Otunbayeva -- a former Soviet official, United Nations representative, Kyrgyz ambassador to the United States and United Kingdom, and and Kyrgyz foreign minister -- is not a newcomer to this business. A short, unpretentious woman, it's clear the weight on her shoulders is intense. She's working long hours, taking no time off.

Her immediate challenge is dealing with the deposed Kyrgyz president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, in hiding in the southern part of the country. She has called on him to resign. He has refused. She has offered him free passage out of the country. He hasn't responded.

The eastern Congo remains awash in bloodshed due to western mining companies and their proxy armies, the military regimes of Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Yoweri Museveni (Uganda), and Joseph Kabila (DRC), all hidden behind reams of western newsprint blaming Congolese victims for their own suffering.

Poor old Henry Kissinger. All that botheration, all those lies, all the years of gut-churning anxiety about scandal, even prosecution -- and for what? Mere complicity in state murder of foreigners carried out by a foreign government? Why, nowadays, we have U.S. presidents openly ordering the murder of American citizens, and nobody bats an eye. There is no scandal, no prosecution -- there is not even any debate. It's just a fact of life, ordinary, normal, unchangeable: the sun rises in the east, cows eat grass, rain is wet, American presidents murder people. What's the big deal?

For the past week, an average of 2 million gallons of sewage water per day has poured from the plant’s cement-reinforced sewage treatment "lagoons" (see picture) into two of the three overflow cesspools, according to plant operators. As a result of yesterday’s electric blackout, 6.5 million gallons was redirected to the cesspools in a single day. Water levels appear to be about three feet high in some places. The third and largest cesspool, which contained more than 660 million gallons of treated sewage before it was drained in August of 2009, remains empty.

There are not many empty seats in the dismal, echoing conference chamber in the ghastly concrete box that is the Hotel Maritim here in Bonn, where the UN’s latest attempt to maneuver the 194 States Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change gets underway today.

The “international community”, as it is now called, is here in full force, in the shape of expensively-suited, shiny-shod bureaucrats with an urbane manner and absolutely no knowledge of climate science whatsoever.

A new military order aimed at preventing infiltration will come into force this week, enabling the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank, or their indictment on charges carrying prison terms of up to seven years.

Until now, Israeli civil courts have occasionally prevented the expulsion of these three groups from the West Bank. The new order, however, puts them under the sole jurisdiction of Israeli military courts.

Since 20 percent live sperm is considered to be the beginning of infertility, Israel will be sterile in less than 10 years at this rate of decline. The estimated 7 million Israeli Jews will have no more children soon after that. This catastrophic development has already occasioned legislative hearings in Israel’s Knesset. The hearings were covered by Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Israeli sperm concentration is just an example of what is happening to human sperm all over the Middle East and Central Asia, by the choice and force of will of successive U.S. presidents.

The American war machine has consequences. PTSD is just one of them. The poison gas cannot be contained, undone or recalled. There is no antidote; there is no cure. There is no escape.

As detective senior constable Glen McNamara, he was stationed at Kings Cross in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was a time and a place that was to become notorious in the history of the NSW Police.

There he found corrupt officers who routinely protected criminals in return for cash. But unlike many of his colleagues at the time who allowed themselves to be corrupted or at least turned a blind eye, McNamara didn't buy into the dirty-cop culture.

On his own initiative, he began gathering evidence to expose the flourishing criminality – and was then betrayed by the people around him he trusted most.

At 5:30PM on April 1st, Activists protesting against the Rudd Government's proposed Mandatory Internet Filter will gather in Hyde Park Sydney to speak out against Government Censorship.

One of the organisers of the protest and member of Pirate Party Australia, Simon Frew, said. "I think it is outrageous that the government has the audacity to force this filter on a supposedly free society. This is the sort of censorship you would expect of China or Iran, and it is being roundly condemned by the US State Department and Google for good reason."

Much of the focus on government debt over the past few years has revolved around the federal government. No doubt, this is a stunningly large amount. Yet the government has the ability to finance this debt through the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve with a buffet of choices. You have direct bailouts to Wall Street, quantitative easing, and systematically dismantling the U.S. dollar. But one issue that is rising to the top is that of state and local government debt. States do not have the ability to print money at the whim of any central banker. And the state and local government debt market is up to a whopping $2.3 trillion. At this point, trillion is the new billion.

