A U.S. drone fired two missiles at a house in Pakistan's northwest tribal region, killing three suspected militants in the second such attack in as many days, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

The back-to-back strikes could be an indication the drone program is picking up steam again after a slowdown caused by tensions with Pakistan over accidental American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last year.

The U.S. held off on carrying out drone strikes for over six weeks after the deadly accident on Nov. 26. There have been a handful of attacks since they resumed in January, but the last two are the first consecutive strikes since the border incident.

The house hit before dawn on Thursday was located in the main bazaar in Miran Shah, the biggest town in the North Waziristan tribal area, the country's main sanctuary for Taliban and al-Qaida militants, said Pakistani intelligence officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

When news of the threat Bill C-11 potentially poses broke nearly three weeks ago, the majority of Canadian observers took a hard stance against this Canadian SOPA-like anti-piracy legislation.

Comments from our Bill C-11 blog were unequivocally opposed to this bill passing through the House of Commons. Tweets responding the the blog echoed that same sentiment. And the poll placed on our SOPA topic page saw an astounding 94 per cent vote against online piracy regulations.

But it's not enough to simply draw a line in the sand and choose a side.

The 'Stop Bill C-11: Fight Harper's proposed Copyright Act - Defend Your Data' Facebook page is encouraging followers to contact their local MPs and voice their displeasure. Several of the near 2,500 followers have done just that, and the general response has been rather positive.

One follower commented on the page, stating she "just got a reply from the NDP leader, regarding my letter of concern about C-11. I can copy and paste the entire thing out, but in short, they will not be backing the bill as it is currently written."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is re-branding SOPA and the Protect IP act under a new name to launch a second round of attacks in an attempt to censor the Internet.

After trying to adopt Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), both pieces of legislation turned out to be a disaster, causing outrage among Internet giants and ordinary users alike. Congress had to retreat. However it's determined to get what it wants this time.

After the shelving of SOPA and PIPA back in January Reid stated, "There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved."

As RT reported last month, Senator Reid added that lawmakers will "continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans' intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the Internet."

Iran on Tuesday dismissed the new U.S. sanctions, saying they are part of a "psychological war" meant to sow discontent among Iranians and insisting the measures would not halt the country's nuclear program.

Washington ordered the new penalties on Monday, giving U.S. banks additional powers to freeze assets linked to the Iranian government and close loopholes that officials say Iran has used to move money despite earlier restrictions imposed by the U.S. and Europe.

In an address recently delivered to an AIPAC audience in New York, New Jersey governor Chris Christie articulated a responsible view of America's role in the world, stressing the importance of us standing by our friends and taking action against our adversaries.

"America should stand by its friends and its democratic allies, even, and sometimes especially, when it's unpopular to do so," Christie said, outlining his foreign policy vision. "And you know I know, that it may not be fashionable in some of the chancelleries, the foreign ministries, and salons around the world to talk about why America stands with Israel - but that's no excuse not to be saying, and saying it loudly."

Christie continued: "I read a quote from President Franklin Roosevelt which has thought made this point much better than I ever could. He says, 'Please judge me by the enemies I have made.' In that same spirit, I would like to say to all of you tonight: I admire Israel for the enemies it has made."

Death in RAF helicopter and secret prison camp in Iraq desert raises questions about legality of British and US operations

On the evening of 11 April 2003, a pair of RAF CH47 Chinook helicopters swept over Iraq's western desert towards a remote rendezvous point beside Route 10, the highway that begins life on the outskirts of Baghdad before running for mile after mile towards the border with Jordan.

As they approached their destination, the crews assumed they were on an operation that would be uneventful. Two days earlier Saddam Hussein's statue had been toppled after American tanks rolled into the Iraqi capital; three weeks later George Bush would stand in front of a banner saying "mission accomplished".

The helicopter crews had been told that a number of detainees were under armed guard at the side of the highway. They were to pick them up after dark and take them to a prison camp. What followed was far from routine: before the night was out, one man had died on board one of the helicopters, allegedly beaten to death by RAF personnel.

The incident was immediately shrouded in secrecy. When the Guardian heard about it and began to ask questions, the Ministry of Defence responded with an extraordinary degree of obstruction and obfuscation, evading questions not just for days but for weeks and months. The RAF's own police examined the death in an investigation codenamed Operation Raker, but this ended with some of the most salient facts remaining deeply buried. The alleged culprits faced no charges.

