An Iranian envoy said Monday his government will not submit to extensive nuclear inspections while Israel stays outside the global treaty to curb the spread of atomic weapons. "The existing double standard shall not be tolerated anymore by non-nuclear-weapon states," Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told a meeting of the 190 countries that have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

At least 4,000 people are now believed to have been killed and about 3,000 more are missing after cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, the country's state media has reported. The death toll from the cyclone that hit over the weekend has officially reached 3,969 but with so many people missing is expected to rise, state television said on Monday. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless and without clean drinking water, a UN official has said and aid agencies have called on Myanmar's military government to allow free movement so help can be given to victims of the deadly storm. AFP: Myanmar cyclone death toll reaches 3,969: state television.

US missile strikes on a small building adjacent to a major hospital in Baghdad’s Sadr City on Saturday left more than 20 people injured, destroyed ambulances and shook the entire neighbourhood. The incident provides a glimpse of the hellish conditions created for residents of the huge working class slum through the month-long siege by American and Iraqi government forces. Rock-The-Truth: Occupation Iraq: A Parent's Story.

In dueling television appearances Sunday morning, Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton declared their determination to escalate US military action in the Middle East, disagreeing mainly over which country should be targeted first. Obama called for a “surge” of US troops into Afghanistan, while Clinton reaffirmed her bloodcurdling rhetoric about the “obliteration” of Iran. Redress: US presidential candidates neck-and-neck for job of Israel stooge-in-chief.

The sands are white, the sea laps gently and crowds of bronzed Americans laze in the Caribbean sunshine. They have a cinema, a golf course and, naturally, a gift shop stocked with mugs, jaunty T-shirts and racks of postcards showing perfect sunsets and bright green iguanas. Only the barbed wire decoration, a recurring motif, hints at anything wrong. Welcome to "Taliban Towers" at Guantanamo Bay, the most ghoulishly distasteful tourist destination on the planet. AYWWME: Greetings from Guantanamo Bay...and the sickest souvenir shop in the world.

US aid to Israel violates US laws. ► US aid to Israel, and the way in which this aid is used, frequently violates US law, policy and interests. ► Under US policy, financial aid to Israel should not be spent by Israel in the Occupied Territories. But Israel spends US aid with impunity. ► The US has a number of laws regulating foreign military aid and weapons’ exports. The 1961 Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) states that “No assistance [ought to be given] to countries that violate human rights”. But Israel systematically violates human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. ► The 1976 US Arms Export Control Act (AECA) states that “Weapons purchased from the US should only be used for legitimate self-defense”. But since September 2000 the Israeli military has killed more than 3,354 Palestinian civilians (as of 8 August 2007). WUFYS: Jewish Squatters in Hebron attack American delegation.

9 Palestinians, including 5 children and a woman, were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip. The victims include a woman and her 4 children who were killed when IOF shelled their house in Beit Hanoun town. 29 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 6 children and a woman, were wounded by IOF. 1 Palestinian civilian was wounded by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. IOF conducted 36 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and 4 into the Gaza Strip. IOF razed 140 donums[1] of agricultural land in the southern Gaza Strip. IOF demolished a house and damaged agricultural areas in Beit Hanoun. IOF arrested 37 Palestinian civilians and held at least 50 others for some time in the Gaza Strip. IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT. The fuel crisis in the Gaza Strip has escalated. 6 Palestinian civilians were arrested by IOF at military checkpoints in the West Bank. IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attacks Palestinian civilians and property. The Israeli High Court legitimize the demolition of at least 60% of the houses in al-‘Aqaba village in the Jordan Valley. Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian civilians and their property in Hebron. IMEMC: Mezan Center: “69, including 20 children and 16 women, killed by the army in April in Gaza”. + Gaza siege causing $70000 in daily losses for fishermen.

Finally! After submitting a half-dozen papers to established peer-reviewed technical journals over a period of nearly a year, we have two papers which have passed peer-review and have been accepted for publication. One of these was published TODAY! In science, we say that we have “published in the literature,” a major step in a nascent line of scientific inquiry. And many thanks to the editors for their courage and adherence to science in allowing us to follow the evidence and publish in their journal. (Indeed, expressions of thanks along these lines to the editors will be appreciated, as they will probably get a few letters chastising them.) The paper is here: http://www.bentham.org/open/index.htm (our paper is listed on top at the moment, the most recently entered paper); or go here:
http://www.bentham.org/open/tociej/openaccess2.htm (Click on “year 2008” then scroll down to the paper and click on it.) Portland IMC: BYU Physics Prof Finds Thermate in WTC Physical Samples, Building Collapses an Inside Job.

After the end of World War II, the Japanese constitution, written by the United States for the defeated Japanese, rejected war as a solution for conflict. Article 9 states: “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.” Wired / DangerRoom: New Photos Reveal Horror Of Hiroshima.

The price of crude oil today is not made according to any traditional relation of supply to demand. It’s controlled by an elaborate financial market system as well as by the four major Anglo-American oil companies. As much as 60 percent of today’s crude oil price is pure speculation driven by large trader banks and hedge funds. It has nothing to do with the convenient myths of Peak Oil. It has to do with control of oil and its price. How?

The "war on terrorism" now consists of a worldwide campaign to fund the "good" terrorist groups. CNN reports that George W. Bush, with his disapproval rating shooting past 70 percent, is the most unpopular president in modern American history, or as long as they've been polling the question – less beloved than Richard Nixon in the weeks prior to his resignation, and, I'd guess, more despised than George III in 1776. Bush II is identified primarily in the public mind with the bane of his presidency, the Iraq war, and support for that, too, has reached a new low at 30 percent.

The difference in the number of fat cells between lean and obese people is established in childhood and, although fat people replenish fat cells at the same rate as thin ones, they have around twice as many. This remarkable glimpse of what gives us beer guts, love handle and muffin tops could also lead to new approaches to fight the flab, by cutting the overall number of fat cells in the body, as well as providing an insight into why fat people find it so hard to lose weight, because the number of fat cells in a person remains the same, even after a successful diet. The details of how humans regulate their fat mass is reported today in the journal Nature by a team led by scientists at the Karlolinksa Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, as a second team, led by Imperial College London, reports in the journal Nature Genetics the discovery of a gene sequence present in half the population linked to three quarters of an inch bigger waistline, four lb gain in weight, and a tendency to become resistant to insulin, which can lead to type 2 diabetes.