As a visitor to our nation's capital, I cannot tell you how disconcerting it is to step off the metro and find yourself face to face with a F-35 fighter jet. Where you would normally expect to find ads for cell phones or museum exhibitions, Washington's subway, the second busiest in the country, instead displays full color backlit billboards for some of the most deadly – and expensive – weapons systems ever produced.

“We are ruled not by two parties but one party,” Cynthia McKinney, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket, told me. “It is the party of money and war. Our country has been hijacked. And we have to take the country away from those who have hijacked it. The only question now is whose revolution gets funded.”

“Right now dairy farmers have seen a 47 percent drop in the prices they were getting last year and we have to get them some short-term relief immediately,” said Arden Tewksbury, manager of the Progressive Agriculture Organization.

“There are many farms that are going to be closing soon. People argue the number is as high as 25 or 35 percent,” he said.

THE ITALIAN victims advocacy group, La Caramella Buona, has accused the Catholic Church of systematically covering up recent clerical sex abuse offences in Italy.

Speaking to leftist daily Il Fatto , yesterday lawyer Sergio Cavaliere claimed that in the last two years alone there had been 130 legal cases involving allegations of paedophilia against Italian priests.

Some 10 weeks after the first abuse cases at Jesuit education institutions came to light, the number of victims continues to climb. Around 170 people are now believed to have been abused in Germany.

The timing of this week's revolt in Kyrgyzstan, making headlines around the world, is telling. On Thursday the son and heir apparent of ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Maksim, was scheduled to speak at an economic forum in Washington. The meeting has been postponed indefinitely, and something tells me it may not be re-scheduled any time soon. As the Guardian reported today, interim opposition spokesperson and former Kyrgyz ambassador the United States, Roza Otunbayeva, said of the outgoing president: "His business is finished in Kyrgyzstan … in essence people were simply fed up with the previous regime, and with its repressive, tyrannical and abusive behaviour. They want to build democracy here."

On April 8 American and Russian presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) agreement in the Czech capital of Prague to reduce their respective nation's nuclear arsenals and delivery systems (subject to ratification by the U.S. Senate and the Russian Duma.

More ominously, though, Washington is forging ahead with a replacement for the nuclear sword and shield - for blackmail and for deterrence - with a non-nuclear model that could upset the previous "balance of terror" arrangement that has been a criminal nightmare for six decades, but for sixty years without a massive missile war.

For those who lived through the dramatic revelations of the congressional inquiries in the 1970s, documenting the CIA’s routine involvement in global and domestic atrocities, it made sense to construct institutional firewalls between an agency so deeply linked with these actions and educational institutions dedicated to at least the promise of free inquiry and truth. But the last dozen years have seen retirements and deaths among academics who had lived through this history and had been vigilant about keeping the CIA off campus; furthermore, with the attacks of 9/11 came new campaigns to bring the CIA back onto American campuses.

Royal maids are up in arms after being roped in to work evenings, on top of their day jobs, for no extra pay.

RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”.

Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998.

The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has cast doubt over Nato’s planned summer offensive against the Taliban in the southern province of Kandahar, as more than 10,000 American troops pour in for the fight.

Karzai threatened to delay or even cancel the operation — one of the biggest of the nine-year war — after being confronted in Kandahar by elders who said it would bring strife, not security, to his home province.

A lawsuit filed last week accuses Johnson & Johnson of conspiring with pharmaceutical consultant Omnicare in an effort to push J&J drugs on nursing home residents, and violating federal Medicaid laws in the process.

As a result of the scheme, "residents were overcharged for their medications, had additional medications administered and were unlawfully switched to Johnson & Johnson drugs," all in the name of increasing revenue, according to the lawsuit.

THE PAST, for Sgt. Brian Smith, is filled with oppressive heat, ear-ringing mortar rounds and midnight convoys inching along dangerous Iraqi roads.

The future will bring headaches, dizziness or worse from his two brain aneurysms, and medical bills approaching six figures.

Unless something can be worked out between the many state and federal agencies dealing with his disability case, he won't have money for those bills, let alone rent or groceries

According to declassified documents released by the National Security Archive today, former secretary of state and longtime Bilderberger Henry Kissinger rescinded instructions that would have prevented one of the worst terrorist attacks on US soil before September 11, 2001, from occurring.

It was just five years ago that Murtaja Hussein was playing football next to his house, in a farming village south of Baghdad, when he found the lump of metal that would change his life forever.

