It wasn't long after he met the man called Shareef that Khalifa Al-Akili began to sense he was being set up. Within days of their seemingly chance meeting, Shareef was offering to drive Akili, a 34-year-old Muslim living in East Liberty, Pennsylvania, to the local mosque for prayers. Shareef told Akili he was "all about fighting" and "had a lot of resources at his disposal." But when Shareef began to probe Akili about his views on jihad and asked him if he could obtain a gun, Akili grew nervous. "I begin to try to avoid him, but would still see him due to the fact that he lived two minutes' walking distance from my apartment," Akili said later. In January of this year, Shareef showed up with a "brother" who called himself Mohammed and was keen to meet Akili. Mohammed told Akili that he was a businessman from Pakistan involved in jihad. "He kept attempting to talk about the fighting going on in Afghanistan, which I clearly felt was an attempt to get me to talk about my views," Akili recalled. "I had a feeling that I had just played out a part in some Hollywood movie where I had just been introduced to the leader of a terrorist sleeper cell."

Out of curiosity, Akili did an Internet search on the cellphone number he'd received from Mohammed. Much to his surprise, he discovered that the man was, in fact, an FBI informant named Shahed Hussain, who had played a pivotal role in at least two major terrorism-related sting operations in recent years. In a lengthy posting on his Facebook page recounting these events, Akili wrote, "I would like to pursue a legal action against the FBI due to their continuous harassment." He also set up a press conference in Washington with Muslim civil liberties groups to publicize his fear that he was being entrapped. But it was too late. In mid-March, Akili was arrested and charged with being in possession of a .22-caliber rifle at a shooting range several years earlier, an act deemed illegal because of a decade-old drug conviction. Though his arrest was on nonterrorism-related charges, at his bond hearing FBI agents and US Attorneys told the judge they'd seen unspecified "jihadist literature" at his apartment and also alleged that he'd told one of the informants of his desire to go to Pakistan and join the Taliban. The judge ordered Akili held without bail.

Political liars lie because they're forwarding secret agendas and don't want us to catch on. They also lie because they're tailoring their messages to what they think we want to hear. We know that. Everybody knows that.

But if everybody knows that, why do so many people act as if they don't know it? It's a strange phenomenon.

If you had a friend who talked to you every day in a way you knew was disingenuous, if he said things obviously intended to cater to your opinions and beliefs, at some point wouldn't you hold up your hand and say STOP? It would be maddening, wouldn't it? It would be like eating too much molasses.

Sure, we like to have people agree with us, but there is a limit. There is especially a limit when we know they're pretending to agree with us. There is REALLY a limit when we know they're agreeing with us because they want something from us.

According to Reporters Without Borders, the Ethiopian government recently put new restrictions on internet use inside the country by criminalizing Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, The Verge reports. Anyone who makes a phone call over the internet using services such as Skype, FaceTime, and Google Talk -- among others -- are subject to hefty fines, and as many as 15 years in prison.

Former BBC Ethiopia correspondent Elizabeth Blunt believes that the new law is meant to protect state run Ethio Teleco, the sole telecommunications provider in the country.

"Internet cafes may be allowing people to make calls for far less than the cost of Ethiopia telecom, the state's telecommunications provider that has the monopoly and charges very high prices -- and doesn't want to have its service undermined," Blunt said.

In addition to criminalizing VoIP use, the Ethiopian government has also begun blocking its citizens from accessing the anonymizing tool Tor, which makes it possible to access banned websites. Reporters Without Borders posted on its site that it has "previously analyzed the same kind of censorship in China, Iran, and Kazakhstan." The group believes that these actions may be a "turning point in the Ethiopian government's control of the Internet," and suspects the techniques being deployed could possibly be used to monitor the online behavior of citizens.

According to a 2010 data report via Google, only a small fraction of Ethiopia's population -- about 0.75% of the 82 million people in the country -- are able to access the internet.

Israel has deployed tanks on its southern borders with Egypt in violation of the Camp David Accord signed by the Tel Aviv regime and Cairo.

Two Israeli tanks have been spotted moving toward the border fence on Monday. Both Egypt and Israel are obliged to keep the area demilitarized under the Camp David Accord.

The move comes just hours after an Israeli man was killed in a cross-border attack, after which Israel launched an airstrike on the Gaza strip, killing two Palestinians.

The Camp David Accord was signed by then Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978, following thirteen days of secret negotiations at Camp David in Washington D.C.

The deal comprises two agreements, a Framework for Peace in the Middle East, and a Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel. The latter agreement led to the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in 1979 which also took place in the United States.

Russia is preparing to send two amphibious assault ships to the Syrian port of Tartus according to the Interfax news agency.

The move is seen as an attempt to ensure the safety of Russian nationals stationed at the strategic naval base Moscow operates on Syria's Mediterranean coast.

An unidentified officer confirmed that "Two major amphibious ships - The Nikolai Filchenkov and The Tsezar Kunikov - are preparing to be dispatched to Tartus outside of their schedule."

