Thai-Cambodia clashes continue

Clashes between Thai and Cambodian troops over a disputed area surrounding a 900-year-old Hindu temple have continued for a fourth day across the frontier between the two countries. Shelling and machine gunfire echoed around the contested area on Monday around the ancient Preah Vihear temple claimed by both Southeast Asian neighbours, witnesses said.

Meanwhile, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, has called for "maximum restraint" to cease the hostilities, which have already left at least five people dead. These were the most deadly clashes since Preah Vihear was granted UN World Heritage status in July 2008, a move that sparked sporadic skirmishes between the neighbours.

The temple, which is surrounded by disputed territory, was damaged on Sunday by Thai artillery fire, according to Cambodia, which said one wing of the building had "collapsed" as a result. Thai officials, however, dismissed Cambodia's account as propaganda. The true extent of damage is unknown.

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Uncontacted Amazon Tribe Filmed So Governments Take Notice

Survival International's campaign with newly released photos of the tribe, followed by a breathtakingly haunting film by the BBC, has raised awareness of one of the last uncontacted tribes in the world.

The BBC film, narrated by actor Gillian Anderson was made in collaboration with the Brazilian government for the new BBC 1 'Human Planet' series. Shooting from a kilometer away with a powerful zoom lens in order to minimize disturbance, the BBC crew captures gardens, homes, and people covered in red body paint. An undisturbed civilization. Unfortunately, it may not remain this way.

The Huffington Post

Gary Moore Found Dead

One of the greatest players of his generation, Belfast-born Moore was skilled at blues, hard rock and jazz music.

Thin Lizzy manager Adam Parsons said he had died in the early hours of Sunday morning. He was found dead in a hotel room on the Costa del Sol.

Sky News

Iran bans foreign cooking on TV

Iran's state-run television has been banned from screening cooking shows that promote foreign cuisine as conservatives seek to fight Western influence in the Iranian culture, media reported on Sunday.

"From now on teaching how to cook non-Iranian dishes is banned," deputy head of Iran's state broadcaster Ali Darabi was quoted as saying by Aftabnews, a moderate website, and several other media outlets.

Yahoo! News

Wikileaks Condoms

Seven's Heaven

Mad as Hell

Classic Network Scene

US Military Weather Weapon

More about this at HAARP.net

Chinese cyber-spies penetrate UK Foreign Office computers

China has penetrated the Foreign Office's internal communications in the most audacious example yet of the growing threat posed by state-sponsored cyber-attacks, it emerged tonight.

William Hague told a security conference in Munich that the FO repelled the attack last month from "a hostile state intelligence agency". Although the foreign secretary did not name the country behind the attacks, intelligence sources familiar with the incidents made it clear he was referring to China. The sources did not want to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the issue.

In his speech Hague was reflecting growing anger and concern within the government about the increasing threat posed by cyber-espionage – states, as well as individuals, using cyberspace to steal defence, diplomatic and commercial secrets. "It is a new development. The UK is prepared to admit the attacks were state-backed," said Alexander Neill, head of the Asia programme at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank.

From The Guardian

Madness of War

Bangladeshi family tells of grief over girl whipped to death

It was a chance meeting next to the palm tree just yards from her bedroom that led to a 14-year-old girl being whipped to death in this tiny village about 40 miles south of the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka.

In the early evening Hena Akhter had gone out to use the bathroom when she was met by her cousin and neighbour, Mahbub, who gagged her with a cloth before beating her. The assault left her on the brink of consciousness, unable to walk or talk. But instead of punishing Hena's attacker, local elders called a shalish – a village meeting – where she was accused of having an illicit relationship with a married man.

Mahbub's wife, Shilpi, complained that he had secretly been meeting Hena. Village elders found both cousins guilty.

"I was called to the meeting, in Mahbub's home, and I cried when they said what her punishment was going to be," Hena's father, Darbesh Khan said. "They said she would be given 101 lashes, and Mahbub would get 201."

It was up to Darbesh to take his daughter to receive her punishment last week. He and his wife, Akleema, carried Hena to the verandah of the house where the meeting had been held. Barely able to stand, she was whipped with a cloth twisted into a rope until she fell unconscious.

Full story on The Guardian

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Berlusconi Says West Considered Mubarak ‘Wisest Man’ in Mideast

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi declined to call for the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, saying the U.S. and Europe had considered him a “reference point” and “the wisest man” in the Middle East.

Asked directly if the time had come for Mubarak to step aside, Berlusconi said he hoped for “continuity in the government.” Western leaders want a “more democratic system without ruptures with a president like Mubarak that all the Western hemisphere, including the U.S., had considered the wisest man and a reference point in all of the Middle East,” Berlusconi said on arriving at a meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels today.

