Israel targeting grassroots activists, Droid Phones,11 Carnivorous Plants,

Israel targeting grassroots activists - OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM (IPS) - Israeli authorities are increasingly targeting and intimidating nonviolent Palestinian grassroots activists involved in anti-occupation activities who are drawing increased support from the international community.


Droid Phones: Update on the Frenzy By The Huffington Post News Editors - After weeks of sweaty palms and a whole of lot of buzz, Verizon Wireless today officially took the wraps off the Droid, a smartphone built by Motorola and powered by Google's Android 2.0 operating system. In a call with reporters, John Stratton, Verizon's chief marketing officer, said the price of the Droid will come in at $199, with a two-year contract and a mail-in rebate. The Droid phones will hit shelves on Nov. 6.

Olbermann Compares CNN To TV Dinners, Calls Network Strategy "Nonsensical" - By The Huffington Post News Editors - NEW YORK — MSNBC is much less likely to start a third prime-time news show because its executives are pleased with how well a repeat of Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" is doing at 10 p.m. ET.

Similar Images: Google Launches New Feature To Reduce Search Confusion - By The Huffington Post News Editors - Back in April, Google launched a new search feature in Labs that allowed users to find similar images. Initially rolled out for select images only, the capability is now being rolled out for what seems to be the majority of images in Google image search. This is particularly useful when search terms include homonyms, we think; and we applaud Google for removing a major pain point in our searches for pics of Tesla the band as opposed to Tesla the scientist or Tesla the automotive brand.

11 Carnivorous Plants (PHOTOS) By The Huffington Post News Editors - These plants may look like sweet, innocent flowers, but don't be fooled -- they are meat-eating killers! Carnivorous plants are those that don't just rely on sun power for energy -- they get nutrients from "eating" animals or insects. These amazing plants have evolved to employ many different techniques to satiate their hunger: from snapping a trap closed to sucking their prey into their bladder to trapping critters through its sticky mucus-like glands.

Karzai's Brother On C.I.A. Payroll: NYT [and a drug czar to boot] - By The Huffington Post News Editors - WASHINGTON — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the president of Afghanistan, gets regular payments from the CIA and has for much of the past eight years, The New York Times reported Tuesday. The newspaper said that according to current and former American officials, the CIA pays Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the CIA's direction in and around Kandahar.

Goldstonian knot (Al-Ahram Weekly) - Any Security Council debate would amplify before the world's media the war crimes so meticulously researched in the Goldstone report. Aside from immorality and illegality, the US stance on Goldstone reveals the Gordian knot at the heart of its Middle East diplomacy. On the one hand, the US wants to convince the Arabs that it can be an honest broker in their relations with Israel. On the other, it wants to reassure Israel that it remains the "unshakable" ally. Goldstone shows it cannot do both.

Alaa Al-Aswany: When women are sinners in the eyes of extremists - What is really saddening is that the Wahabi extremism which is spreading throughout the world with oil money and which gives Muslims a bad image is as far as can be from the real teachings of Islam. Anyone who reads the history of Islam fairly has to be impressed by the high status it accords to women, because from the time of the Prophet Muhammad until the fall of Andalusia, Muslim women mixed with men, were educated, worked and traded, fought and had financial responsibilities separately from their fathers or husbands. They had the right to choose the husband they loved and the right to divorce if they wanted. Western civilisation gave women these rights many centuries after Islam.
Finally, let me say that religious extremism is the other face of political despotism. We cannot get rid of the extremism before we end the despotism.
Democracy is the solution.