Israel's continuing massive military strikes on Gaza are an outrage that the international community must not allow to continue (Reports, 30 December). Palestinian rocket attacks that traumatise the lives of communities in southern Israel are also utterly unacceptable. Both sides must cease fire. Israel's actions are disproportionate and counterproductive to achieving either security for the people of Israel or peace in the Middle East. Physicians for Human Rights (Israel) have warned that "targeting of civilians and of medical facilities is a breach of international humanitarian law. The targets chosen by the Israeli military include also clearly civilian installations.

We write to express our disgust, condemnation and concern at the attacks by Israel on the Gaza Strip killing over 350 people - including women and children. There is little doubt civilian deaths will continue to rise as Israel shows no signs of stopping its offensive on the people of Gaza. The situation is bleak, with hospitals running out of medical supplies as the Israeli blockade continues to suffocate the people of Gaza. The region's power and infrastructure networks are on the verge of collapse with more than 85% of Gazans depending on UN food aid - which is at critically low levels.

Tom Segev, one of Israel's most respected historians, has been particularly critical, arguing that the premise of bombing to secure a peace agreement was false. The government was failing to learn the lessons of the past, he said.

"Israel has also always believed that causing suffering to Palestinian civilians would make them rebel against their national leaders. This assumption has proven wrong over and over," Segev wrote in yesterday's Ha'aretz newspaper. "Since the dawn of the Zionist presence in the Land of Israel, no military operation has ever advanced dialogue with the Palestinians."

“They also interrogated me, and told me that they would be deleting the video I had taken. They also went through all my contacts, photos and emails before returning the Blackberry to me. They even had to ask one of my business partners how to delete files on the Blackberry as they wouldn’t let me do it”

“I told the two Police women repeatedly that I did not consent to them going through my mobile. They embarrassed me, I had two of my business partners with me”

“The world we are living in is becoming too restrictive, I was just being a citizen journalist capturing video in a public place, the public need to know their rights, and so do the Police”

“Unauthorised” photography in Australia has in fact been authorised since the 1937 High Court decision in Victoria Park Racing v. Taylor (1937) 58 CLR 479 (at p.496).

This was reaffirmed recently in ABC v Lenah (2001) HCA 63, where the Court ruled that despite the passage of decades since Victoria Park, any concept of a “Tort of invasion of privacy” still does not exist in Australia.

As Justice Dowd put it with blunt clarity in R v Sotheren (2001) NSWSC 204:

“A person, in our society, does not have a right not to be photographed.”

It is not "out-of-date metaphysics" to "speak of human nature as 'man' or woman ... We need something like human ecology...

Detectives say the 28-year-old victim was attacked Dec. 13 after she got out of her car, which bore a rainbow gay pride sticker. The men, who ranged from their late teens to their 30s, made comments indicating they knew her sexual orientation, said Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan.

When the group saw another person approaching, they forced the victim back into her car and took her to a burned-out apartment building, where she was raped again inside and outside the vehicle. The assailants took her wallet and drove off in her car. Officers found the car abandoned two days later.

"Assailants target LGBT people of all gender identities with sexual assault. Such targeting is one of the most cruel, dehumanizing and violent forms of hate violence that our communities experience."

We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, that if he does not agree to "take the fall" for election fraud in Ohio, his wife Heather will be prosecuted for supposed lobby law violations.

Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell hired Connell in 2004 to create a real-time computer data compilation for counting Ohio's votes. Under Connell's supervision, Ohio's presidential vote count was transmitted to private, partisan computer servers owned by SmartTech housed in the basement of the Old Pioneer Bank building in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Connell's company, New Media Communications worked closely with SmartTech in building Republican and right-wing websites that were hosted on SmartTech servers. Among Connell's clients were the Republican National Committee, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and gwb43.com. The SmartTech servers at one point housed Karl Rove's emails. Some of Rove's email files have since mysteriously disappeared despite repeated court-sanctioned attempts to review them.

At 12:20 am on the night of the 2004 election exit polls and initial vote counts showed John Kerry the clear winner of Ohio's presidential campaign. The Buckeye State's 20 electoral votes would have given Kerry the presidency.

But from then until around 2am, the flow of information mysteriously ceased. After that, the vote count shifted dramatically to George W. Bush, ultimately giving him a second term. In the end there was a 6.7 percent diversion---in Bush's favor---between highly professional, nationally funded exit polls and the final official vote count as tabulated by Blackwell and Connell.

Columbus Indymedia

“The only thing that can definitely be said about this cinema adventure is that Tom Cruise, who has been damaged by his bizarre talk-show behaviour, may well continue storming the heights of the Scientology hierarchy as a thetan, but his image as an actor has been finally ruined by Valkyrie.”

"The whole Valkyrie project seems a little intimidated by history, by its exact reconstructions and by German sensitivities."

"His Stauffenberg is honorable and serious and firm -- but Cruise's portrayal doesn't convey why this young count fascinated so many people ... Stauffenberg was a German hero of aristocratic demeanour, and that's a dimension that Cruise totally fails to portray."

MGM’s marketing team is working hard to convince audiences that their oft-delayed Tom Cruise vehicle “Valkyrie” is a thriller and not the chatfest “Lions for Lambs” was. But those who've gotten an early glimpse say not only is the film nowhere near as exciting as a thriller, but Cruise’s performance elicits uncomfortable and inappropriate laughs.

Among them: A scene where Cruise’s character, Claus Von Stauffenberg, is forced to give the infamous “Heil Hitler” salute. “It’s an unsettling scene but you almost start to laugh," the source says. "His character is resisting it but you never forget it’s Tom Cruise saying ‘Heil Hitler.’ It’s funny and shocking at the same time.”

Unsurprisingly, the Vatican and the Organisation of Islamic States are leading the fight against the UN declaration. The opposition of the Pope is truly sickening, depraved and shameless.

Of course, the Vatican has form. In 2004, it teamed up with Islamist dictatorships in the UN Commission on Human Rights to thwart a resolution sponsored by Brazil that opposed homophobic violence and discrimination. The Holy See is so viciously homophobic that it opposed the UN condemnation of the murder of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

"It is more precious than all my property. I will bequeath it to my children and display it in a museum and call it the Medal of Freedom."

The authorities in the state of Brandenburg have been told to keep an eye open for "suspicious" number plates that bear what they refer to as "critical combinations", such as AH for Adolf Hitler, KZ for Konzentrationslager (concentration camp), or NS for National Socialism.

Vehicle registration authorities have been warned to review their policies and to disallow suspect letters or numbers. The government is considering banning the use of combinations that refer to "controversial organisations and parties".

Other taboo variations include SA, for SturmAbteilung, or stormtroopers; HJ, for Hitler-Jugend (Hitler Youth); 18, for the first and eighth letters of the alphabet, AH; and 88 for HH, Heil Hitler.

The row began when Paris city hall, which runs an array of life-drawing classes, banned the tradition of the "cornet", a piece of art paper rolled into a cone and passed round for tips as a model gets dressed after class. Surviving on the minimum wage with no fixed contracts, holiday pay, security cover or job security, the crash-strapped models said the tips allowed them to survive.