand Larceny via Grand Cayman: Letter from Rudolf Elmer: As an insider (whistleblower) I am able to disclose certain statements of affairs of Bank Julius Baer. The main intention of this letter is to disclose methods used and still being used by Bank Julius Baer to avoid or decrease tax payments. I have been the Chief Operational Officer (COO) of Bank Julius Baer & Trust Ltd, Cayman. I have been asked to transact unethical and immoral business for the bank. I have cooperated firstly out of naivite and then for an annual salary of CHF 220,000. Fact is, that tax fraud evasion as well as massive aiding hereunto are part of the repertoire of this Cayman Bank owned by the Swiss.

For the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America's rank as the world's No. 1 incarcerator. It urges states to curtail corrections spending by placing fewer low-risk offenders behind bars. "For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling," the report said. "While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine." WSWS: US leads world in imprisoning its people.

The very design of Abu Ghraib in Iraq turned good soldiers into evil tormentors that humiliated and brutalized prisoners, a famed social psychologist said Thursday. Stanford University professor Philip Zimbardo described a "Lucifer effect" as he flashed shocking images of Abu Ghraib horrors for those at an elite Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in California. "If you give people power without oversight it is a formula for abuse," Zimbardo said to a stunned audience the included famous actors, entrepreneurs and politicians. "Abu Ghraib abuses went on for three months ... Who was watching the store? Nobody, and it was on purpose." The WE: Unspeakable grief and horror. Wired / Uruknet: Disturbing New Photos From Abu Ghraib. Dahr Jamail: Slideshow for album :: Collection of Abu Ghraib images.

Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicized incidents of US brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by "a few bad apples," as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the group says, of "an increasingly bloody occupation."

Over and above, the fraudulent reconstruction contracts, the looting of archelogical sites and ancient artifacts, the billions of dollars spent from Iraqi money on mercenaries, death squads, and professional killers also known as "security firms" ; subjects which I will not even begin to adress here, as I would need volumes...Over and above the 20 BILLION U.S Dollars, missing under the gangster's reign Bremer...The following robberies, loots and thefts were conducted by your brave boys and their puppets:

That support has rankled the public, politicians and journalists here, inciting deep anger at what is perceived as American meddling and the refusal of Washington to embrace the new, democratically elected government. John D. Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, said Thursday during a Senate panel hearing that the United States would maintain its close ties to Mr. Musharraf. Pakistanis say the Bush administration is grossly misjudging the political mood in Pakistan and squandering an opportunity to win support from the Pakistani public for its fight against terrorism. The opposition parties that won the Feb. 18 parliamentary elections say they are moderate and pro-American. By working with them, analysts say, Washington could gain a vital, new ally.

Britain and France said Thursday they expect the Security Council to vote Saturday and approve new U.N. sanctions against Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment.

The Iraqi government this morning endorsed the execution of Saddam Hussein's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali. The death sentence must now be carried out within 30 days. A government adviser said Majid had been sentenced to death for his 1980s scorched-earth campaign against Kurds. The Independent: Iraq council approves 'Chemical Ali' hanging. WikiPedia: Ali Hassan al-Majid.

Analysts say Turkey felt it had to mount a show of strength after a wave of devastating PKK ambushes on Turkish troops in September and October last year. Turkey's campaign began with air strikes in December, supported by intelligence from the US.

"The presence is important," Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Pentagon reporters Thursday. "It isn't meant to send any stronger signals than that; but in fact it does signal that we're engaged, we're going to be in the vicinity." Mullen said the decision was not aimed only at Syria but at the region as whole. "It's a group of ships that will operate in the vicinity for a while and as the ships in our Navy do," Mullen said. The Cole left Malta on Tuesday to head to Lebanon. But it won't be dropping anchor along Lebanon's beaches. Rather, it will hold well off shore and likely out of sight. WUFYS: USS Cole on its way to Lebanon/Syria. USA Today: U.S. posting 3 warships off Lebanon. Al Jazeera: US positions warships near Lebanon.

The Israeli Zionists are shelling Gaza strip with high tech(nucleus cells) weaponry,from the south to the middle and to the north. In 24 hours, the Israelis war on the Gaza Strip community has killed 33 citizens, 8 children have been killed including a newborn baby- many are injured including some seriously maimed, with destroyed limbs and serious injuries on other body parts. The Israelis war crimes across Gaza Strip have killed 7 children in the northern town of Jabalia, while the 5 month old Mohammed Al-Borey was killed on Wednesday night in Gaza City.

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Escalate Attacks against Palestinian Civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Launching Intense Air Strikes against Gaza Strip Targets. 20 Palestinians, including 3 children, were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip. In addition, 1 Palestinian was extra-judicially executed in the West Bank. 8 of the victims, including 3 children and an elderly man, were killed during a series of air strikes. 5 of the victims were killed by IOF in Khan Yunis. 28 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and an international human rights defender, were injured by IOF gunfire. IOF escalated air strikes against civilian targets in the Gaza Strip. 3 workshops and 2 buildings of the Ministry of Interior were destroyed. IOF conducted 36 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and 2 into the Gaza Strip. IOF arrested 67 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, and 3 civilians in the Gaza Strip. 4 houses were transformed into IOF military sites. IOF seized properties of the Islamic Charity and the Islamic Youth Association in Hebron. IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT. 4 Palestinian civilians were arrested by IOF at various checkpoints in the West Bank. IOF confiscated 900 donums of agricultural land in villages located southwest of Hebron for the purpose of further constructing the Annexation Wall. IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attacks Palestinian civilians and property. IOF demolished a house in East Jerusalem. Palestinian Pundit: Video: This is How Zionazis Deal With Peaceful Palestinian Resistance. Bil'in demonstration 22.2.2008.

The death toll resulting from the ongoing Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip and the West bank has reached 21 from dawn on Thursday till 8:30 PM local time of the same day. Sabbah: Gaza Massacre [Video]. Palestinian Pundit: Al-Jazeera Video: Six-month-old baby killed by Israel attacks - 28 Feb 08. Desert Peace: News From Gaza: Non Stop Genocide Last 24 Hours + 24 Hours Of Death In Gaza (Video).

Israel is "not afraid" of launching a "major ground" invasion in Gaza, Ehud Barak, the country's defence minister, has said, amid ongoing air raids on the territory. At least 32 Palestinians, nine of them children, have died in two days of Israeli shelling, with at least 60 others injured. HaAretz: Barak: Wide ground operation in Gaza is 'real and tangible'. + Gaza offensive looms as violence spirals. Lataan: ISRAELI MINISTERS ARGUE OVER BEST WAY OF KILLING PALESTINIANS.

Fundraising numbers in the Democratic race for president shot into the stratosphere in the month of February, with reports from aides to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama putting the staggering combined figure at somewhere in the range of $85 million. MSNBC: True support combines with stop-Clinton sentiment in next week’s primary.

A woman in the White House, Clinton said, would present "a real challenge to the way things have been done, and who gets to do them and what the rules are." The remarks had a call-to-action flair and underscored just how much she is relying on women, always a key part of her support, to help her win Ohio and, perhaps, Texas on Tuesday as she seeks to get back on track in the Democratic nomination fight.

"Bush: And as people are now beginning to see, Iraq is changing, democracy is beginning to tak[e] hold. And I'm convinced 50 years from now people look back and say thank God there was those who were willing to sacrifice. "Curry: But you're saying you're going to have to carry that burden … Some Americans believe that they feel they're carrying the burden because of this economy. "Bush: Yeah, well --"Curry: They say -- they say they're suffering because of this. "Bush: I don't agree with that. "Curry: You don't agree with that? Has nothing do with the economy, the war? The spending on the war? "Bush: I don't think so. I think actually, the spending on the war might help with jobs. "Curry: Oh, yeah? "Bush: Yeah, because we're buying equipment, and people are working. I think this economy is down because we built too many houses." TomGram: Iraq, 2003-2008, Two Recipes for Disaster. The Australian: Iraq war 'caused slowdown in the US'.

Don Siegelman, a popular Democratic governor of Alabama, a Republican state, was framed in a crooked trial, convicted on June 29, 2006, and sent to Federal prison by the corrupt and immoral Bush administration.

Ben Griffin could be jailed if he makes further disclosures about how people seized by special forces were allegedly mistreated and ended up in secret prisons in breach of the Geneva conventions and international law. Griffin, 29, left the British army in 2005 after three months in Baghdad, saying he disagreed with the "illegal" tactics of US troops.

It is here, in all its quadrennial springiness, like a cartoon Slinky boinging into the wall calendar. Ah, Leap Day. It's so topsy-turvy, sounding too whimsical for its placement at the end of what everyone knows is the cruddiest month of the year. It's the day when, oh, anything can happen, like women proposing to men, like pirates turning 5 when they think they're turning 21 ( c'mon-- Gilbert and Sullivan! "Pirates of Penzance"! Whistle! Trill!). It is a curly, twisty day hanging off the only month that divides neatly into four weeks, and it is there to tidy up time. The Romans were the first to get that Earth's rotation and its revolution didn't quite match up; it was taking a smidge more than 365 days to circumnavigate the sun. They gave the calendar an occasional breath in the form of Feb. 29, to set things right again. (February deserved the extra time, what with Caesar Augustus stealing a day, according to legend, to make August longer.) Wired: Feb. 29, 45 B.C.: Julius Caesar Takes the Leap. WikiPedia: A leap year is a year containing one or more extra days in order to keep the calendar year synchronised with the astronomical or seasonal year.

After six years of US-led military support and billions of pounds in aid, security in Afghanistan is "deteriorating" and President Hamid Karzai's government controls less than a third of the country, America's top intelligence official has admitted. Mike McConnell testified in Washington that Karzai controls about 30% of Afghanistan and the Taliban 10%, and the remainder is under tribal control. Robert Fisk: THESE DEAD AND INJURED HUMAN BEINGS BELOW WERE ALSO SPECIAL TO SOMEONE. DO THEY LOOK LIKE TERRORISTS TO ANY ONE?[Photos]

An American website, the Drudge Report, broke a news blackout yesterday by revealing that Prince Harry has been serving in Afghanistan for more than two months. To the fury of the Ministry of Defence and condemnation from the head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the website announced a "world exclusive" and proclaimed: "They're calling him 'Harry the Hero!". The Guardian: Army prepares to evacuate Harry after news blackout fails.

Once, shortly before the 2004 presidential elections, I was having lunch with a friend from my old life: my life pre-April 4th when Casey was killed in Iraq. She informed me that she was going to vote for George Bush because he is "pro-life." My answer to her was: "If George Bush is pro-life, then why is Casey dead?" She could not give me an answer and did not see the hypocrisy in someone who is supposed to be "pro-life" sending thousands of our young people to die and kill other innocents in foreign aggressions based on lies and for profit.

I must be getting old. This virus, or whatever the heck it is, really knocked me for a loop. It's funny, but I recall thinking, just before I came down with this, that I'd managed to entirely avoid getting sick this winter, and – whammo! Hubris – it's the bane of mankind.

A newborn girl fell through the toilet in a moving train and onto the tracks moments after her mother gave birth prematurely, surviving nearly two hours before being found, relatives said Thursday. The infant's mother, who uses the single name Bhuri, was traveling with relatives on a train when she went to the bathroom shortly before midnight Tuesday and unexpectedly gave birth, said Arjun Kumar, her brother-in-law. "Later, she fell unconscious and the baby fell through the toilet," he said. "Two stations later, we knocked at the door." Bhuri opened the door, soaked in blood. "When we asked her about what happened, she said the baby had fallen through onto the tracks," Kumar said.

Of all major U.S. airline crashes within the U.S. investigated and published by the National Transportation Safety Board during the past 20 years, the 9/11 'black boxes' are virtually the only ones without listed serial numbers. The United States government alleges that 4 registered Boeing commercial passenger aircraft were used in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, yet has failed to produce any physical evidence collected from the 3 9/11 crash scenes positively tied to these federally registered United and American airlines aircraft. Despite the release of abundant information regarding the 9/11 flights and the aircraft reportedly used, specific information that would confirm official allegations regarding the identity of these aircraft has been mysteriously withheld or denied upon request.

The Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of the first phase of the project by at least three years and shifting away from a network of tower-mounted sensors and surveillance gear, federal officials said yesterday.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates urged Turkish leaders on Wednesday to abandon their invasion of guerrilla-controlled lands in the northernmost reaches of Iraq by mid-March. American and Iraqi leaders seem increasingly worried that fighting along the Turkey-Iraq border could widen into a broader and bloodier conflict. BBC: 'No timetable' for Turkey assault. The Independent: Turkey resists pressure to end northern Iraq offensive.

A five-month-old Palestinian baby was killed and ten others were wounded in six different Israeli airstrikes on different targets in the Gaza Strip carried out just before mid-night Wednesday. The airstrikes targeted two different buildings of the PA Interior Ministry, two metal workshops, a garage and a car-battery shop. Dr. Muaweyah Hasaneen, the director of emergency services at the PA Ministry of health confirmed the death of baby Muhammad al-Borai and that seven of the wounded are women and children after Israeli occupation helicopters struck the Interior Ministry building near Shifa Hospital. The Independent: Infant is killed in Israeli attack. Maan News: A bloody day in Gaza: Israeli military adds 3 children to list of dead. Sabbah: Child-Termination Day by IOF. IMEMC: 46 killed in Gaza, 5 in the West Bank in February. PIC: Legal report: IOF troops killed 51 Palestinians in February including 7 children. Palestine Chronicle / The People's Voice: Gaza Violence: Some Lives Worth More Than Others.

Mahmoud Abbas: what a treacherous, low, slimy and dangerous man. In order not to compromise one inch from his essentially very shady stand in what happened in Gaza prior to the Hamas take-over, Abbas chose to reject and endanger 1.5 million Palestinians by parroting Israeli rant claiming that "al Qaeda" has spread into Gaza via Hamas.. rather than engaging with Hamas in a dialog. Being a good US/Israeli puppet, Abbas obeys his masters and turns his back to the majority of his people.

The water authority in the Gaza Strip has warned of severe epidemics and disease due to water pollution. This will be happening due to the Israeli ban of entering antiseptic and ant germs materials needed for water treatment. Head of water authority, Munbzer Shoblaq, said in a press conference that water will be polluted if Israeli will prevent these materials into Gaza strip for at least the two coming days. He added in his talk, "We gave orders of suspending work in 52 water wells due to the lack of chlorine material. Thus, we issues instructions for civilians to boil water before drink." About 140 out of 170 wells are negatively influenced by the Israeli procedures during this siege imposed by June 207. About 30% of people get treated water while other 30% don't get water in easy ways.

In an extraordinary act of censorship, lawyers representing the Swiss bank Julius Baer (BJB) obtained an injunction against the Dynadot corporation, US domain name registrar for the Wikileaks web site. The People's Voice: Wikileaks and Internet Censorship - a comparative study
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The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming. Existentialist Cowboy: John McCain's 10,000 Years War.

Apparently ending a dance of presidential speculation that began more than two years ago, the 66-year-old billionaire businessman said in an op-ed piece in Thursday's New York Times that he will not launch his own bid but will work to "steer the national conversation away from partisanship and toward unity; away from ideology and toward common sense; away from sound bites and toward substance."

A gunman fired into a crowd of children and adults at a South Los Angeles bus stop just after schools let out Wednesday, wounding eight, authorities said. Three girls, ages 10, 11 and 12, and a 49-year-old woman were in stable condition and were expected to recover, police Lt. Ruben De La Torre said. A 12-year-old girl, a 14-year-old boy and two men, ages 48 and 68, had minor injuries. The gunman ran away, and streets in the area were shut down as police officers rushed in.

The disconnect between the heated rhetoric and recriminations and the narrow range of visible political differences draws one to the conclusion that more fundamental issues are being fought out behind the scenes and are driving the public conflict between Clinton and Obama. What are those issues? One can surmise that they involve the intersection of a deepening economic and financial crisis, growing social discontent within the US, and a palpable decline in the world position of the United States after seven years of foreign policy debacles by the Bush administration.

"Obviously, the economy is the No. 1 issue in the country, and it's unbelievably important here in Ohio," said Clinton. "I think, absent any intervening circumstances, the economy will be the domestic driver with all the related issues like health care and energy costs and home foreclosures." TaxProfBlog: Hillary Clinton Continues to Stonewall on Releasing Her Tax Returns.

Just after midnight, almost 20 years ago, an unqualified crewman was at the helm of the Exxon Valdez super-tanker when it ran on to a reef sending 11 million gallons of crude oil spilling into the Prince William Sound. Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court began hearing arguments that the oil company should not have to pay $2.5bn (£1.3bn) in punitive damages to 33,000 Native Alaskans, herring and salmon fishermen, cannery workers and others. Over the years the damages have been cut in half and at least 6,000 victims of the spill owed compensation are already dead. So far it is only the lawyers, who have charged $781m in fees, who have emerged as winners in the case. Whether those in Alaska still holding out for compensation for the ill health, wrecked lives and years of unemployment ever get any, hangs on further tortuous argument over an obscure 1818 bit of maritime law. ADN: Storm-plagued village sues energy companies.

“The basic lie in the controversy over the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published by Danish and European newspapers is the claim that the conflict is between free speech and religious censorship, or between Western enlightenment and Islamic bigotry. The systematic defamation of Muslims is being used to prepare public opinion for new wars against countries such as Iran and Syria—wars which will be even more brutal than the Iraq war, and could well involve the use of nuclear weapons.”

Hoping to prevent outrage here from harming ties between the United States and Japan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed deep regret on Wednesday over a case in which an American marine is accused of raping a 14-year-old Japanese girl on Okinawa.

Many people on both sides of the Iraq war debate claim that they "support our troops." Few people specify what they mean by that. There's an obvious sense in which we all support our troops – we are taxed quite heavily to pay, house, clothe, feed, and arm them. But that's not what most people mean. What do they mean?

Totaly crazy conspiracy teorists might say this was a fake video and even a fake beard! Anyway, where the heck is that Osama bin Laden?

Tracking the Steel Dragon: New report by ICT reveals the impact of Beijing's policies on Tibet and Asia. The first major report on the impact of the world's highest altitude railway across the Tibetan plateau reveals how it is changing Tibet, to the detriment of the Tibetan people and land, and details the dramatic implications for the whole of Asia. WireDispatch: Railway to Tibet Has Allowed China to Plunder Region's Resources.

Police in Jersey investigating allegations of child abuse are expected to break in to a second underground chamber at a former children's home. A sniffer dog, trained to find human remains, reacted "strongly" when it was sent into the first hidden cellar at Haut de la Garenne on Wednesday. CNN: Horror of children's home haunts island.

To cancel one high-level Franco-German meeting is unfortunate. To cancel two in less than a week implies a bank of freezing fog is descending over the Rhine. French and German officials sought yesterday to play down the significance of the abrupt postponement – both by Paris – of two meetings between the countries' most senior politicians.

For most of us, the arrival of 29 February means one extra day at work, another day on the mortgage and 24 hours' delay in the arrival of the pay cheque. No wonder a leap year is universally regarded as unlucky. This is particularly the case for those unfortunates who can only celebrate their real birthday once every four years. For some reason, musicians tend to be born on 29 February – they include Rossini, the late avant-garde trombonist Paul Rutherford and the rap artist Jah Rule – but the most eminent UK leap-year baby is Joss Ackland, who will be 20 next Friday, though he has been on this Earth for 80 years.

A coalition of media and public interest organizations went to federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday urging a judge to reconsider his order to shut down a muckraking website that publishes leaked documents from businesses and government agencies worldwide. Lawyers for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen and several news organizations, told U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White that two orders he issued last week against wikileaks.org were prior restraints that violated the 1st Amendment.

'08 IS RIGGED. -Don't Vote! She has been cheerful and tearful, schoolmarmish and shrewish, Dr. Doom and Dr. Phil. None of these personality splits has moved Hillary Clinton back from the precipice. Some close friends and counselors, in fact, now believe the only winning strategy left to the once-presumptive Democratic nominee is an exit strategy. "She needs to make her case but stay on the high road to retain her standing as a party elder instead of a pariah," one of them said Tuesday. That advice presupposes Clinton is doomed, and for now it's difficult to challenge that conventional wisdom. Boston Globe: Clinton attacks on all fronts. NYT: The Early Word: Strong, But Strong Enough? You Tube: Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early [Video].

American advocates of imperialism have been few and far between, and we have to go all the way back to the latter years of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th to unearth the most explicit. Theodore Roosevelt is perhaps the best known, but there were others: notably, Capt. Alfred T. Mahan, who advocated a big American Navy with island possessions to serve as bases, and Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who forced Japan to submit to Western intrusion, a turn of events that both sides would later have good reason to regret. Other champions of Empire included Henry Adams, Brooks Adams, Massachusetts Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, Charles A. Conant, and Jeremiah W. Jenks. HuffPo / AlterNet: 'John McSame': Meet Bush's Anti-Choice Clone. WSWS: The New York Times and the 2008 elections: What the McCain “exposé” reveals.

3d anniversary of the Friday demonstrations in Bil'in.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said Turkish operations in northern Iraq must end as soon as possible. Mr Gates, speaking ahead of a visit to Ankara, said US concerns about the assault against Kurdish militants had been made clear at the highest levels. BBC: 'No timetable' for Turkey assault.

Sixty-four percent of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza toward a cease-fire and the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. Less than one-third (28 percent) still opposes such talks. The figures were obtained in a Haaretz-Dialog poll conducted Tuesday under the supervision of Professor Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University. The Hindu: Israelis want talks with Hamas.

Palestinian medical sources reported that two Palestinian farmers were killed, on Wednesday afternoon, during Israeli shelling of farm land near Gaza city in the northern part of the coastal region. Dr. Mo'awiah Abu Hassanin of the Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza told reporters that, two farmers were killed and another two injured when Israeli tanks stationed at the borders near Gaza city shelled nearby farms. Abu Hassanin identified one of the killed as Monawar Abu Mandeel, 27.

Whenever people resist occupation, whether it be in Iraq or Palestine, they are labeled "terrorists". The government and the media have created a backward Orwellian vernacular with which to deliver us our daily diet of propaganda and bullshit. The new 'mediaspeak' is a euphemistic language of emotionally sterile platitudes.

The Supreme Court is considering whether to prevent victims of the Exxon Valdez disaster from collecting a $2.5 billion judgment, nearly 19 years after the tanker dumped 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska waters. In the case being argued Wednesday, Exxon Mobil Corp. wants the court to erase the award of punitive damages to nearly 33,000 commercial fishermen, Native Alaskans, landowners, businesses and local governments. The 987-foot tanker, commanded by its captain, Joseph Hazelwood, missed a turn and ran aground on a reef in Prince William Sound, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Two brothers from Cordova, Alaska, were in line in front of the Supreme Court on Wednesday morning, waiting to watch the arguments inside. Commercial fisherman Steve Copeland, who was 41 at the time of the spill, said he cannot afford to retire because his business has never recovered from the steep decline it suffered due to the disaster.

Cubans swamped currency exchange offices Monday and early Tuesday in a brief but intense speculative frenzy fueled by rumors that new President Ra¿l Castro would end the island's reviled dual currency system.

A story on the concert was on page four of the communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun with a picture of the event. The front page was reserved for news that leader Kim Jong-il had sent congratulatory flowers to the new president of Cuba. The newspaper report on the concert was heavy on who among the North's elite attended and called the concert "very sophisticated and sensitive".

The European Union is fining Microsoft Corp. $1.3 billion for charging rivals too much for software information. Bloomberg: Microsoft Fined Record EU899 Million by EU Regulator.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is giving Congress a fresh assessment of the country's economic health, which has been pummeled by a housing bust, a credit crunch and soaring energy prices. Back-to-back appearances on Capitol Hill were scheduled to begin Wednesday for Bernanke, who is facing his biggest challenges yet in his two years at the Fed's helm.

A specially prepared box of rice originating from 104 countries was the first to be deposited in the vault, where it will be kept at minus 18C (minus 0.4F). Thousands more species will be added as organisers attempt to get specimens of every agricultural plant in the world. Three chambers have been built 125 metres (400 feet) inside a mountain close to the town of Longyear-byen in Svalbard, a Norwegian island about 500 miles (800 kilometres) from the North Pole. An opening ceremony was conducted at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, as 100 million seeds from more than 100 countries were placed inside. The first day’s deposits comprised 268,000 samples and filled 676 boxes. Scientific American: Seeds of Future Agriculture Enter Doomsday Deep Freeze. National Geographic: ''Doomsday'' Seed Vault Opens Near North Pole. NRK: Verdenspressen omfavner Svalbard.

