The slant of the Venezuelan private media and the international media on what is happening in Venezuela is clear: The government is responsible for the violence. In the first place government-ordered gunmen are shooting at pacific demonstrators and the violence generated by the opposition is just a response to the brutality of police and military forces. But there is considerable evidence that shows that the violence, including that of unidentified motorcyclists against the demonstrators, is being carried out by the opposition. Consider the following:

1. Violent actions have been carried out by the opposition since the time of the 2002 coup. The "guarimba" which means urban violence (or "foquismo") was publicly advocated by opposition leaders in 2003-2004 as the only way to prevent the establishment of a dictatorial regime in Venezuela.

2. On April 11, 2002, the day Chávez was overthrown, the Venezuelan and international media and the White House used juxtaposition of images of Chavistas shooting pistols in downtown Caracas, on the one hand, and peaceful anti-government demonstrators, on the other to justify the coup. However the Irish-produced documentary "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and other documentaries demonstrated by the flow of the camera that the demonstrators were far away from the Chavistas and that they were shooting in response to sniper fire against them. If snipers were responsible for the 15-20 killings (of opposition demonstrators along with Chavistas) that justified the coup of April 2002, is there any reason to doubt that the unidentified individuals who are attacking demonstrators are not acting on behalf of sectors of the opposition?

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has again called for dialogue, as part of a national peace plan.

Maduro urged for more talks with student groups, stating he is open to "constructive dialogue to define key issues" during an address to the country last night.

"I'm making a new proposal. Come here, let's talk...we want peace," the president stated.

Earlier this week the government issued a call for student groups to meet with Vice President Jorge Arreaza in the capital, Caracas. The talks were intended to be part of a "plan of living together and peace".

"We have to be builders of peace," he stated.

Maduro also called for a meeting of state governors next Monday. A previous call went largely unnoticed by the opposition. Yesterday the president urged opposition governors including Miranda's Henrique Capriles to "not continue shunning their work, to talk about what is needed in the states, to talk about peace".

Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops on Friday as protesters rallied in Hebron to mark twenty years since the massacre of 29 Palestinians at a religious shrine. The 1994 massacre, carried out by Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein, led to the closure of a main road in Hebron. The protesters were demonstrating against the closure saying it is disruptive and helps cement Israeli control over the area. Israeli troops fired rubber bullets and threw stun grenades at protesters. A Palestinian medical official said at least two protesters were injured in the clashes.

NGO's, Behold Your God.

George Soros was born in Budapest in 1930 but, today, spends most of his time in New York City. Not much is known about his early years. He is the only eminent "holocaust survivor" who has been accused of collaboration with the Nazis. In 1947, he managed to sneak through the Iron Curtain, and, the official story goes, "he landed penniless in London, but by hard work and sheer genius, he rose to become one of the planet's most successful investors and richest men."

Mr. Soros' peculiar moral values, political views, and ideological preferences would be immaterial without the money that he can spend promoting and imposing them. The bulk of that money-currently estimated at not less than seven billion dollars-was earned in the minus-sum game of currency and stock speculation, contributing nothing to the creation of wealth and making millions of ordinary people poorer in the process. His offshore Quantum Fund-legally headquartered in Curacao, beyond U.S.-government supervision-specializes in speculative investments to take advantage of deliberately induced political and economic weaknesses of different countries and regions. In an interview with the Swiss weekly L'hebdo (May 1993), Soros outlined his strategy: "I speculate on discrepancy between the reality and the public image of this reality, until a correctional mechanism occurs, which approaches these two."

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused President Obama of promoting ongoing protests in the country, and of backing members of the opposition alleged to be behind violence.

In a communique, the Latin American leader demanded that the US explain its motives in "financing, promoting and defending members of the opposition that promote violence against our country."

Maduro went on to denounce declarations made by President Obama regarding the situation in Venezuela, saying that they presented a "gross interference in internal affairs."

The new accusations come amidst a spike in the unrest that has gripped Venezuela, with some six people killed since demonstrations mounted by the opposition turned violent last week.

Annie Jacobsen's new book is called Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America. It isn't terribly secret anymore, of course, and it was never very intelligent. Jacobsen has added some details, and the U.S. government is still hiding many more. But the basic facts have been available; they're just left out of most U.S. history books, movies, and television programs.

