A James Pence Video. What I would do if I was a terrorist.

Today, Israel marks the 60th anniversary, according to the Hebrew calendar, of its founding. World leaders will endorse the event with a major international conference in Jerusalem on May 14-16, the actual date of its founding. It will be attended by United States President George W. Bush, former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, 12 heads of state, media and business tycoon Rupert Murdoch and Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin. blog: Palestine Think Tank: THE SHRINKING MAP OF PALESTINE.

9 Palestinians, including a woman, were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. 3 of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF. 35 Palestinians, including 6 children and a woman, were injured by IOF. IOF conducted 43 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and five into the Gaza Strip. IOF used dozens of Palestinian civilians, including children and women, as human shields during military operations in ‘Abassan village in the southern Gaza Strip. IOF razed 484 donums[1] of agricultural land and destroyed 5 greenhouses, 9 bird farms and 23 houses in the southern Gaza Strip. IOF arrested 100 Palestinian civilians, including 15 children, in the West Bank, and arrested fifty people in the Gaza Strip, as well as holding another 52 people for questioning. IOF confiscated the contents of a sewing workshop of the Islamic Charity in Hebron and ordered its closure for 3 years. IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT. The fuel crisis in the Gaza Strip has escalated. 2 Palestinian civilian were arrested by IOF at military checkpoints in the West Bank. IOF have continued to construct the Annexation Wall in the West Bank. IOF issued notices to six Palestinian civilians in Beit ‘Awa village, south of Hebron, that their houses will be demolished. IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attacks Palestinian civilians and property. IOF plan to expand “Har Brakha” settlement near Nablus on a 229-donum area of Palestinian land. Three Palestinian civilians and 2 international human rights defenders were injured by Israeli settlers.

Haunted survivors emerging from the devastation of Burma's ravaged southwest say entire families were wiped out when Cyclone Nargis cut its deadly path through the region. Huddled in the township of Labutta they told tales of survival against the odds even as children, mothers and fathers were swept away by the floodwaters that submerged huge swathes of the Irrawaddy delta. A Burma military official today said an estimated 80,000 people had died in the remote Labutta district, with dozens of the 63 villages surrounding Labutta township wiped out. WSWS: Death toll in Burma rises, as major powers press to intervene. + Bush administration moves to exploit Burma cyclone disaster. Winter Patriot: Not Funny: First Lady Calls Burmese Kettle Black. Rock-The-Truth: Bush's Bad on Burma.

Sahar Yasiri says “Iraq is the number one country having the largest number of prisons in the world where there are more than 400 thousand Iraqi detainees including 6500 children and 10 thousand women.” This is the first part of long interview translated by AMSI English Web Team.

The shocking abuse of "downer" cows occurs not just at slaughter plants but may be an everyday happening at livestock auctions and stockyards around the country—the midpoints between farm and slaughter—as shown in an expanding undercover investigation by The Humane Society of the United States. "Downer" cows are those too frail to stand on their own—dragged and prodded with inhumane handling methods, and increasing the threat of carrying and passing disease.

Hillary Clinton gave no sign of abandoning her do-or-die campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination in the US presidential race yesterday. She made a pump-up-the-troops appearance in West Virginia, which holds its primary vote next week, even as aides admitted she had been forced to loan herself yet more campaign money in recent weeks. The Guardian: "It is time to unite around Obama", party elder tells Clinton as she vows to fight on. Raw Story: Hillary Clinton says she will remain in the presidential race 'until there's a nominee'.

More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show. This reliance on troops found medically "non-deployable" is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million servicemembers to the war zones, soldier advocacy groups say. "It is a consequence of the consistent churning of our troops," said Bobby Muller, president of Veterans For America. "They are repeatedly exposed to high-intensity combat with insufficient time at home to rest and heal before redeploying."

United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, said yesterday that it is unacceptable that the problem of Palestinian refugees remain unsolved. During an inauguration ceremony of photo exhibition, marking the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian people's catastrophe (NAKBA) at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Ki-Moon added that he was impressed deeply of the situation of Palestinian refugees, especially children, when he visited the occupied Palestinian territories last year.