On Monday, the US military announced that the number of troops in Iraq following the “surge” begun last year will be some 10,000 more than pre-surge levels. What was originally presented as a temporary increase of US occupation forces will result in the indefinite presence of 140,000 US soldiers in Iraq.

During a Basra-based conference on February 25, 2008 on cancer in southern Iraq, experts surmised that radioactive pollution, particularly in Basra, that was caused by the latest wars, engenders an increase in cancer cases there.

Embarrassed Diebold officials apologized after one of their electronic voting machines prematurely revealed the winner of our upcoming sham election. Hilarious! Well, kind of...

Jewish organizations are still at odds on how to deal with the Durban II conference after the government decided that Israel would not participate. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced on Sunday at the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem that Israel would not participate in the United Nations Follow-up Conference on Racism, more popularly known as "Durban II."

The U.K. was hit by a magnitude-5.2 earthquake, the biggest since 1984, the British Geological Survey said. The temblor struck Lincolnshire, eastern England, and was felt from Southampton on the south coast to southern Scotland. The quake hit at 12:56 a.m. local time about 5 miles (8 kilometers) east of the town of Market Rasen and was felt across England, the BGS said in a statement on its Web site. Residents of London, 125 miles to the south, were jolted awake, and chimneys and walls were damaged across Lincolnshire and in South Yorkshire, where one man was injured by falling masonry. Freep.com: Britons jostled by rare earthquake.

Barack Obama's campaign yesterday accused Hillary Clinton’s aides of engaging in “shameful, offensive fear-mongering” by distributing a photograph of him in a turban and tribal costume. The Clinton camp responded swiftly, saying it was unaware of any such picture [?] and that it was Mr Obama’s team that “should be ashamed”. They accused her rival of making a “transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country”. Yahoo: Obama photo in turban, robe causes stir. ABC News: Clinton on photo: 'Why is anybody concerned about this?" DU: Today is the final straw. Clinton has destroyed her future in Democratic politics. WRH / Desert Peace: OBAMA BASHING REACHES NEW LOW.

The New York Philharmonic performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" for North Korea's communist elite on Tuesday — a feat of musical diplomacy aimed at improving ties with the isolated nuclear-armed country that considers the U.S. its mortal enemy. The unprecedented concert represents a warming in relations between the nations that remain technically at war and locked in negotiations over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs. The Philharmonic began the concert with "Patriotic Song" — North Korea's national anthem — followed by the U.S. anthem. The audience stood during both anthems and held their applause until the conclusion of the second. WaPo: The N.Y. Philharmonic in North Korea: Symbology and the Music.

The Media Office of the Nafha Society for defending the Detainee’s Rights and Human Rights, reported on Monday that Israeli forces killed 51 Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since the beginning of this month. Seven children and two women were among the casualties. The Office stated that most of the casualties were killed in the Gaza Strip as the army killed 46 residents. Most of the casualties were killed during air strikes that targeted civilians areas.

More detainees have complained of torture by the Palestinian Authority following the death in custody of a Hamas religious leader in the West Bank. The family and followers of imam Majd al-Barghouthi say he was tortured to death last Friday, an allegation that the authorities strenuously deny. Now new allegations have emerged of ill-treatment – even torture – of Hamas supporters held in Palestinian Authority jails. Palestinian Information Center: A Police State without a State: A government that murders its political opponents, by way of torture or assassination, and then tries to cover up the crime, or mitigate its gravity, is a criminal government, pure and simple. As Palestinian citizens, we are worried that the Ramallah-based government is effectively becoming just another Arab police state, to be added to the other 22 other police states in the Arab world. But there is a very a conspicuous difference, because in our case, the Palestinian “state” is obviously a police state without a state.

On Sunday, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced that Israel would boycott the "Durban II" conference because, with Libya chairing the planning committee, Israel did not see how the conference would be anything but a platform for prejudiced attacks. Les Politiques: Israel will boycott the UN Durban conference on Racism.

Hardly anything grows on Svalbard. In this Arctic archipelago, the permafrost is 1,000ft deep, the nearest tree grows 600 miles to the south, and the sun does not rise for four months of the year. But it is on this frozen, barren outpost that the future of mankind's food supply depends. Today sees the inauguration of the Svalbard global seed vault, a top-security repository that will house batches of seeds from nearly every variety of food crop on the planet, such as wheat, rice or maize. The aim is to protect them in case of a global catastrophe. "It is the last line of defence against the extinction of our agricultural diversity," says Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Diversity Crop Trust (GDCT), the brain behind the project. "People are aware of the extinction of the dinosaurs, but they don't know that we are currently experiencing a mass extinction of our crop diversity." AFP: 'Doomsday' seed vault comes to life in Arctic. ABC News: Inside a 'Living Fort Knox,' Built to Protect Plant Seeds. AFP: `Doomsday' Vault Opens to Protect Seeds. EDIE.net: The Svalbard vault will be used as a seed library of last resort. Associated Press: Arctic Vault for Seeds to Open. CNN: Seed vault to open in Norway [+ Video]. BBC: Life in the cold store. Aftenposten: Seed vault opens in the Arctic. Global Research / The People's Voice: "DOOMSDAY SEED VAULT" IN THE ARCTIC: BILL GATES, ROCKEFELLER AND THE GMO GIANTS KNOW SOMETHING WE DON’T. ETC Group: Svalbard's Doomsday Vault. PHOTO GALLERY

German foreign policy has been actively working to separate Kosovo from Serbia for over a decade. Germany had hoped to secure this aim with the agreement of Russia. Now, however, German support for the secession of Kosovo at the behest of an alliance of Western powers has enraged Moscow and once again ignited the fuse of the Balkan powder keg. Consortium News: Behind the Kosovo Crisis. Electronic Intifada: Kosovo and the question of Palestine.

The Israeli Monitoring Committee, part of the Knesset Committees, held a meeting on Monday apparently in an attempt to grant licenses to illegal settlement outposts for the settlers in the occupied West Bank. Israeli sources reported that the Israeli government is seeking to please the settlers by expanding their outposts and allowing them to install new outposts in order to avoid any confrontation with them.

The US ruling elite has important interests at stake in Africa. It is a continent that occupies a strategic position in relation to the Middle East and contains vital mineral resources. Moreover, it has become a continent in which US hegemony is being challenged by the rise of China. Bush’s inability to advance key US interests, therefore, points to a major crisis in US foreign policy in the wake of the debacle in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mmegi.bw: Change at White House, no change for Africa. Daily Nation: Bush deserves to gloat over his Africa policy.

In his book, The Guantánamo Files, historian and journalist Andy Worthington offers a much-needed corrective to the draft of the Afghanistan conflict that most Americans saw on their nightly newscasts. Worthington is the first to detail the histories of all 774 prisoners who have passed through the Bush administration's "legal black hole" at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But his history starts in Afghanistan, and makes it abundantly clear that the road to Guantánamo -- not to mention Abu Ghraib -- began in places like Kandahar.

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — For decades, ranchers and farmers across the West have tapped into rivers and streams on or near Indian reservations. Now, as drought conditions plague big parts of the region, they're concerned their access to those sources could dry up. Although the U.S. Supreme Court gave tribes the primary rights to streams on their reservations in 1908, until recently, 19 tribes in the West had not exercised those rights. This year, tribes in Montana, New Mexico, Idaho, Nevada and California are on the verge of securing their claims. That could result in less water, or higher water prices, for non-Indian agricultural producers and communities downstream, according to Victor Marshall, an attorney who represents irrigators in New Mexico's San Juan Valley.

Pakistan's telecommunications regulator said Tuesday it has lifted restrictions on YouTube that knocked out access to the video-sharing Web site in many countries for up to two hours over the weekend. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told Internet service providers to restore access to the site after the removal of what it called a "blasphemous" video clip, authority spokeswoman Nabiha Mahmood said.

Sony and Sharp are tying up in the flat-panel TV business, with Sony investing in a Sharp plant for making liquid crystal displays, both sides said in a statement. Sony Corp. had fallen behind in developing flat panel TVs, and does not make its own liquid crystal displays for its TVs. It has been buying LCD panels from a joint venture it has with Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea.

IBM Corp. rolls out a new mainframe computer tuesday, boasting a 50 percent performance boost and dramatically lower energy costs than its predecessor. The new System z10, with a starting price at about $1 million, comes as IBM focuses on lowering the price tag for running its storied line of data-crunching workhorses.

They are among the biggest-selling drugs of all time, the "happiness pills" that supposedly lift the moods of those who suffer depression and are taken by millions of people in the UK every year. But one of the largest studies of modern antidepressant drugs has found that they have no clinically significant effect. In other words, they don't work. The Guardian: Prozac, used by 40m people, does not work say scientists.

It is Europe's worst and most senseless wildlife massacre, resulting in the annual death of thousands of birds about to breed all over the continent. But this spring, conservationists are heading for the Mediterranean to help end it. The Maltese bird hunt, a mass slaughter of spring migrant birds, has been illegal since the island joined the European Union in 2004, but the government has allowed it to continue in spite of the new rules. Huge numbers of birds migrating from Africa to Europe, such as turtle doves, are killed by hunters as they pass over or stop in Malta during their crossing of the Mediterranean, even though spring hunting has been outlawed throughout Europe since 1979 by the EU's birds directive. Thousands of other birds, such as finches, are taken by bird trappers. The Maltese government, in deference to the country's powerful hunting lobby, has failed to enforce the directive, and is now in trouble with Brussels.

A leading Dutch politician says that his countrymen are far too ready to accept the government's infringement of their privacy under the guise of the war on terror. The leader of the D66 party, Alexander Pechtold, believes that a civil rights movement should be launched to protect personal freedom. Such a movement could then institute legal test cases if people's privacy were to violated. Mr Pechtold also warned that the current privacy situation could be abused were an unwanted regime to come to power in the Netherlands.

Alireza Shakouri settled for bronze in the men's 54-kilo competition after refusing to face a contestant representing the 'Zionist' regime in the semi-finals. Hadi Mosta'an also made the same decision when he came up against an Israeli opponent in the finals and opted for the silver.

The Exxon Valdez crash that dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil in Prince William Sound has been vividly re-created after 19 years in submissions to the Supreme Court. The two sides that will face each other Wednesday are arguing over whether an unprecedented $2.5 billion punitive damages award should stand. Punitive damages are assessed on top of actual damages to punish and deter misconduct.

Yesterday, in a move that will anger armchair conservationists worldwide, South Africa said that it would reintroduce culling for the first time since 1994 to control elephant numbers, which environmentalists say are threatening the country’s game reserves.

Beneath our eyes there is a troubled world of frightful and fascinating creatures. The water of even a small pool of water or on your kitchen floor contains an infinity of small beings ready to fight a tough battle for survival. To focus on this small world is like being transferred to a foreign universe, where any strange design, color or form seems possible. Volvox is one of the more beautiful forms of life of whatever can be observed the microscope. One type is a kind of microscopic seaweed, which usually grows forming colonies of spherical forms, surrounded by biflagellate and superficial cells united by cytoplasmic connections. The Vorticella is a protozoan (single-celled organism) living in fresh water. It has a crown of cilia in its oral apparatus. As you can see in the images, this allows them to form a current from which they extract the bacteria that they eat.

'08 IS RIGGED. -Don't Vote! A day after defeating Hillary Clinton in the February 19 Wisconsin primary and Hawaii caucuses, Barack Obama picked up the nomination of the 1.5 million-member Teamsters union. Support from the Teamsters was one of a number of important union endorsements received by the Illinois senator and Democratic Party presidential candidate over the past several weeks. The Guardian: Superdelegates switching allegiance to Obama. Just Politics: MEET OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY ADVISORS. You Tube: WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING [Video].

Thousands of Palestinians formed a human chain today in a peaceful protest against the international blockade of the Gaza Strip. Men, women and children holding both Palestinian and Hamas flags turned out for a protest which organisers linked to the ruling Hamas movement claimed had attracted some 50,000 people. PIC: Gaza children form longest human chain worldwide. HaAretz: Mass Gaza march puts Hamas in a win-win situation. Reuters: Israel threatens deadly force to stop protesters. PIC: Hamas warns occupation of using force against the peaceful "human chain".