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Zeitgeist Religion

ROUNDING UP THE REPORTERS

Protesters and government supporters fought in a second day of rock-throwing battles at a central Cairo square while more lawlessness spread around the city. New looting and arson erupted, and gangs of thugs supporting President Hosni Mubarak attacked reporters, foreigners and rights workers while the army rounded up foreign journalists.

(Click and Scroll down for latest updates on The Huffington Post)

Anderson Cooper and crew are attacked by protesters in while filming in Egypt.

'I Worry About What It Is They're Planning That They Don't Want Us To See'

Documents in Julian Assange Rape Investigation Leak Onto Web

The ongoing rape-and-sexual-molestation investigation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is taking another in a series of odd turns. A file containing 100 pages of interview transcripts, investigatory notes and other material in the case has appeared online, where it’s being eagerly dissected by Swedish WikiLeaks-watchers.

The documents appear to consist of pretrial discovery material that prosecutors provided to Assange’s Stockholm lawyer Björn Hurtig last year, which Hurtig subsequently faxed to the office of Assange’s British attorney Mark Stephens. The documents begin with a Nov. 23 cover letter addressed to Stephens’ co-counsel, in which Hurtig advises: “Please note that the documents are legally privileged information for Mr Julian Assange and nobody else.”

Somehow, though, after arriving in London, the documents got out. They were anonymously posted to the Adobe Acrobat file sharing and collaboration site in recent days, and the link is being circulated on Swedish message boards and blogs. Stephens did not immediately return a phone call from Wired.com on Wednesday.

The file relates how Assange’s separate sexual encounters with two women in Sweden last year led to the criminal investigation, telling the story through police interviews with the two alleged victims, and with friends to whom they’d confided. There is nothing in the extensive details to support Assange’s past assertions that the Swedish criminal probe is part of “dirty tricks” campaign against WikiLeaks.

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Billy Connolly and Suicide Bombers

WikiLeaks cables: planned US missile shield blind to nuclear weapons

A 2007 briefing by General Patrick O’Reilly, director of the US Missile Defence Agency, disclosed that the radar system would be unable to detect long-range missiles in the launch phase because it could only see in a straight line, not over the horizon.

By the time the radar "saw" the missile, it would be too late to launch an interceptor in time to stop it striking its target.

The Czech radar system was the lynch-pin of George Bush’s “son of star wars” missile defence plans, ostensibly intended to intercept missiles launched from North Korea and Iran. Russia reacted furiously to the proposed system, which it claimed could threaten its own defences and be used to spy on its interests.

A leaked cable obtained by WikiLeaks detailing US talks with Moscow describes a briefing by General O’Reilly on the capabilities of the Czech radar.

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The UFO over Temple Mount in Jerusalem

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Rebuilding Haiti: Glitz and Glamour at the Clinton Global Initiative

Glitz and Glamour at the Clinton Global Initiative - From Haiti's Ashes, a BBC Two report.

Mubarak Allies and Foes Clash in Streets

President Obama’s calls for a rapid transition to a new order in Egypt seemed eclipsed on Wednesday as a choreographed surge of thousands of people chanting support for the Egyptian leader, Hosni Mubarak, fought running battles with a larger number of antigovernment protesters in and around Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

 

Both sides exchanges volleys of Molotov cocktails and rocks, while the military restricted itself mostly to guarding the Egyptian Museum and using water cannons to extinguish the flames.

The mayhem and chaos — with riders on horses and camels thundering through the central square — offered a complete contrast to the scenes only 24 hours earlier when hundreds of thousands of antigovernment protesters turned it into a place of jubilant celebration, believing that they were close to overthrowing a leader who has survived longer than any other in modern Egypt. NYTimes.com

Al Jazeera reports: Revolt on the Nile: Egypt Special Coverage - Timeline - Photo Gallery - AJE Tweets - Map - Live Blog or Al Jazeera English: Live Stream

Anarchy in the UK (and Egypt)

THE LOVE POLICE

America's Torturer, Israel's Friend

When the dictator of Egypt appointed Omar Suleiman as his apparent successor, the ruling regimes in Israel and America were clearly pleased. But the people of Egypt only increased their uprising because they know that Omar Suleiman has blood on his hands.

