Israeli air-strikes and artillery fire struck Gaza nine times on Friday. bringing the total number of dead over the past 24 hours to thirteen, some half of them civilians.
A Somali pirate was sentenced by a US district court to 25 years in prison for attacking a Danish ship off the coast of Somalia in 2008, for which he and other pirates received a $1.7 million ransom.
Friday prayers again exploded into protests in cities nearly across the Arab world, with demonstrators killed by police in Syria and Yemen, and thousands of Egyptians again filling Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
As NATO warplanes again bombed their ostensible rebel allies in Libya, Gen. Carter Ham, head of US Africa Command, broached sending troops into Libya with a possible international ground force to back up the rebel army.
Israeli fire killed five Palestinians and injured some 40 after a missile from the Gaza Strip hit a school bus in southern Israel, injuring two. Sudan meanwhile accuses Israel of an air-strike on its Red Sea coast.
A magnitude 7.4 aftershock hit northeastern Japan—raising fears of a deepening of the crisis at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, which is now vulnerable to any further destabilization.
A plan awaiting approval by the US Environmental Protection Agency would dramatically increase permissible radioactive releases in drinking water, food and soil after “radiological incidents.”
A group of Iranian intellectuals issued a “Call for Active Opposition to the Nuclear Policy of the Islamic Republic,” warning that “Fukushima completed the warning that was issued by Chernobyl.”
Richard Goldstone’s Washington Post op-ed reconsidering the UN report on Israel’s Operation Cast Lead loans dangerous credibility to the Orwellian concept of “collateral damage.”
US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other co-conspirators will be tried before a military commission for their roles in the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
Reports are emerging of US and British military advisors arriving in Benghazi, as a Qaddafi spokesman said the regime is open to reform—but that “the leader has to lead this forward.”
As engineers at Fukushima resort to building silt mounds around the leaking reactor to filter radioactive particles, public advocates insist there is no safe dose of radiation—despite official assurances.