Judging by the Pentagon's own accounting, the army, navy, air force and marines have been very hungry -- and they've been chowing down.

Gunbattles erupted on the streets of Beirut yesterday as a general strike turned into a violent confrontation between the Government and the opposition, led by the militant Shia group Hezbollah. The rattle of automatic weapons and the crump of exploding rocket-propelled grenades echoed around the streets of the Lebanese capital as thick plumes of smoke rose from barricades of burning tyres. In scenes grimly redolent of the 1975-1990 civil war, gunmen were seen inching down empty streets and firing rifles at windows to a backdrop of burning cars. The Independent: Lebanon descends into chaos as rival leaders order general strike. YaLibnan: Tension escalates as Hezbollah besieges Lebanon airport.

Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was shot and detained by US Special Forces troops in Afghanistan in July 2002 when he was 15 years old, goes before a drumhead military tribunal at the US detention camp in Guantánamo, Cuba today. Arrested as a child, he is now charged as a war criminal and faces a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted by the US military officers who are to decide his fate.

As photo ops go, the visibility certainly could have been better. As the members of a Chinese team bearing the Olympic flame approached the highest point on the earth on Thursday in their thick red jackets, they had to trudge through strong winds and thick fog. There were no sweeping IMAX views in the footage released by Chinese national television. The only bright spot was the light emanating from Olympic flame they had lugged successfully to the top of Mount Everest. In a torch relay that has rarely gone smoothly, this was one instance where the Chinese government had no quarrel with the going getting rough. Climbing Everest, or Mount Qomolangma as it is known in China, is all about triumphing over extreme adversity, and on that count, the Chinese proved their point. They have the moxie and technology to keep the flame from dying despite low oxygen at the summit and days of weather-related delays at Everest base camp. But the rest of the message was definitely more muddled.

Berkeley High senior Chase Stern said he was taking an Advanced Placement test May 6, when he noticed that his classmates were fidgeting in their seats and seemed distracted. He soon found out that the Latino students were receiving text messages and phone calls from family members, warning them that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were nearby, and that they should be cautious and find their way home because family members could not pick them up.

Days after he was feted in Miami as a freedom fighter for his anti-Castro activities, Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles was scorned on Wednesday in Havana as a "terrorist" given haven by the Bush administration. The two events showed that, nearly 50 years after their bitter parting, the gulf between the Cuban government and the Cuban American exile community remains as wide as the Florida Straits that separate them. Posada Carriles, 80, is accused of masterminding the 1976 explosion of a Cubana Airlines jet in which 73 people died and 1990s hotel bombings in Havana that killed an Italian tourist. LA Times: Luis Posada Carriles, a terror suspect abroad, enjoys a 'coming-out' in Miami. But Mr. Bush, why are you protecting Mr. Posada Carriles? Isn't this man a terrorist? -He's OUR terrist, goddammit!

Post-Soviet Russia entered uncharted territory yesterday, as Dmitry Medvedev became President in an opulent ceremony in the Kremlin. He promised to focus on civil rights and the rule of law, using rhetoric markedly different to that of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin. "My most important aims will be to protect civil and economic freedoms," said Mr Medvedev. "We must fight for a true respect of the law and overcome legal nihilism, which seriously hampers modern development." The ceremony, which was broadcast live on national television, was attended by 2,400 VIPs including politicians, religious leaders and diplomats. Foreign media were not invited. Mr Medvedev walked along the red carpet to the impressive Andreyevsky Hall as the Kremlin clocks struck midday.

To win the energy war, we have to conserve the most important energy -- our own.

The Apiary Inspectors of America says the United States has seen a dramatic decline in the number of managed honey bee colonies since 1980. Dennis van Engelsdorp of Pennsylvania State University, president of the AIA, said nationwide colony numbers have dropped from 4.5 million managed colonies in 1980 to 2.4 million in 2005. To quantify the degree and extent of losses in U.S. beekeeping operations between September 2006 and March 2007, the AIA surveyed beekeeping hobbyists, sideliners and commercial operations. Of 384 beekeeping operations surveyed, total loss and average loss of bees in all operations was 31.8 percent and 37.6 percent, in that order, with 51.9 percent reporting abnormally heavy losses.