The New York Philharmonic arrived Monday in North Korea on a historic trip, becoming the most prominent American cultural institution to visit the isolated, nuclear-armed country. North Korea made unprecedented accommodations for the orchestra, allowing a delegation of nearly 300 people, including musicians, staff and journalists to fly into Pyongyang for 48 hours. The Philharmonic's concert Tuesday will be broadcast live on North Korea's state-run TV and radio, unheard of in the impoverished country, where all events are carefully choreographed to bolster the personality cult of leader Kim Jong Il. AFP: NY Philharmonic brings musical diplomacy to NKorea. BBC: The New York Philharmonic will showcase the vitality of American music.

Obama calls him just a 'perennial presidential candidate'; Clinton agrees he's unlikely to have much influence on the campaign. WSWS: Ralph Nader announces 2008 presidential campaign.

Carine Desir, 44, who was returning home to New York from Haiti on board an American Airlines flight last Friday, had complained of not feeling well after she ate a meal, according to Antonio Oliver, a cousin who was travelling with the woman and her brother, Joel Desir. A flight attendant gave her water but a few minutes later, Miss Desir said that she was having trouble breathing and asked for oxygen. The flight attendant twice refused her request, Mr Oliver said. After the flight attendant allegedly refused to administer oxygen to Miss Desir, she became distressed, pleading, “Don’t let me die,” Mr Oliver recalled. Associated Press: Dead Woman's Cousin Blames Jet Equipment. NYT: Woman, 44, Dies on Plane With 2 Empty Oxygen Tanks.

According to the Dallas Star-Telegram, the Secret Service gave an order to stop screening for weapons for a full hour before the February 20 Barack Obama rally in Dallas. Metal detectors were turned off, and bags were not checked, as hundreds were allowed to file into Reunion Arena. This bizarre activity “ordered by federal officials,” was immediately reported by an alarmed Dallas Police Department, which knew that it was a “lapse in security." Star-Telegram: Secret Service defends security strategy at rally in Reunion Arena.

Raul Castro, Cuba's first new president in nearly half a century, crushed hopes that a new generation would shape the country's future by promising to defer to his ailing brother Fidel and the Communist Party's old guard on major matters. Shunning younger candidates, the island's parliament tapped 77-year-old revolutionary leader Jose Ramon Machado for the government's No. 2 spot, meaning Raul Castro's constitutional successor is even older than he is, by a year.

Iran voiced defiance on Monday as Western powers pushed for new sanctions over its nuclear program, saying high oil prices will cushion the blow. The United States, Britain and France are pushing for a United Nations Security Council vote on a third round of sanctions this week because they fear Iran seeks an atomic bomb. But an Iranian minister was quoted as saying the economy of the world's fourth-largest oil producer would not be hurt. AFP: In Japan, Israeli PM calls for action on Iran. The Guardian: Israel's weapons - a diplomatic no-go area.

Pakistan's former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wants the country's deposed judges to decide the fate of President Pervez Musharraf after they are reinstated. ``The government's first step will be the reinstatement of judges,'' Sharif told a televised news conference in the capital, Islamabad, today. ``The judges should decide Musharraf's case before we take any decision to impeach him.'' Yahoo: Musharraf dismisses exit talk.

On a windswept Arctic island 1000 kms from the North Pole, a group of Norwegian engineers and scientists have been constructing a gigantic seed bank inside a frozen mountain. To be managed by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, a group dedicated to the ongoing diversity of plants through a variety of genetic strains, the International Seed Bank will open this week. Known as the Doomsday vault, the seed bank has the capacity to hold 4.5 million batches of seeds from all known varieties of the planet's main food crops -- more than "...twice as many varieties of agricultural crops as we think exist," says Dr Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust and project mastermind. The Daily Green: Doomsday Seed Bank Opens This Week. High Plains Journal: ARS contributes seeds to Global Storage Vault in Norway.

The violent reaction from the Serbian "street" to Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence is "blowback" – as the writer Chalmers Johnson terms it – with a vengeance, and we have not yet experienced the worst of it. The U.S. attack on Kosovo has come back to haunt Washington, and not just with the burning of the American embassy in Belgrade. A chain reaction is setting in, and its effects cannot be confined to the Balkans. The unrest is already spreading to Austria – and beyond.

Way back in 1988 my co-authors and I were putting the final touches to our book, Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans when someone slipped us a plain brown envelop. Inside was a transcript of a meeting between thrift regulators and five US senators who had interceded on behalf of Arizona S&L owner Charles Keating. At the time the regulators were warning that Keating's thrift, Lincoln Savings and Loan, was dangerously insolvent and that Keating and his cohorts -- including then junk bond king, Mike Milken, were robbing the federally-insured thrift blind -- or, more precisely, robbing the US taxpayers blind. Consortium News: Is John McCain a Liar?

A fresh row erupted over the use of British air bases by US authorities as it emerged a plane used by the CIA has landed at an RAF airstrip in the past week. A Gulfstream IV jet, identified by Amnesty International as a plane linked to the US intelligence agency, landed at RAF Northolt in west London. The jet, registration N134BR, which flew from Morristown, New Jersey, to Britain, landed on Wednesday and returned on Friday. It was also seen at Luton airport in January. The Guardian: Much to be sorry for. USA Today: Parcels, bus fuel questions on Romania's CIA role.

Grinding poverty and the escalating war is driving an increasing number of Afghan families to sell their daughters into forced marriages. Girls as young as six are being married into a life of slavery and rape, often by multiple members of their new relatives. Banned from seeing their own parents or siblings, they are also prohibited from going to school. With little recognition of the illegality of the situation or any effective recourse, many of the victims are driven to self-immolation – burning themselves to death – or severe self-harm. The People's Voice / Tehelka: Waiting For Development On Empty Stomachs.

Adobe has launched software designed to make it easier for computer users to use online applications offline. Adobe Air allows developers to build tools that still have some functionality even when a computer is no longer connected to the net.

Giant ships waltzed on the water, footballers tapdanced through a grand final, and on stage Billy Elliot learned the finer points of ballet. And as a month of Sundays were jammed into one, Sydneysiders were led on the merriest dance of all if they wanted to do the lot. Fancy footwork was required, keeping time and dodging collisions in a traffic jam of hot, harried but eager pedestrians. The McLaughlin family, from Avoca Beach, set themselves the challenge, and barely missed a beat as they skipped from harbour to theatre to football stadium under a perfect sky. Others favoured a rhythm less frenetic, a simple jig in the one spot. Sydney Morning Herald: She rules the waves.

Pakistan's attempts to block access to YouTube have been blamed for an almost global blackout of the video website for more than an hour on Sunday. BBC News has learned that the outage was almost certainly connected to Pakistan Telecom and Asian internet service provider PCCW.

Russian Military Analysts are reporting in the Kremlin today that the United States has, for the first time in its history, granted rights to a Foreign Army to have ‘full power’ over the life and death of American Citizens in their own country.

A former Navy sailor faces a trial beginning Monday on terrorism charges alleging he communicated with suspected terrorists while on duty and leaked information that could have doomed his own ship.

House Democratic leaders came under criticism Saturday from President Bush who said they are blocking intelligence legislation so lawyers can sue telephone companies for helping the government eavesdrop on suspected terrorists. The statement said new surveillance activities under existing warrants will resume.

Stereotypical media representations of rape are damaging conviction rates when cases come to court, according to a Home Office funded study.

Western oil giants are poised to enter southern Iraq to tap the country's vast reserves, despite the ongoing threat of violence, according to Gordon Brown's business emissary to the country.

Independent candidate Ralph Nader has announced that he is entering the US presidential race, a move which many Democrats fear could deprive their party of vital votes.

At least 40 people have been killed in a suicide blast in Iskandariya, a town located 50km south of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

Yes it’s true!! Palestinians are second class citizens in Israel even if they hold Israeli citizenship. Finally an admission of this by a leading member of the Israeli Parliament…Hopefully this will be a step towards changing the situation… recognition of a problem is often the road to eliminating it…. we can hope. St. Pete for Peace: American Media Ignores or Downplays Negative Reports on Israel.

Using data from the Global Integrity Index, we put a U.S. court's recent order to block access to anti-corruption site Wikileaks.org into context. In summary: The Wikileaks.org shutdown is unheard of in the West, and has only been seen in a handful of the most repressive regimes. Good thing it doesn't work very well. Wikileaks: SUPPORT OUR FIRST AMENDMENT CASE TO APPEAL BUSH APPOINTEE JUSTICE WHITE'S ORDER TO CENSOR WIKILEAKS.ORG! NewsGrist: Feeble Shut-down of Wikileaks.org Tests First Amendment: The site itself could still be accessed at its Internet Protocol (IP) address (http://88.80.13.160/) -- the unique number that specifies a Web site-s location on the Internet. Wikileaks also maintained "mirror sites," which are copies of itself, usually to insure against outages and this kind of legal action. These sites were registered in countries like Belgium (http://wikileaks.be), Germany (wikileaks.de), and the Christmas Islands (http://wikileaks.cx) through domain registrars other that Dynadot, and so were not affected by the injunction. Comment by Joseph A. Davis, Ph.D.: The narrative we are getting in the press... and much of the 1st Amendment press... is that federal District Judge Jeffrey S. White silenced or shut down the Wikeleaks website for anonymous whistleblowers. That's only partly true. Seems hizzoner, not really smart enough to do much other than what the tax-dodge Julius Baer Bank instructs him to do, lacks the competence to shut the site down effectively. What he did, at request of Baer, is turn off the DNS resolution of the wikileaks domain name. The Domain Name Server is what matches the real internet address (the IP address) to the domain name ("wikileaks.org). The site is still there, but you can only browse it if you already know the IP address. Point your browser to http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks . It's still there. Totally there. There are also foreign nation mirrors of the site. Yes it's prior restraint and yes it's bad. Although, no, maybe it's not a cause for the Force. Still, one way to deprive the book burners of their powers of intimidation is to laugh -- not at how corrupt and servile they are -- but at how stupid they are. Judge White sounds like one of those people (like Ted Stevens, who had jurisdiction over the whole internet, or George Bush, who appointed White) who really doesn't know how to work their e-mail client. Probably still trying to figure out Windows.

Three Palestinian civilians were killed by an Israeli missile strike near the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun on Saturday, medical and Hamas officials said. Family members of the three men killed, identified them as an employee of a Jordanian bank, a former government employee, and a student. PCHR: Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory + The People's Voice / PIC: Israel is lying to the world about Gaza.

Thousands of Turkish army troops crossed the border with Iraq Friday in a major military operation against guerrilla forces of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which has fought for decades against the Turkish state, seeking a separate state for the 15 million Kurds who inhabit southeastern Turkey.

A B-2 stealth bomber plunged to the ground shortly after taking off from an air base in Guam on Saturday, the first time one crashed, but both pilots ejected safely, Air Force officials said. The aircraft was taking off with three others on their last flight out of Guam after a four-month deployment, part of a continuous U.S. bomber presence in the western Pacific. After the crash, the other three bombers were being kept on Guam, said Maj. Eric Hilliard at Hickham Air Force Base in Hawaii. HuffPo: B-2 Stealth Bomber Crashes on Guam. AeroSpaceWeb: Specific Info on Stealth Bombers. + Stealth Technology in general HERE [WikiPedia].

In some ways life has changed little for Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, since Monday's election. The retired general still trots out for afternoon tennis, aides say, and enjoys a game of bridge a few times a week. In the evenings he pulls on a cigar and, although he can't admit it, nurses a glass of whisky. Int. Herald Tribune: Pakistan opposition coalition is setback for Musharraf and U.S. Dawn.com: Musharraf has a role in new set-up: US. WSWS: Pakistan’s leading opposition parties to form national coalition government.

Violent protests rocked Serb-dominated northern Kosovo on Friday, as mobs chanting "Kosovo is ours!" hurled stones, bottles and firecrackers at U.N. police guarding a bridge that divides Serbs from ethnic Albanians. The scenes evoked memories of the carnage unleashed by former Serb autocrat Slobodan Milosevic the last time Kosovo tried to break away from Serbia, which considers the territory its ancestral homeland. Int. Herald Tribune: Tensions high as Serbs reject Kosovo independence. Global Research: Opening a Pandora's Box: Kosovo "Independence" and the Project for a "New Middle East".