I’ve tried to kill myself, but it’s hard to do that without hands and my family always stop me. My mother says she thanks God that I’m still alive but I have no future and have destroyed my family’s future.”

Kyrgyzstan, like Bolivia at one time, is hardly the only such small, democracy-deficient, country with some manner of "strategic relationship" that fits in to larger US geopolitical concerns – in fact it may be the rule. But the unexpected swiftness with which an unpopular regime was swept aside, and the potentially seismic impact it has on the US war effort in Afghanistan – is a good reminder of the inevitable breaking point produced by a US foreign policy semantically dedicated to human rights – that looks the other way while "strategic allies" loot their countries' assets, murder their journalists, and send troops out to gun people down in the streets.

While the nuns and Mother Teresa milled about, McGuire closed the door to his room and asked his favored altar boy to join him, in his cot, for a nap. The boy lay down. The priest lay on the outside of the narrow bed and then reached across the boy's body and into his pants.

Turmoil in Kyrgyzstan has thrust the fate of the Manas air base -- which is crucial for fighting the Afghan war -- to the forefront of rivalry between the United States and Russia.

Russia has long dreamed of evicting the United States from Central Asia and a Russian official said on Thursday that Moscow would urge the interim Kyrgyz government to shut the U.S. base.

A priest is among the three men charged with sex trafficking of children. James Patrick Grady, 57, faces federal charges of attempted sex trafficking of children by force, fraud or coercion.

After three young men and a boy told police last June an Italian priest had been sexually molesting them for years at a shelter for poor children, the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in Kenya announced the church would investigate thoroughly.

Ten months later, nothing has been investigated by the church, its lawyer says, and the Vatican has not been notified.

The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic "hate" campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has cast doubt over Nato’s planned summer offensive against the Taliban in the southern province of Kandahar, as more than 10,000 American troops pour in for the fight.

Karzai threatened to delay or even cancel the operation — one of the biggest of the nine-year war — after being confronted in Kandahar by elders who said it would bring strife, not security, to his home province.

Rep. Hare cuts the man off and says "I don't worry about the Constitution on this to be honest..."

The man begins to laugh, cutting the congressman off, and says "Jackpot, brother."

"I care more about the people that are dying every day that don't have health insurance," Rep. Hare goes on to say.

"You care more about that than the Constitution you swore to uphold," the man replies.

"I believe it says we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," Rep. Hare tells him.

A new military order aimed at preventing infiltration will come into force this week, enabling the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank, or their indictment on charges carrying prison terms of up to seven years.

When the order comes into effect, tens of thousands of Palestinians will automatically become criminal offenders liable to be severely punished.

- How were the Jews treated by Arab before 1948?

- Where and how did Zionism start?

- Was Palestine empty when the Jews came?

- What was the population of Arabs in Palestine between 1878 and 1948?

- How many Jewish immigrants arrived to Palestine between 1878-1948 and how did the UN partition plan divided Palestine between Arab and Jews? Did Israel stick to this plan?

- Did the Jews find “land without people” as they claim?

- How did the Jews treat the Palestinians in the occupied lands?

- How did the Nakba start and at what cost?

Israeli, Palestinian and International Protesters challenge eviction of Palestinian Families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem. Four activists were arrested.

Late Thursday night the U.K. Parliament passed the controversial Digital Economy Bill, which grants the U.K. government sweeping new powers to control access to the Internet.

Loud boos can be from the audience when republican Indiana congressman Mike Pence shows the required congressional fealty to Israel.

America needs leaders who put America 1st 2nd and 3rd! America does not need Mike Pence.

Israel's official policy of "nuclear ambiguity" — neither confirming nor denying that it has nuclear weapons — has long been a cornerstone of its military deterrence. But officials and experts from various countries, in addition to one well-known Israeli whistle-blower, have all said the truth is not ambiguous at all: That Israel has dozens, perhaps hundreds, of nuclear bombs.

A US nuclear sub rammed another ship causing nearly £60MILLION damage - while its navigator was listening to his iPod.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday the United States could not rule out using nuclear weapons if it came under biological attack, saying in that case "all bets are off."

The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre (Russian: ????????? ????????, Polish: zbrodnia katy?ska, 'Katy? crime'), was a mass murder of over 20,000 Polish prisoners of war (primarily military officers), intellectuals, police officers, and other public servants by the Soviet NKVD, based on a proposal from Lavrentiy Beria to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps.