Congress has approved a bill that will allow military, commercial, and private unmanned drones to fly over regular US airspace.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope, it's an unmanned drone! Congress today approved a bill that allows unmanned aircraft to fly in the same airspace as commercial airliners, private planes, and cargo jets. The legislation allocates $63.4 billion over the next three and a half years to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), $11 billion of which will be used to update air traffic control systems at 35 US airports to handle the remote-controlled aircrafts. The deadline for the systems update is June 2015.

The change to flight regulations will allow military, commercial, and private drones to fly over US territory. Currently, drones are only allowed over certain military airspace, along US borders for surveillance purposes, and to about 300 public agencies, according to the Associated Press. The FAA must submit its plan for how to safely allow wide-spread drone flight within nine months of the bill's passage.

Do you love America? Are you against a one world economy and a one world government? Do you deeply love individual liberty? Do you believe in conspiracy theories? If you answered any of those questions affirmatively, then you are a potential terrorist according to a brand new Department of Homeland Security report that was just released in January 2012. The report is entitled "Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970 to 2008", was produced by the "National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism" for the Department of Homeland Security.

As you will see detailed later on in this article, the most shocking part of this report is when it discusses the "ideological motivations" of potential terrorists. The report shamelessly attempts to portray red-blooded Americans that love liberty and that love their country as the enemy. Once upon a time, deeply patriotic Americans were considered to be the backbone of America, but today they are considered to be potential terrorists.

And this report is yet another example of how the definition of "terrorism" has changed. A decade ago, the entire focus of the "war on terror" was on radical Muslims and we were told that we had to send our boys and girls to the other side of the world to defeat them.

Iranian threat is like the Arab threat to destroy Israel in 1967, a history professor tells Newsweek. The danger: Western complacency.

The Iranian Threat is like the Arab world's threat to destroy Israel in 1967, and Israel must attack Iran now, a Harvard University history professor told Newsweek. He said the he biggest danger is Western complacency.

The magazine,which last week published a scenario of how Israel till attack Iran if it decides to do so, featured on its website on Monday an article by Prof. Niall Ferguson.

He pooh-poohed five arguments why Israel should not stage a military strike on Iran: Iranian retaliation, new Arab Spring rebellion, a recession caused by doubling of the price of crude oil, boomerang support for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad within Iran, and the ability to live with a nuclear Iran.

Prof. Ferguson maintains that whether he likes it or not, President Barack Obama will comes to Israel's defense if it attacks Iran in an attempt to slow down its nuclear development, if not destroy its nuclear facilities altogether.

Moscow - Iran is capable of carrying out military strikes on U.S. interests all around the world if the Islamic Republic is attacked by the United States, Iran's ambassador to Moscow said on Wednesday.

The United States has tried to force Tehran to scrap sensitive nuclear work by imposing sanctions targeting Iran's central bank and giving U.S. banks new powers to freeze Iranian government assets.

Iran's ambassador to Moscow said that the United States would be making a serious mistake, akin to suicide, if it risked a military strike on OPEC's No. 2 oil exporter.

Washington has announced no such plans, but has said a military option is always on the table if Iran cannot be otherwise prevented from developing atomic weapons.

"The Americans know what kind of country Iran is. They are well aware of our people's unity," Iranian ambassador Seyed Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi told a news conference in Moscow.

"And that's why Iran is fully able to deliver retaliatory strikes on the United States anywhere in the world," he said, speaking through an interpreter.

"Even if it attacks, we have a list of counter actions. (The United States) would be disappointed with their huge mistake."

Iran has increasingly issued threatening statements against the West in recent weeks as tension has increased over its uranium enrichment program, which it moved last month to a mountain bunker better protected from possible air strikes.

Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful while Western powers fear Tehran is trying to build a nuclear bomb.

"The issue of a military attack from America on the Islamic Republic of Iran has been on the agenda for several years," said Sajjadi, adding that Iran would never strike first.

Iran has warned its response to any such strike would be "painful," threatening to target Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf, along with closing the Strait of Hormuz used by one third of the world's seaborne oil traffic.

Russia, the world's biggest energy producer, opposes further U.N. Security Council sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program and has sharply criticized U.S. and European Union sanctions.

Writing by Steve Gutterman and Guy Faulconbridge