Passengers travelling between EU countries or taking domestic flights would have to hand over a mass of personal information, including their mobile phone numbers and credit card details, as part of a new package of security measures being demanded by the British government. The data would be stored for 13 years and used to "profile" suspects. The Liberal Democrat MEP Sarah Ludford said: "Where is this going to stop? There's no mature discussion of risk. As soon as you question something like this, you're soft on terrorism in the UK and in the EU."

The inhabitants of the picturesque Daringbadi in Orissa continue to die of malnutrition, writes BIBHUTI PATI. On December 26 2008 Naveen Patnaik and the BJD celebrated 10 years of the party in style in the state capital, Bhubaneswar. Having had two terms in office, the leaders patted themselves on the backs for the steps taken for the development of the state. ‘Development’ has always been talked about during the last few years, as the tribals in Phulbani will tell you. On December 23 2002, 14 deaths were reported from Soramuli, Katingia, Kumbharigaon, Lambokiari, Gochha and Bhutedi of Daringbadi block. Of the 14 dead, 4 were children. The reason: starvation had forced these people to take to inedible substances. The condition of 50 children admitted to Baliguda Hospital was said to be critical. While one Latapati Majhi alone lost four in her family, the local MLA and the district administration admitted to only a total of 5 deaths. India9.com: Orissa -Former kingdom of Kalinga.

It’s really simple; but somehow, though, the Americans and the Israelis just don’t get it. Both countries are accusing Iran of having a nuclear weapons program but if they have evidence that Iran is producing, or planning to produce, nuclear weapons then WHY DON’T THEY HAND OVER THE EVIDENCE TO EL BARADEI? Answer: Because there is no evidence! The Guardian: Israel's weapons - a diplomatic no-go area.

It should come as no surprise that the nominally British island of Diego Garcia has been the scene of gross human rights abuses (Embarrassed Miliband admits two US rendition flights refuelled on British soil, February 22). In 1966 the government signed a covert agreement with the US to remove the 1,500 native Chagossians. Their pets were gassed and their possessions confiscated to cajole them into leaving for the Seychelles, where they were imprisoned, before being dumped on the docks in Mauritius. Denied their rightful British citizenship and reasonable compensation, they were reduced to abject poverty and a soaring mortality rate. This was so that the US could build an airbase named, ironically, Camp Justice. Peoples Geography: Home: justice for the Chagos Islanders. Travel-Images: Images of Chagos Island.

Let us celebrate the dropping of 4.6 million cluster bombs/bomblets over Lebanon during the 2006 war or the deliberate targeting of Lebanon’s infrastructure and even UN buildings. Let us celebrate the Israeli siege on Gaza and the deliberate deprivation of 1.5 million innocent civilians of medical treatment and food or the spraying of Palestinians and their crops with poisonous gas in order to ethnically cleanse them.

BAGHDAD - What the US has been calling the success of a "surge," many Iraqis see as evidence of catastrophe. Where US forces point to peace and calm, local Iraqis find an eerie silence.

Next week will mark the official opening of what has been referred to as both the 'Doomsday Vault' and more optimistically as the 'Noah's Ark' for seeds. On Tuesday (26 February) European Commission President Jose Barroso and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg are to attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony opening a seed vault – a massive storehouse for food plant seeds that aims to preserve biodiversity in the face of global warming and natural disasters. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault has been built to store 4.5 million different agricultural seed samples from around the world at -18 degrees Celsius. "The seed vault is the perfect place for keeping seeds safe for centuries," said Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust, which has helped establish the vault along with Norway and the Nordic Gene Bank. "At these temperatures, seeds for important crops such as wheat, barley and peas can last for up to 10,000 years," he said. The Tribune: Fort Collins plays role in doomsday seed vault.

The UN Security Council has condemned "in the strongest terms" attacks by protesters against embassies in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Serbs angered by Western support for Kosovo's declaration of independence set fire to parts of the US embassy. An unidentified charred body was found inside. The US has denounced the "thugs" who carried out the attack. USA Today: Body believed to be rioter found in U.S. Embassy. Bloomberg: U.S. Protests to Serbia After Rioters Storm Embassy in Belgrade. USA Today: Kosovo prez looks to NATO for help. Online Journal: Balkan intrigues: Kosovo's declaration of independence sends shockwaves around the world. The People's Voice: "NATO has become the aggressor": The Case of Kosovo and Metohija.

The incursion, backed by the Turkish air force, began around 7 p.m. Thursday and is going after specific Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in Iraq. Turkey has been taking cross-border military action against the PKK after the group launched attacks on targets in Turkey from bases in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Reuters: Turkey launches land offensive into Iraq.

The George W Bush administration lost no time reiterating its support of President Pervez Musharraf following the February 18 parliamentary elections. There is bipartisan consensus in Washington that in the given circumstances, the United States has very little leeway other than depending on Musharraf and the Pakistani military. The leading Republican contender in the US presidential race, Senator John McCain, bluntly rejected the calls for Musharraf's resignation, even calling the Pakistani leader "a legitimately elected president". AFP: Pakistan moderate urges foreign aid to keep Islamists on run. WaPo: U.S. Payments To Pakistan Face New Scrutiny. DefenseLink.mil: DSCA-67 DEFENSE SECURITY COOPERATION AGENCY (DSCA) Global War on Terror Operations and Maintenance, Defense Wide Budget Activity 04, Administrative and Service-Wide Activities. Alternatively, the doc is available as a .pdf HERE. Here are the staggering numbers (-Remember, these are your tax $$$): Center for Public Integrity: Coalition Support Fund (CSF).

The US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has been caught conducting covert propaganda attacks on the internet. The attacks, exposed by government transparency group Wikileaks, include deleting detainees' ID numbers from Wikipedia, the systematic posting of unattributed "self praise" comments on news organization web sites in response to negative press, boosting pro-Guantanamo stories on the internet news site Digg and even modifying Fidel Castro's encyclopedia article to describe the Cuban president as "an admitted transexual" [sic]. Mercury News: Misguided judge pulls plug on Wikileaks. CFAC.org: Federal judge’s order shutting down wikileaks.org, a whistleblower website, is 1st Amendment travesty.

According to the New Yorker's Paul Kramer, here's what A.F. Miller of the 32nd Volunteer Infantry Regiment wrote in a letter to the Omaha World-Herald in May 1900 from the Philippines about the treatment of a prisoner taken by his unit: "Now, this is the way we give them the water cure. Lay them on their backs, a man standing on each hand and each foot, then put a round stick in the mouth and pour a pail of water in the mouth and nose, and if they don't give up pour in another pail. They swell up like toads. I'll tell you it is a terrible torture."

In tones freighted with frustration, Britain’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, on Thursday told the House of Commons that “contrary to earlier explicit assurances” the Central Intelligence Agency had confirmed using an American-operated airfield on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for refuelling two American rendition flights carrying "terrorism suspects" in 2002. WireDispatch: CIA confirms rendition flights to Brits. The Guardian: CIA rendition.

'08 IS RIGGED. -Don't Vote! Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tried to raise doubts about surging rival Barack Obama on Thursday but said in an emotional debate finale that "whatever happens, we're going to be fine." Clinton, her political life on the line based on whether she can win big victories in Texas and Ohio on March 4, questioned Obama's readiness to become commander-in-chief, said he has a weak resume and criticized him for borrowing rhetoric for his uplifting campaign speeches. SF Gate: Clinton manages only a draw in debate. Clinton and Obama Debate Once More, and Does It Matter? Boston.com: Why Obama is beating Hillary. You Tube: Electronic Elections: Vote Fraud in the 21st Century.

If history is any indication, we may already be on the road to violent revolution. Conservatives finally created enough misery to make it possible.

Voters generally don’t pick a presidential candidate on the basis of a single issue--nor should they. But with the presidential campaign accelerating toward potentially decisive primaries in the next few weeks, it’s worth considering how the leading contenders compare in their commitment to First Amendment rights.

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Systematic Attacks against Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) 6 Palestinians, including a child, were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip. 2 Palestinians died from previous injuries in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. 13 Palestinians, including a woman and a journalist, were injured by IOF gunfire. IOF conducted 23 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and another 2 incursions into the Gaza Strip. IOF arrested 48 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank. IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT. One patient died because IOF obstructed her access to medical treatment in the West Bank. IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attacks Palestinian civilians and property.

19 Feb 2008 briefing to State leaders on the shoot down of a United States spy satellite over US territory, written at the For Official Use Only level. Powerpoint presentation by DHS/FEMA. The file has been converted to PDF format by Wikileaks. Title "Space Object Rentry State Leadership Briefing DHS/FEMA region IX." Forensic analysis of the document meta data, which Wikileaks has had to remove to protect the source, leads us to say with high confidence that the document is genuine. Mercury News: Misguided judge pulls plug on Wikileaks. CFAC.org: Federal judge’s order shutting down wikileaks.org, a whistleblower website, is 1st Amendment travesty.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday the United States is prepared to share with China some of the information it has about the U.S. shootdown of a spy satellite. His comments came hours after Beijing complained Wednesday's missile strike could cause harm to security in outer space and some countries.

More than 120 nations trying to negotiate a treaty banning most cluster bombs failed to reach agreement in talks that ended Friday in New Zealand but achieved good progress, officials said. New Zealand Disarmament Minister Phil Goff was upbeat about this week's talks, saying all parties involved had agreed to continue the process despite the lack of unanimity. Eighty-two countries have signed up to attend the final round of talks in Dublin, Ireland. Scoop: Cluster Bomb Victims: Real-life stories.

Soldiers and aid workers rushed relief supplies Friday to tens of thousands of people forced from their homes by a week of flash floods and landslides lashing the eastern Philippines, as the death toll rose to 20, officials said. After drenching Eastern Samar province, about 350 miles southeast of Manila, heavy rains carried by a low pressure system moved west to the Bicol region, where authorities ordered the evacuation of about 70,000 people, the National Disaster Coordinating Council in Manila said in a statement. Many of those evacuated in Bicol lived on the slopes of Mayon volcano. Officials fear rains and floods could trigger volcanic mudslides, which have buried villages in the past. The extreme weather has killed at least 20 people since Feb. 12, most from drowning, while two have been injured and five have disappeared, the council said.

Rescue crews were sent Friday to find a commercial airliner carrying 46 people that disappeared in southwestern Venezuela. Officials feared the worst after residents reported hearing a crash in the mountains.

Britain and France formally introduced a Security Council resolution Thursday calling for a third round of sanctions against Iran over its failure to suspend uranium enrichment. The Guardian: Israel's weapons - a diplomatic no-go area.

American icon Willie Nelson says he supports efforts to impeach President Bush and “throw the bastards out,” adding that the administration will do anything to stay in power, including staging an event to cancel the election. In his second appearance this month, Nelson told The Alex Jones Show today that he supported Dennis Kucinich’s attempt to impeach Bush, adding, “If you break the law you have to pay for it one way or another and if these guys haven’t broke the law nobody has.”

When Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says the economic situation is worsening, you'd better believe him. In fact, the U.S. credit markets are collapsing under our very eyes, and there is no end in sight as to when this will stop, let alone reverse itself.

In case the YouTube video is removed, download the video file HERE. It can be played with VLC Player. [http://clintjcl.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/]

"The paradigm that best describes what is happening on the ground in Iowa, New Hampshire, and beyond, isn't 'right' versus 'left,' 'Christianism' versus secularism, or red-versus-blue state mindsets, but populist demands for change against our hidebound, insular, arrogant elites in the media as well as in government. And no issue has underscored the growing chasm between the people, on the one hand, and the Washington-New York axis of power, on the other, than the war in Iraq. The intersection of the war, as an issue, with the growing populist rebellion against the status quo portends a revolution."

A 28-mile "virtual fence" that will use radars and surveillance cameras to try to catch people entering the country illegally has gotten final government approval. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Friday was to announce approval of the fence, built by the Boeing Co. and using technology the Bush administration plans to extend to other areas of the Arizona border, as well as sections of Texas. These projects could get under way as early as this summer, officials said. The virtual fence is part of a national plan to secure the southwest border with physical barriers and high-tech detection capabilities intended to stop illegal immigrants on foot and drug smugglers in vehicles. As of Feb. 8, 295 miles of fencing had been constructed. The virtual fence already is working.