Kyrgyzstan's interim government warned Sunday it could use force against ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, raising tensions in the Central Asian state vital to US operations in Afghanistan.

"The interim government is prepared to use force in the event that Bakiyev attempts to destabilise the situation," said Omurbek Tekebayev, a deputy head of the interim government said on national radio.

"Bakiyev must resign, and announce his decision to the people," added Tekebayev, a leader of the anti-Bakiyev forces that have seized power in the former Soviet republic, which is home to a US air base.

Geoffrey Robertson, a renowned human rights lawyer and United Nations jurist, wants to see Pope Benedict put on trial for allegedly protecting predator priests.

In a Guardian UK piece making its rounds this week in Catholic circles, Robertson demanded the pope be "put in the dock" so that the church might "feel the full weight of international law" over its thousands of pedophilia scandals.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday telephoned interim Kyrgyz leader Roza Otunbayeva and urged the leadership to "renew Kyrgyzstan's path to democracy," the State Department said.

The wave of scandals battering the Roman Catholic Church is only the tip of the iceberg, claims a victims’ rights advocate in Quebec who has gathered more than 400 testimonies from men and women who say they, too, were abused by priests.

Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu abruptly announced that he has decided not attend President Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, sending Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor in his place. The Washington Post reported this was due to concern over “Arab criticism of Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal.” Attempting to be topical, I’m reposting this 1974 CIA document in which the Agency declared, “We believe that Israel already has produced nuclear weapons.”

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales presided over a child protection system that allowed a paedophile priest to continue abusing schoolboys despite repeated complaints from victims, an investigation by The Times has discovered.

A Canadian diocese is defending its handling of sexual-abuse complaints against a top church official amid new evidence its former bishop discussed with Vatican officials how to keep the scandal from becoming public.

EVIL paedophile priest Donal Collins has been found dead in his home.

The body of Collins, who was dismissed from the priesthood in 2004, was discovered yesterday at his house in Curracloe, Co Wexford after gardai were alerted at around 3.30pm.

It is understood that the former priest, who was in his late 70s, suffered from a heart condition.

Collins was cited in the Ferns report which detailed more than 100 allegations of child sexual abuse against 21 priests in the diocese between 1962 and 2002.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and 13 other banks all understated the amount of debt used to pay for securities trades by cutting them by an average of 42 percent at the end of five quarterly periods; the debt levels were then boosted midway through each quarter, the newspaper said.

The sudden escalation of the month long demonstration, has raised fears of a larger uprising against Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

The demonstrators, who all wear red-shirts, are supporters of the deposed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and want Vejjavia to resign.

Protest leader Veera Musikapong told protesters today: “We are changing our demand from dissolving parliament in 15 days to dissolving parliament immediately.”

While President Barack Obama speaks overseas of his vision of a world without nuclear weapons, his military commanders at home are quietly accelerating a programme to develop and deploy a new class of conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles which will have the capacity to strike targets anywhere in the world within an hour.

While the effort to develop the new missile capability, called Prompt Global Strike, began in the late 1990s and through the Bush years, President Obama has expanded its budget with hopes that it can be added to US military's array of options by the middle of this decade. First prototype tests will be carried out by the Air Force next month.

The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG) strongly denounced threats made against activists who intend to participate in the upcoming convoy of solidarity ship heading to the besieged and improvised Gaza Strip.

500 peace activists, including European parliamentarians, are planning to said to Gaza.

The campaign stated that the threats will not be able to foil the efforts of human rights activists to break the siege on Gaza.

Millions of Iraqis exist below the poverty line in a country which floats on oil and earned more than $60 billion from oil sales last year, said Mahdi Muhsen, the director of the Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology.

Muhsen said one fourth of Iraq’s nearly 30 million people live below the poverty line and that unemployment rates could hit 30% in some provinces.

Perhaps the best example of such CIA influence via drug traffickers today is in Afghanistan itself, where those accused of drug trafficking include President Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai (an active CIA asset), and Abdul Rashid Dostum (a former CIA asset).4 The drug corruption of the Afghan government must be attributed at least in part to the U.S. and CIA decision in 2001 to launch an invasion with the support of the Northern Alliance, a movement that Washington knew to be drug-corrupted.

In this way the U.S. consciously recreated in Afghanistan the situation it had created earlier in Vietnam.