As the head of Egypt’s spy agency, Suleiman personally organized torture as part of the CIA’s illegal rendition program. Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen, has written a memoir of his experiences being tortured by Omar Suleiman on behalf of the CIA. In his book, Habib testifies that Suleiman personally directed a torture session where he was “repeatedly zapped with high-voltage electricity, immersed in water up to his nostrils, beaten, his fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks.” Later, “to loosen Habib’s tongue, Suleiman ordered a guard to murder a gruesomely shackled Turkistan prisoner in front of Habib – and he did, with a vicious karate kick.” Mamdouh Habib was later transferred to Guantanamo Bay where he was ultimately declared innocent and released.

In addition to his career as torturer, Suleiman has worked closely to protect Israeli interests. Haaretz reveals that during the 2002 invasion of Ramallah, “Arafat pleaded with Suleiman and asked that Egypt at the very least take some symbolic action that would express its displeasure. Suleiman did not respond and enabled Israel to strike at the Palestinian Authority at will until it nearly collapsed.”

Suleiman, a blood-thirsty would-be tyrant, is America’s ideal choice to rule Egypt because Suleiman is also Israel’s favored pick. But after thirty years of despotism, the people of Egypt are not easily fooled. Essam al-Erian, a leading opposition figure, summed up the defiant mood on the street when he recently declared, “even after Mubarak goes, we refuse to deal with Omar Suleiman.”

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Politics pervade Cairo's streets

Tuesday was billed as a game-changer, the day of a "Million March" that would swell the crowd in Tahrir Square, along with its spirits, as protesters promised a decisive action that would deliver the message to Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, that no concession aside from his abdication would satisfy Egypt’s widespread unrest.

Final estimates of the size varied widely, but it was probably the largest demonstration modern Cairo has ever seen, and the message from Tahrir echoed clearly from the chants of the enormous crowd: "He's going, we're not going."

Throughout the morning, the Egyptian army fulfilled its promise to protect the civilian populace, providing an outer cordon of security and ushering demonstrators through barbed wire and concrete barriers with little or no resistance.

But it was often ordinary citizens - the protesters themselves - who performed the most stringent security checks, patting down young men, checking ID cards, and ushering away those who seemed to be a threat.

Inside, the atmosphere was jovial, and there was a palpable buzz in the crowd. The army had already promised not to use force against unarmed civilians, and there was little concern among the demonstrators that other security forces would attack. Though police had reportedly deployed again throughout the city, they were nowhere to be seen in the vicinity of Tahrir.

So protesters were free to wave signs, deliver impromptu speeches, chant slogans, and hold forth on politics. They sang the Egyptian national anthem, “My country, my country," in unison several times.

"Our requirement now, it is to do a power-sharing with all the people in Egypt,” said Said Mustafa. “The Muslim Brotherhood, al-Wafd, ElBaradei, all the people sharing in this, with the army."

More on Al Jazeera

PA cracks down on anti-Mubarak rally

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday that the organizers of the rally have been harassed by Palestinian Authority police.
The police also dispersed the photographers, who were trying to cover the event, HRW said.
Police pushed away 50 young protesters who gathered outside the Egyptian Embassy in Ramallah on Sunday afternoon to support the protests against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, AFP reported. Protesters have told HRW that PA security officials have interrogated one of the organizers of the rally three times within 24 hours.

The security officials have told2 the organizer to cancel the event because “there were orders that no event related to Tunisia or Egypt was allowed at this time,” HRW quoted him as saying.
HRW has urged the Palestinian Authority's security forces to stop what it calls arbitrary interference with peaceful demonstrations. In recent days, there have been several demonstrations across the world, especially in the Arab countries, in support of the popular uprising in Egypt.
PA, however, has refused to comment about the developments in Egypt. It has only said it hoped the country would weather the unrest.

From PressTV

Cars swept away by floods in Jeddah

Floods in Jeddah caught people off guard.

Canada Probes Sled Dog Slaughter

Appalled Canadian authorities are investigating the slaughter of up to 100 huskies used to pull tourist sleds. An employee at a British Columbia company says he was ordered to kill scores of healthy dogs when business dropped off after the 2010 Winter Olympics. The killings came to light after he was compensated for post-traumatic stress disorder. "It wasn't always a clean, one-shot kill. Inevitably, he ended up seeing and having to put the end to some horrific scenes," said the worker's lawyer.

Animal welfare groups say the dogs were killed in a brutal manner and dumped in a mass grave. "Any dog sledder who culls dogs at the end of a season should be culled himself, as far as we’re concerned,” the head dog sledding guide for an Ontario company told the Globe and Mail. “You don’t go out and cull dogs," he said. "We’re part of the largest dog sled operation in the world with 40 dogs. and we never cull dogs. We retire them, they’re adopted. There are a lot of alternatives.”

newser.com

Also see: The Truth About Dogs