"A Republican operative in Alabama says Karl Rove asked her to try to prove the state's Democratic governor was unfaithful to his wife in an effort to thwart the highly successful politician's re-election," CBS's Scott Pelley reports for 60 Minutes. "Rove's attempt to smear Don Siegelman was part of a Republican campaign to ruin him that finally succeeded in imprisoning him, says the operative, Jill Simpson."

The Shreveport police union board Wednesday publicly disputed a nationally publicized officer firing as federal agencies stepped in to investigate brutality accusations. The FBI and the U.S. attorney's and Caddo district attorney's offices are looking into injuries 42-year-old Mooringsport resident Angela Garbarino received while in Shreveport police custody after her arrest Nov. 17 on charges of drunken driving and hit and run. After discussions with Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover and Caddo District Attorney Paul Carmouche, Police Chief Henry Whitehorn said the case will be reviewed by the district attorney's office, and the U.S. attorney's office advised the government will open its own investigation. Please check out our Video Section.

All footage contained in this film constitutes 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. "Electronic Elections: Vote Fraud in the 21st Century" is a short-format viral video is designed to draw attention to one of the many urgent problems surrounding our modern voting system - the clear and present danger of electronic vote fraud.

John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was last night romantically linked to a 40-year-old female political lobbyist and accused of granting her clients political favours. Mr McCain, 71, fiercely denied a report in the New York Times which stated that eight years ago, during his first run for the White House, his aides were so concerned about his relationship with Vicki Iseman that they blocked her access to him to "protect the candidate from himself".

When Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton meets Senator Barack Obama at a one-on-one debate in Austin on Thursday night, one of her final opportunities to change the course of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, she will again face the challenge that has repeatedly stymied her: how to discredit her popular opponent without hurting herself. KansasCity.com: Odds against Clinton grow longer and longer. Consortium News: Hillary Clinton's Options: At this moment, Sen. Hillary Clinton has three options, two of which are acceptable, one of which would be disastrous for her and the Democratic Party.

The Wisconsin defeat for Hillary Clinton means that she has to win big on March 4 - and may campaign more negatively. A few months back, as Barack Obama’s campaign was just beginning to look like it might seriously challenge Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions, a senior Obama campaign official sent a warning to his staff. It was a succinct message designed to forewarn and forearm his people against what was expected to be a ferocious onslaught from an increasingly desperate Clinton campaign. WaPo: As Crucial Tests Loom, Clinton Hits Harder. Consortium News: Clintons Plumb Absurd Depths: Like the Bushes, the Clintons seem to believe they have some special entitlement to the White House, and thus whatever they do to get there is justified. The two ruling families function with a monarchical air that is unique – or foreign – to the American experience.

A year after the surge began, disgruntled Sunni, Shiite and, increasingly, Kurdish factions are seething with resentment toward the cynical manipulation and false promises made by the Bush White House and US commander General David Petraeus. The political alienation is intensified by the social catastrophe that continues to afflict the vast majority of the population. For all the talk of “reconstruction”, millions of people lack jobs, clean water, adequate food, fuel, electricity and sewerage. The ebb in the anti-occupation insurgency over the past six months may prove to be short-lived.

Coleman [...] asked [Scalia's] opinion on torture, saying that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment” would seem to make the issue “a no-brainer.” Scalia disagreed. Referring to “so-called torture,” he said, “Smacking someone in the face to find out where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles” is not prohibited by the Constitution. In arguing that the Constitution allowed for torture, Scalia was making clear that he considered the practice acceptable for all prisoners, whether or not they are US citizens.

Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish American political scientist and author, specializing in Jewish-related issues and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular talks about the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and openly supports and praises their resistance: "They (Hezbollah) show courage, they show discipline, I respect that". On Israeli defeat and consequential withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, Finkelstein says:"But the reality was -- and everyone understood it -- that the Israeli attitude was: We are going to knock out Hizbullah. They began planning for a new war right after they were forced to leave in 2000. They found their excuse, their pretext, in July 2006, but there is no question among rational people that Israel was never going to let the Hizbullah victory go by." "There is no way that the United States and Israel are going to tolerate any resistance (to their hegemony) in the Arab world." On the damage caused to Lebanon as a result of the resistance: "It's better to die on your feet than to walk crawling on your knees....how can I not respect those (Hezbollah) who say they would rather die on their feet? How can I not respect that?"

Israel, unlike Saddam Hussein's Iraq, never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the 1970 agreement which allows countries to develop civilian nuclear power in exchange for forgoing weapons. These are supposed to be the preserve of the five permanent members of the UN security council. In recent years India, Pakistan and North Korea have swelled the ranks of the weapons states, but unlike them Israel has never come out of the nuclear closet, preferring a policy of so-called nuclear ambiguity - keeping its enemies guessing.

With heartbreak, Muoen al-Wadia, a Palestinian father of six, looks at his amputated leg in his room at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City in northern Gaza Strip. His sons and daughters are standing by, woefully looking at him. On Jan. 15, the 48-year-old mechanic was at his workshop in southeastern Gaza City where Israeli tanks operated nearby. He rushed out to evacuate a man who was wounded when an Israeli missile exploded. But as soon as al-Wadia got there, an Israeli tank shell landed, killing the injured man and seriously wounding al-Wadia. "I saw his body scattered and torn ... And I lost much blood," he said. "This is my fate." Al-Wadia was rushed to al-Shifa hospital, the largest on in Gaza City, and survived the incident. But his left leg was cut and his right leg was also damaged. Uruknet: U.S.-backed baby-killing continues in Gaza. IMEMC / TruthSeeker: The Israeli army kills a 10 year old boy in central Gaza.

Detainee Mohammad Ammar Sbeitan from the northern West Bank city of Nablus and sentenced to seven months, stated that he is having ongoing pain due to a fracture in his skull which occurred in 2000, and that he is having headaches and cannot stand for an extended period. Ammar also stated that he also had three fingers amputated; a fracture in his arm, back pain and pain in his left leg, but is not receiving any medical treatment.

A new neighborhood comprising 27 trailers is currently under construction at the settlement of Eli, north of Ramallah, even though Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed publicly after the Annapolis conference that any such building would cease. Even though some of the trailers are being set up on land privately owned by Palestinians, the authorities are taking no action. Similar unauthorized construction has taken place in the settlement of Maskiot in the northern Jordan Valley. Haaretz: Israel is stealing Palestinian land, private or not.

Treason with a twist: Mohammad Nazzal, member of the Hamas executive committee, has revealed that that the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has requested of the Israeli government that it cross Marwan Bargouthi’s name off the list when it decides which Palestinian prisoners will be freed in exchange for the Israeli soldier Shalit. [The rest of this item in Spanish]

A missile interceptor launched from a Navy warship has struck a dying American spy satellite orbiting 130 miles over the Pacific Ocean, the Pentagon announced late Wednesday. Officials cautioned that while early information indicated that the interceptor’s “kill vehicle” had hit the satellite, it would be 24 hours before it could be determined whether the fuel tank with 1,000 pounds of toxic hydrazine had been destroyed as planned. Even so, one official who received a late-night briefing on the mission expressed confidence that the impact had been so powerful that the fuel tank probably had been ruptured.

This week’s election will leave President Pervez Musharraf weakened in his post, but continuing returns and haggling over the new government on Wednesday showed his opponents likely to fall short of the numbers needed to impeach him. The president dismissed calls for him to resign. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he was asked if he would quit or retire. “No, not yet,” he was quoted as saying. “We have to move forward in a way that we bring about a stable democratic government to Pakistan.” He said he would work “with any party and any coalition, because that is in the interest of Pakistan.”

Stanford University on Wednesday became the latest prominent university to expand financial aid well into the middle class. It announced that students from families earning less than $100,000 a year would not be charged tuition. Under the new system, which takes effect in the fall, families earning less than $60,000 would not pay for room and board. SF Gate: Financial aid war among elite universities.

It is impossible to keep up with all the Bush regime’s lies. There are simply too many. Among the recent crop, one of the biggest is that the "surge" is working. Launched last year, the "surge" was the extra 20,000-30,000 US troops sent to Iraq. These few extra troops, Americans were told, would finally supply the necessary forces to pacify Iraq. This claim never made any sense. Online Journal: How sick of it are you?

I put together a DVD with this clip and the Future of Freedom Conference with Ron Paul and the Judge. It is quite powerful. Anyone need some to pass along to neighbors?

President George W. Bush and his director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, are telling the American people that an unaccountable executive branch is necessary for their protection. Without the Protect America Act, Bush and McConnell claim, the executive branch will not be able to spy on terrorists, and we will all be blown up. Terrorists can only be stopped, Bush says, if Bush has the right to spy on everyone without any oversight by courts.

In a blatant act of corporate censorship, self-proclaimed 'progressive' media site OpEdNews.com has banned ZioPedia's Andrew Winkler as a contributing author without warning or explanation. This action was triggered by two articles Andrew submitted for publication.

Norway's Arctic archipelago of Svalbard was rudely awakened early Thursday morning by what's being called the strongest earthquake in Norwegian history. Aftenposten.no reported that the research institute NORSAR measured the quake at 6.2 on the Richter Scale, and placed its epicenter at Storfjorden, about 140 kilometers (84 miles) southeast of Longyearbyen. "I think this is the strongest earthquake in Norwegian territory in modern times," Conrad Lindholm, a senior researcher at NORSAR told Aftenposten.no. "This is historic." Scientific American: Norway's biggest quake hits Svalbard archipelago. USA Today: Record quake strikes waters off Norway. PressTV: Strong quake hits region off Norway.

Why are lawyers so greedy in their legal claims ? Words like "all" or "every" should not be allowed in legal language, without explicit caveats and qualifications, limiting their scope. Judge Jeffery S.White's approval of the first Restraining Order against WikiLeakS and the Domain Name Registrar Dynadot LLC was bad enough. His second one, a Proposed Amended Temporary Restraining Order, is even wider in scope and is remarkable for several features, which seem to betray an unfamiliarity and incompetence with the Internet, which is astonishing for someone who works in the internet savvy city of San Francisco. Mercury News: Misguided judge pulls plug on Wikileaks. CFAC.org: FEDERAL JUDGE’S ORDER SHUTTING DOWN WIKILEAKS.ORG, A WHISTLEBLOWER WEBSITE, IS 1ST AMENDMENT TRAVESTY.

Why did lawyers for a bank in the Cayman Islands ask a judge in essence to turn off the domain name of the Wikileaks site? Perhaps because they could not get the site shut down by more traditional means. Companies that believe they have some reason to have something taken off the Web routinely have their lawyers fire off letters to the Web hosting company of the site in question. In this case, Julius Baer Bank was interested in removing some of its internal documents that had ended up on Wikileaks, a site that exists to publish documents that someone would rather not see published. But Wikileaks had clearly planned ahead for this sort of thing. Hot Black Magazine: Whistle-blower site taken offline. This address may come in handy now: http://wikileaks.be/wiki/Wikileaks or this one: http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks. TechTree: Wikileaks: Still Standing: Little affected by last week's "temporary restraining order" slapped on Wikileaks, a website that allows whistleblowers to release obscured corporate and government documents for public scrutiny, users can still access the site's documents though its IP address (88.80.13.160) as well as domain names including wikileaks.ws, wikileaks.be, and wikileaks.cx. ZD Net: Judge orders WikiLeaks offline, then backs off. Wikileak / SpyBlog: Second Restraining Order against Wikileaks - does this also ban Bank Julius Baer's private customer internet access?