After World War II, the U.S. military hired sixteen hundred former Nazi scientists and doctors, including some of Adolf Hitler's closest collaborators, including men responsible for murder, slavery, and human experimentation, including men convicted of war crimes, men acquitted of war crimes, and men who never stood trial. Some of the Nazis tried at Nuremberg had already been working for the U.S. in either Germany or the U.S. prior to the trials. Some were protected from their past by the U.S. government for years, as they lived and worked in Boston Harbor, Long Island, Maryland, Ohio, Texas, Alabama, and elsewhere, or were flown by the U.S. government to Argentina to protect them from prosecution. Some trial transcripts were classified in their entirety to avoid exposing the pasts of important U.S. scientists. Some of the Nazis brought over were frauds who had passed themselves off as scientists, some of whom subsequently learned their fields while working for the U.S. military.

The US-supported opposition in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is taking its cue from the anti-government protests taking place across the Atlantic Ocean in Ukraine. Failing to win any of Venezuela's elections by earning a popular mandate from the majority of the population in the last few years, the leaders of the mainstream opposition are now resorting to colour revolution tactics and a Ukraine-style disruption strategy. The aim of these opposition leaders in Venezuela is to manipulate the galvanized anti-government protesters into creating a political crisis in Caracas. Mainstream opposition leaders are doing this by instigating the protesters into taking steps that are geared at toppling the Venezuelan government.

The same opposition leaders and their foreign supporters are using the cover of the undeniable misgivings about rising crime rates, political corruption, and economic turmoil in Venezuela as a disguise for what is essentially looking like an attempted coup. The socio-economic misgivings of a segment of the population are being used as a pretext to legitimize street action and violence aimed at toppling the government

At least 16 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli gunfire during two protests in the besieged Gaza Strip.

In one of the incidents, 14 protesters were injured during a protest against the Israeli-designated buffer zone near Jabalia in the northeast of Gaza City on Friday.

Medical sources said one of the injured, a 12-year-old boy, was in critical condition after being shot in the head.

An Israeli military spokeswoman claimed the forces opened live fire at the protesters after they threw stones at the soldiers. She also said that "hundreds of Palestinians" took part in the protest.

Meanwhile, a Hamas security officer and a Palestinian boy were also injured by Israeli soldiers during a different protest in southern Gaza.

The Israeli military frequently targets Palestinians along the border with the besieged enclave.

Move over, Peter O' Toole. It's Charles of Arabia time. Prince Charles switched to Lawrence mode when he went schmoozing and dancing in Riyadh this past Tuesday with the natives. And just like clockwork, the next day BAE Systems - Europe's number one weapons peddler - announced that the UK and the House of Saud had agreed on "new pricing" for an extremely juicy deal; 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets.

The Eurofighter is a direct competitor of the spectacularly unsalable French Rafale and the very expensive American F-35s and F-16s. The Associated Press duly included in its dispatch - reproduced by virtually every newspaper around the world - the Washington-enforced meme "Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries are fortifying their military capabilities to counter a perceived threat from regional rivals, particularly Iran." As if Tehran was going to bomb the House of Saud tomorrow.

As ExxonMobil's CEO, it's Rex Tillerson's job to promote the hydraulic fracturing enabling the recent oil and gas boom, and fight regulatory oversight. The oil company is the biggest natural gas producer in the U.S., relying on the controversial drilling technology to extract it.

The exception is when Tillerson's $5 million property value might be harmed. Tillerson has joined a lawsuit that cites fracking's consequences in order to block the construction of a 160-foot water tower next to his and his wife's Texas home.

The Wall Street Journal reports the tower would supply water to a nearby fracking site, and the plaintiffs argue the project would cause too much noise and traffic from hauling the water from the tower to the drilling site. The water tower, owned by Cross Timbers Water Supply Corporation, "will sell water to oil and gas explorers for fracing [sic] shale formations leading to traffic with heavy trucks on FM 407, creating a noise nuisance and traffic hazards," the suit says.

Though Tillerson's name is on the lawsuit, a lawyer representing him said his concern is about the devaluation of his property, not fracking specifically.