It is believed the two ships will be carrying a large group of marines and could be used to evacuate Russian citizens and property. There has been no official confirmation of the report from the navy or the defence ministry.

Militants who crossed into Israel from Egypt's Sinai desert fired on Israelis building a barrier on the border on Monday, killing one worker, before soldiers shot dead two of the attackers, Israel's military said.

Hours later, an Israeli air strike on the northern Gaza Strip killed two militants on a motorcycle. Islamic Jihad said they belonged to their group. The military said the strike was not linked to the incident on the border.

The Sinai attack, launched soon after Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood declared victory in the country's presidential election, raised Israeli concerns about lawlessness in the area since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Baghdad - Two car bombs in Iraq's capital killed at least 26 people Saturday on the last day of a Shiite pilgrimage already hit by multiple bombings. The blasts, one in a heavily guarded area close to a revered shrine, raised the week's death toll to more than 100 and cast further doubt on the divided government's ability to secure the country after the American withdrawal.

Black plumes of smoke filled the sky over Baghdad's northern Kazimiyah neighborhood, where the shrine to eighth-century saint Imam Moussa al-Kadhim draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year. One of the bombs tore into throngs of people who packed the streets nearby, carrying aloft symbolic coffins and beating their chests in mourning to mark his martyrdom.

Three days before, nearly two dozen coordinated bombs around the country killed 72 people. Al-Qaida's Iraqi affiliate on Saturday claimed responsibility for that attack, which marked one of the deadliest days in Iraq since the last U.S. troops left in December.

The fierce wave of bombings targeting Shiites suggests that the al-Qaida-allied Sunni militants are stepping up their periodic attacks - which recently have come every few weeks - to try to exploit sectarian cracks in the elected government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and possibly spark another round of the bloodshed between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war only a few years ago. Shiite religious commemorations are frequent targets of these attacks, although overall levels of violence are still down considerably from then.

The election results from Greece are in and the pro-bailout forces have won, but just barely. It is being projected that the pro-bailout New Democracy party will have about 130 seats in the 300 seat parliament, and Pasok (another pro-bailout party) will have about 33 seats. Those two parties have alternated ruling Greece for decades, and it looks like they are going to form a coalition government which will keep Greece in the euro. On Monday we are likely to see financial markets across the globe in celebration mode. But the truth is that nothing has really changed.

Greece is still in a depression. The Greek economy has contracted by close to 25 percent over the past four years, and now they are going to stay on the exact same path that they were before. Austerity is going to continue to grind away at what remains of the Greek economy and money is going to continue to fly out of the country at a very rapid pace. Greece is still drowning in debt and completely dependent on outside aid to avoid bankruptcy. Meanwhile, things in Spain and Italy are rapidly getting worse. So where in that equation is room for optimism?

Right now the ingredients for a "perfect storm" are developing in Europe. Government spending is being slashed all across the continent, ECB monetary policy is very tight, new regulations and deteriorating economic conditions are causing major banks to cut back on lending and there is panic in the air.

Unless something dramatic changes, things are going to continue to get worse.

Yes, the Greek election results mean that Greece will stay in the euro - at least for now.

But is that really a reason for Greeks to celebrate?

Right now, the unemployment rate in Greece is about 22 percent. Businesses continue to shut down at a staggering rate and suicides are spiking.

So far this month, about 500 million euros a day has been pulled out of Greek banks. The entire Greek banking system is on the verge of collapse.

Meanwhile, the Greek government is still running up more debt. It is being projected that the Greek budget deficit will be about 7 percent of GDP this year.

The Greeks went to the polls and they voted for more of the same.

Are they crazy?

Search engine company has said there has been a troubling increase in requests to remove political content from the internet

There has been an alarming rise in the number of times governments attempted to censor the internet in last six months, according to a report from Google.

Since the search engine last published its bi-annual transparency report, it said it had seen a troubling increase in requests to remove political content. Many of these requests came from western democracies not typically associated with censorship.

It said Spanish regulators asked Google to remove 270 links to blogs and newspaper articles critical of public figures. It did not comply. In Poland, it was asked to remove an article critical of the Polish agency for enterprise development and eight other results that linked to the article. Again, the company did not comply.

Google was asked by Canadian officials to remove a YouTube video of a citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet. It refused.

World leaders were set to pile pressure on Europe at a G20 summit on Monday to outline a lasting strategy to save the euro currency after a victory for pro-bailout parties in a Greek election failed to calm financial markets.

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke with European leaders after the Greek vote and requested a meeting with them on Monday evening, underscoring the extent of concern in Washington that the euro crisis could deepen, infecting the fragile U.S. economy only months before an election.

He will also hold separate talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who as the leader of Europe's biggest economy, faces enormous pressure to take bold new steps to resolve a crisis that has been raging for more than two years.

Protected by Mexican navy vessels and troops on the beaches and highways, Group of 20 leaders from major industrialized and developing economies, representing more than 80 percent of world output, began a two-day meeting in this Pacific resort to prioritize growth and job creation against the backdrop of a weakening global economy.