"I've known some guys who came back from Middle Eastern war zones, and they all sound like this guy; angry and VERY psychologically damaged. I can't really blame them; they've been put through the giant mind-warp which is war, but it doesn't make their actions good ones. The best way I heard one of them put it was this: "Yeah, the army builds character, but it's the wrong kind." --Anybody who automatically calls this video a fake either knows something I don't or they are in denial." [SafetyLight]

Fidel Castro, bedridden for 19 months, on Tuesday gave up the almost unlimited power he has wielded in Cuba for nearly 50 years, but whether the surprise announcement represented a historic change or a symbolic political maneuver remained unclear. It is expected that his brother Raúl, 76, will be officially named president, and some experts consider him more pragmatic. USA Today: U.S. Cuba policy could get new look. WSWS: FIDEL CASTRO RETIRES AS CUBAN PRESIDENT AFTER 49 YEARS IN POWER: The US government responded to the announcement with declarations making clear that, along with Castro, something else has survived since 1959—the hunger of the American ruling class to regain its semi-colonial domination over Cuba and return the island to its previous status as a sugar plantation and Mafia outpost, with perhaps the additional fillip of potentially lucrative oil and gas deposits.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, says he has no plans to resign, despite a sweeping victory by the opposition in the country's parliamentary elections. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Mr Musharraf said there was a need to move forward to help bring about a stable democratic government in Pakistan.

'08 IS RIGGED. -Don't Vote! Barack Obama cruised past a fading Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Wisconsin primary and Hawaii caucuses Tuesday night, gaining the upper hand in a Democratic presidential race for the ages. The twin triumphs made 10 straight for Obama, and left the former first lady in desperate need of a comeback in a race she long commanded as front-runner. NYT: Wisconsin and Hawaii Hand Victories to Obama.

Taiwan said on Wednesday it is recognizing Kosovo, in a move certain to anger diplomatic rival China which has resolutely opposed the Balkan region's independence from Serbia. "Kosovo declared independence on February 17 and the Republic of China (Taiwan) has formally recognized Kosovo with immediate effect," Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, using the island's official name. But the Foreign Ministry stopped short of saying whether it had forged formal diplomatic ties with Kosovo. WSWS: THE CASE OF KOSOVO: “SELF-DETERMINATION” AS AN INSTRUMENT OF IMPERIALIST POLICY + After the Slaughter: Political Lessons of the Balkan War.

Scientists investigating the icy waters of Antarctica said Tuesday they have collected mysterious creatures including giant sea spiders and huge worms in the murky depths. Australian experts taking part in an international program to take a census of marine life in the ocean at the far south of the world collected specimens from up to 6,500 feet beneath the surface, and said many may never have been seen before. Some of the animals far under the sea grow to unusually large sizes, a phenomenon called gigantism that scientists still do not fully understand.

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to hear an appeal brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups challenging the Bush administration’s warrantless domestic wiretapping program. [...] If the immunity provision passes, it will close of one of the few remaining legal avenues for challenging the illegal spying program.

The European Union Ambassador to Israel, Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal, criticized Israel on Monday for not easing the restrictions on the occupied West Bank, and added that Israel should have more faith in the Palestinian Authority. The French Press Agency reported that Cibrian told reporters in Jerusalem that the “European Union is "not comfortable with" the Israeli actions in the West Bank”. -Sorry to hear about his. I'm sure the Palestinians aren't either. Comfortable with Zionist state terror, that is.

Week-long rains have triggered landslides and floods across the eastern Philippines, leaving at least nine people dead, seven missing and tens of thousands displaced, aid officials said Wednesday. Most of the deaths occurred from drowning in Eastern Samar province since Feb. 15, when a low pressure area dumped heavy rains that caused flash floods and cut off major roads and damaged bridges, the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council and the Philippine Red Cross reported.

Sea levels in the Italian lagoon city of Venice plunged to a 14-year low this week, beaching some gondolas and exposing the canal-beds of famed waterways. The Centro Maree, whose forecasts are vital for organising transport in Venice, said a high-pressure system set off a "Code White" alert that signals low sea levels. [Comment by WhatReallyHappened:] "But, but, but, Al Gore said the ice caps were melting and we were all gonna drown if we did not pay the carbon tax!!!"

John McCain loves reporters, and the feeling is mutual: after all, he's great copy, has a fantastic narrative, and is always eager to make their jobs easier by giving them plenty of good quotes to chew over. The latest installment of the longest love affair in American politics appears in the New Yorker, in Ryan Lizza's "On the Bus," wherein McCain talks about everything under the sun: the campaign ("I just had my interrogation on Russert. It's a good thing I had all that preparation in North Vietnam!"); his recent contretemps over the Iraq "timetable" issue with Romney; and what he's reading these days – David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter, an account of the Korean War and the politics surrounding the darkest days of the Cold War.

The New York Times tells us Former President Bush Backs McCain in “a President’s Day endorsement.” George High Wire Bush called McCain “the best candidate to lead the country.” He dismissed the conservative criticism of McCain's candidacy as “absurd.” But don’t worry, the evangelicals feathers won’ be too ruffled. Junior will be there to soothe evangelical fund-raising pockets across the country, in important races for House and Senate, like Idaho and Kansas, not critical destinations for the nominee, but votes he could certainly use.

Steven Kazmierczak, who killed five students and himself at Northern Illinois University on Thursday, gave some strong clues in his final weeks that he could become violent, and learning to heed such clues might help prevent similar tragedies, mental health experts say. NYT: Gunman Hid His Tracks, Officials Say. Associated Press: Gunman's Contradictions Confound Police. This guy behaved like a MK Ultra mind control victim -like a "Manchurian candidate".

The price of crude oil closed over $100 for the first time yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, rattling stock markets and marking a milestone in the relentless rise in petroleum prices over the past five years.

Tonight's total lunar eclipse is going to be spectacular. Unfortunately, it's also probably going to be eclipsed. By clouds. "We've been wrong before, but our best model suggests there will be heavy, high clouds," said Thomas Matheson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, N.C. If the weather forecast is wrong, Grand Strand and Brunswick County, N.C., residents will be able to see the beginnings of the eclipse as the moon moves into the Earth's shadow at 8:43 p.m. today. The total eclipse begins at 10:01 p.m.; the mid-eclipse occurs at 10:26 p.m. and ends at 10:51 p.m.; and the waning partial eclipse will be over by 12:09 a.m. Thursday. Science Centric: Total lunar eclipse on 21 February.

An ailing Fidel Castro stepped aside as Cuba's leader Tuesday, ending nearly a half-century of rule that saw him become an arch-enemy of 10 U.S. presidents as head of one of the world's last communist nations. Castro, 81, announced his decision in a letter posted in the online edition of the Communist Party daily Granma, which has been his main form of communication since July 2006, when a crippling illness rendered him too weak to appear in public. Reuters: Fidel Castro retires.

Aides to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) accused Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) yesterday of plagiarizing portions of a recent speech and continued to question his vows to reform the campaign finance system as Clinton sought to drive home the idea that her Democratic rival's presidential bid is built on style more than substance. Associated Press: Clinton Camp Seeks to Undermine Obama. Salon.com: HILLARY FADING FAST AS OBAMA MOVEMENT BUILDS.

Hope mongering has been working much better than experience mongering. Now, the rest of the story...As befits American culture, politics is all about slick selling to the masses. Hillary Clinton is selling Day-1 help to victims and sufferers. Barack Obama is selling effervescent hope to yes-we-can dreamers. This media hyped horse race is like a fight between Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, artificially sweetened candidates devoid of real nourishment.

Shocking police station video of an argumentative woman who ended up unconscious in a pool of her own blood with two black eyes, a broken nose and broken teeth did not lead to criminal charges against the cop after officials claimed the woman "fell over."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday that it would step up oversight at 900 slaughterhouses in the USA to check for inhumane handling violations like those that led to the biggest meat recall ever on Sunday. "I don't have reason to believe this is widespread. But the extra checks will give us a better handle on it," said Kenneth Petersen, USDA assistant administrator. Associated Press: Beef Industry Responds to Secret Video. The People's Voice: Slaughterhouse video prompts unprecedented beef recall [Video]. WSWS: Largest beef recall in US history reveals compromised food supply... AND unethical practices with regard to the treatment of the animals; living beings have a right to be treated kindly.

Pakistan's opposition parties were poised to win parliamentary elections as voters sought an end to President Pervez Musharraf's eight years of military rule. "It seems, according to predictions, that the opposition has won," Tariq Azeem, a spokesman for the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-i-Azam, said by telephone from the capital, Islamabad. NYT: Pakistanis Deal Severe Defeat to Musharraf in Election.

The party of assassinated Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was heading toward victory Tuesday in crucial parliamentary elections that delivered a devastating defeat to embattled President Pervez Musharraf and his ruling party. Chicago Tribune: Pakistan opposition poised to win [+ Video].

Kosovo won the recognition of the United States and its biggest Western European allies on Monday, while earning rebukes and rejections from Serbia, Russia and a disparate mix of states the world over who face their own separatist movements at home. Yahoo: Superpower divide over Kosovo widens. WSWS: Deep divisions in Europe over Kosovo independence. BBC: Serbia recalls ambassador from US.

The new Kjell Henriksen Aurora Observatory on Svalbard has been officially opened by the Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher education, Tora Aasland. As part of our High North Strategy, the government aims to develop Svalbard as an international research platform. The new Kjell Henriksen Observatory will constitute an important contribution to the research infrastructure on Svalbard, Aasland says. The opening ceremony took place on Monday in front of the observatory, situated 500 metres above sea level on the Breinosa mountain outside Longyearbyen. The observatory is part of the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS). 70 guests from all over the world, including the Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang, join the minister and UNIS in the celebration of the new northern lights observatory. Research is one of the main pillars of Norwegian presence on Svalbard, and UNIS is one of the central actors. We believe the new observatory will form the basis for future international research cooperation, Aasland says. 16 scientific organizations from 7 nations are represented with instruments in the new observatory, among them the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, University College of London and the National Institute of Polar Research of Japan.

Mohamed al-Fayed waited more than 10 years for the day in open court when he could lay out his theory of high-level conspiracy in the deaths of Princess Diana and his son Dodi, her lover when both died in a Paris car crash in August 1997. When the moment came on Monday, in the fifth month of the long-delayed inquest into their deaths, Mr. Fayed, the 75-year-old owner of the Harrods department store, outdid himself with sensational new twists to his accusations that Britain’s royal family was behind the crash. USA Today: Al Fayed lashes out at Diana inquest. It certainly isn't beyond the Duke of Edinburgh to do something like this -he's an evil masonic bigwig. The Queen's amazing ability, however, not to see, hear or know...a gift of grace!

A suicide car bomber killed 38 Afghans at a crowded market Monday, pushing the death toll from two days of militant bombings to about 140. The marketplace blast, which targeted a Canadian army convoy, came a day after the country's deadliest insurgent attack since a U.S. invasion defeated the Taliban regime in late 2001. The toll from that bombing in a crowd watching a dog fight rose to more than 100. Wiredispatch: CHRONOLOGY-Bombing attacks in Afghanistan. Index Research: Dead in Afghanistan: May 2007. Norway Post: Norwegian troops in Afghanistan for seven more years.

Cops with automatic weapons and bomb-sniffing dogs will patrol Amtrak trains and randomly search carry-on bags in a dramatic tightening of security to be announced today. Although some riders were unhappy with the idea of guns on the trains, most welcomed the new "security" plan. Reuters: Amtrak to randomly screen bags and step up patrols.

Many Palestinian farmers from Al-Jabaa and Wadi Fuqeen villages had their land declared state land on 21 January 2008. However, they only found out about this by pure chance. The Palestinian farmers from the two villages, both situated southwest of Bethlehem, were cultivating their lands when they came across several Israeli military orders tossed on the dirt in their fields. It turned out that the orders had been issued by the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Land Property in the Israeli Army. POICA.org: “Declared as State Land”
New Israeli Military Orders Targeting Palestinian Lands in Al Jaba’a & Wadi Fukin villages Southwest Bethlehem city. All these issues are connected. Please connect the dots. PIC: Livni to Rice: Israel is to wage a large-scale military assault on Gaza. Haaretz: The demographic bomb is 1-2 years away.

The fully restored former refuge of President Abraham Lincoln was brought back into public view Monday during a Presidents Day ceremony. The president spent some of the country's darkest hours in the home where he lived from June to November of 1862, 1863 and 1864. The Civil War president ordered the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in those states which had seceded the Union, during his time at the cottage in 1862. On Monday it was buzzing with preservation enthusiasts. A tour through the expansive white home with dark shutters reveals a sparsely decorated space with simple wooden desks, chairs and love seats. CBS News: Lincoln's Private Getaway Reopens.

13129 malformed children have been born in Iraq in the last five years. Their deformities have been caused by American Depleted Uranium munitions used in the American led 1991 "Desert Storm" war with Irak launched after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. The war saw heavy use of depleted uranium rounds by American and British forces and was followed by a punitive sanctions regime enforced by the United Nations primarily at America’s behest. The sanctions included preventing Irak from importing drugs for the treatment of cancers and birth defects. The current war on Irak was launched on the pretext that Irak was failing to comply with sanctions and had weapons of mass destruction.

It is impossible to keep up with all the Bush regime's lies. There are simply too many. Among the recent crop, one of the biggest is that the "surge" is working. Launched last year, the "surge" was the extra 20,000-30,000 U.S. troops sent to Iraq. These few extra troops, Americans were told, would finally supply the necessary forces to pacify Iraq. This claim never made any sense. The extra troops didn't raise the total number of U.S. soldiers to more than one-third the number every expert has said is necessary in order to successfully occupy Iraq.

State prosecutor Richard Maidment, SC, has accused a Melbourne, Australia, based ‘terror group’ of plotting to kill then Prime Minister John Howard. Apparently they discussed the idea during a “religious lesson delivered by the group's leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika to one of his followers, Abdullah Merhi in September 2004”.

The largest Swiss bank specializing in hiding the assets of the ultra-rich, Bank Julius Baer, says it will file federal US proceedings against the transparency group Wikileaks by Friday. Over the last two weeks, Wikileaks has released several hundred documents from a Swiss banking whistleblower purportedly showing offshore tax evasion and money laundering by extremely wealthy and in some cases, politically sensitive, clients from the US, Europe, China and Peru. Part of the data was leaked to US and German tax authorities in 2005 and the Wall Street Journal ran an article on the act of leaking but not those mentioned in the material. The detail and specific allegations have previously been unavailable to the public. Wired.com: Cayman Islands Bank Gets Wikileaks Taken Offline in U.S.

A group of visiting German intellectuals called on Berlin on Monday to change what they termed its Holocaust-rooted blind support of Israel, saying the creation of the State of Israel turned Palestinians into victims of the Nazi Holocaust as well.

"This galaxy of little lights is created by thousands of living creatures. Any animal that lives in a cave has to cope with complete blackness, but in New Zealand, have turned this darkness to their advantage". The Waitomo Glowworm Cave is a cave on the North Island of New Zealand, known for its population of glowworms, Arachnocampa luminosa. These glowworms spin a nest out of silk on the ceiling of the cave and then hang down. Then, the larva glows to attract prey into its threads, so that the roof of a cave is covered with larva can look remarkably like the heavens at night. According to Wikipedia, a hungry larva glows brighter than one which has just eaten.

This undercover video of sick and crippled cows being brought to slaughter in an abattoir in southern California has prompted the largest recall of beef in US history, (writes Will Pavia). The US Department of Agriculture yesterday ordered that 143 million lb of beef from the slaughterhouse be recalled. Officials estimate that some 37 million lbs of the recalled meat had been heading to schools across America though they fear that most of it will have already been eaten. The abattoir run by the Hallmark Meat Packing Company, an associate and supplier of Westland Meat Company, which provides meat for America’s National School Lunch Programme, is now the subject of an an animal-abuse investigation. The video shows cows being dragged by the hoof behind a forklift truck, and distressed animals being lifted, rolled and shocked in an attempt to force them to stand. One clip shows a worker apparently attempting to force a cow to stand by forcing water down its throat. NYT: Largest Recall of Ground Beef Is Ordered.

Russia tried to block Kosovo's independence during a closed-door emergency session of the U.N. Security Council on Sunday, saying it is deeply concerned about the safety of Serbs living in the territory. The discussion of the 15-member council continued to expose divisions among members on the future of Kosovo. Russia backs its close ally Serbia, while the United States, Britain, France and other European Union members support Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians. USA Today: Russia denounces Kosovo declaration. The Guardian: Albanian celebrations leave Serbs defiant. WSWS: Kosovo’s declaration of independence destabilises Europe: Yesterday’s declaration of independence from Serbia by Kosovo’s parliament brings the world a step closer to another war on European soil. The move has been prepared and encouraged by the United States and the European powers in a deliberate attempt to stoke hostilities with Russia.

How did we manage to mire ourselves in the midst of Mesopotamia, enmeshed in a three-sided (at least) civil war, with vanishing hopes of extrication – and the putative Republican presidential nominee hailing a hundred-year occupation? The key to this mystery may be traced back to an earlier act of "liberation" effected through the vehicle of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Sunday's official declaration of independence by Kosovo – which will no doubt be immediately recognized by the United States and the EU nations, along with the Islamic bloc – underscores the folly of our interventionist foreign policy.

"We will reach out for anyone involved in perpetrating terrorism against Israelis, and we will not hesitate to attack them in order to stop them," he said. "That applies to everyone, first and foremost Hamas. Hamas is in charge of Gaza." Early Sunday, Israeli ground forces backed by aircraft entered Gaza. Three Palestinian "militants" and a civilian were killed in [the] clashes attack, and an Israeli soldier was seriously wounded. More than 20 people were wounded, including several "gunmen" and a 45-year-old civilian who was shot in the head, Palestinian health officials said. IMEMC: Israeli prime minister vows to further strike Gaza. Here are some of the "militants" that have been hit recently [photos]: Israeli State Terror is O.K.: This took place yesterday in the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip when an Israeli missile leveled a three-story house and damaged several houses next to it. Eight were murdered, including a brother and a sister aged 5 and 6. Over 50 were injured, including 17 children. Any protests from the U.S.? From the E.U.? From the U.N.? Of course not. Keep this in mind if a suicide bombing takes place in Israel. PIC: LIVNI TO RICE: ISRAEL IS TO WAGE A LARGE-SCALE MILITARY ASSAULT ON GAZA.

The Media Department of the Nafha Society for Defending the Rights of the Detainees and Human Rights, reported that the Israeli army kidnapped 300 residents since the beginning of February, during invasion to several parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. 32 children were among the kidnapped residents.

Americans traditionally thought of their country as a "city upon a hill," a "light unto the world." Today only the deluded think that. Polls show that the rest of the world regards the U.S. and Israel as the two greatest threats to peace. This is not surprising. In the words of Arthur Silber: "The Bush administration has announced to the world, and to all Americans, that this is what the United States now stands for: a vicious determination to dominate the world, criminal, genocidal wars of aggression, torture, and an increasingly brutal and brutalizing authoritarian state at home. That is what we stand for." Addressing his fellow Americans, Silber asks the paramount question: "why do you support these horrors"?

After a getting multiple e-mails about my quotes in Global Security Newswire and the New York Times, let me make my advice to the Bush Administration, who decided to shoot down USA 193, explicit: DON’T FREAKING DO IT.

Yet more updates from Sarah Meyer: False Flag? Brzezinski Testimony, Senate Foreign Relations Committee. See also: Senate Foreign Relations Commitee - February 1, 2007. If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Braving the threat of violence, voters began lining up this morning to cast their ballots in an election seen as crucial to whether this turbulent country returns to the path of democratic rule or lurches deeper into instability. Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. across Pakistan, the culmination of a weeks-long campaign marked by the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, suicide bombings by militants and allegations of widespread electoral irregularities. WSWS: Pakistan’s military regime stages sham election.

Imran Khan, president, Tehreek-e-Insaaf, tells HARINDER BAWEJA that he is boycotting the elections because that is one step forward towards real democracy. Why do you think it is so difficult for democracy to take root in Pakistan? -There is only one reason. Rather than moving towards democracy in 1947, Pakistan had the misfortune of losing its leader Quaid-e-Azam very early. The democratic structure having no clear leader, had no one to give it the push, and unfortunately while we were having teething trouble, the army took over. The army also took over for security reasons because they felt Pakistan would be swamped by India. It then gradually became a security State which meant that the army got more importance than it should have in this country. We had the army come into politics and we never really recovered from it. Democracy takes time, like in India, where it took 40 years for the effects of one party system to go. Really in the last 16 years, you find Indian democracy working and you’re seeing the fruits of that process. In Pakistan, we were never really allowed to go through that trial-and-error period because the army kept coming back and that’s why we are in this state right now.

Barack Obama sneaked down to North Carolina Sunday and met with former rival John Edwards, who has yet to make an endorsement in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Officials at North Carolina television station WTVD said they have video taken from a helicopter of Obama leaving Edwards' home in Chapel Hill. A producer said the station was "tipped off" about the meeting, but said the source was confidential. The Obama campaign confirmed the meeting. Although reporters normally travel everywhere with Obama, he left them behind to fly down in secret from his hometown.

More than 120 countries are meeting in New Zealand to discuss an agreement limiting the use of cluster bombs. The talks - launched last year - aim to smooth progress towards the signing of a global treaty later this year. But some major producers and buyers of cluster bombs - including the US, Israel, Russia and China - are absent.

A tropical cyclone gaining strength off Australia's northwest coast has forced mining companies and oil producers to shut down operations. Small coastal communities have also been evacuated or homes secured as residents braced themselves as Cyclone Nicholas was set to make landfall on Monday. Mining and oil companies shut down ports, railways and offshore oil rigs to minimise damage from the region's second powerful storm this season. Australian television footage of coastal communities showed homes being evacuated or residents strapping down belongings in preparation for the storm, the second to occur inside Australia's so-called "Cyclone Alley" during the November-to-March storm season. Bloomberg: Chevron Shuts Australian Oil Fields, Adds to Closures. The Age: Pilbara producers bunker down as cyclone heads for the coast.

'08 IS RIGGED. -Don't Vote!

The Harrods owner has long maintained the princess and his son were murdered in a conspiracy involving the security services and the Duke of Edinburgh.

New information has emerged about Steven Kazmierczak, the 27-year-old man who opened fire on a classroom at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in DeKalb last Thursday, fatally shooting five students before turning the gun on himself. As of this writing, at least six students remain hospitalized from wounds suffered in the attack, none in critical condition. AlterNet: Northern Ill. University: Was the Killer Crazy, or the Campus Hopeless? CNN: University shooter's girlfriend: 'I couldn't believe it' [Video].

The scalloped hammerhead shark, one of the ocean’s most distinctive and iconic species, is to be declared endangered because of the impact of over-fishing to feed a burgeoning market for shark fins in China. Populations of the shark, which was once considered among the most common top predators in coastal waters, have collapsed over the past 40 years to such an extent that it will be included on this year’s Red List of threatened species for the first time. Another eight shark species will also be added to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) assessment of extinction risk when the newest version is published in October. The Independent: Shark-fin soup trade threatens hammerheads. The Guardian: Shark species face extinction amid overfishing and appetite for fins.

It's George Galloway versus arch-Zionist and Israeli spy Richard Perle on Abu Dhabi TV. The voice-over is a bit distracting for those that don't know Arabic (or whatever it is), but it's well worth a watch to see Galloway totally checkmate Richard "The Prince of Darkness" Perle, who can only respond by complaining that Galloway is being too personal with him.

Far away from the glittering salons of Bombay and Delhi, away from its obsessions with booming malls and plummeting stocks, a good man waits in jail. He’s Doctor Love: Binayak talks urgently of famine and inclusive growth through iron bars been in for nine months. But it is unlikely that the story of Dr Binayak Sen would have caught your attention. He’s been written about in bits. Some channels have covered him.

Canada's Defence Department has approached the Pentagon about obtaining as many as six refurbished U.S. army battlefield helicopters for use in Afghanistan, defence sources tell The Canadian Press. The request for information was made as part of a worldwide search for medium-lift transport to get Canadian soldiers off the dangerous highways and biways of Kandahar. Almost two years ago, Canada's air force was offered, but turned down access to used Chinooks under a program called Cargo Helicopter Alternate Procurement Strategy, or CHAPS. With the Manley commission laying down helicopters as a requirement for extending Canada's mission, defence officials are scrambling to fill the order.

Heavy snowfall left about 200 villages cut off across Greece, Monday, and forced airport authorities to cancel dozens of flights. Civil defense authorities were on alert, and problems with power and water supply were reported across the country as Greece was gripped by the second day of a winter storm. Schools and universities were shut throughout the greater Athens area and in many other parts of Greece. About 200 villages, most on the southern island of Crete, were cut off by the heavy snowfall. Between four to six inches of snow blanketed the center of Athens, an unusual occurrence in Greece. Near central Athens' snow-covered Acropolis, only cars using snow chains could use the roads.