The case is almost seven years old now, but matters surrounding a mysterious group known as the Finders keep growing curiouser and curiouser.

In early February 1987, an anonymous tipster in Tallahassee, Fla., made a phone call to police. Two "well-dressed men" seemed to be "supervising" six disheveled and hungry children in a local park, the caller said. The cops went after the case like bloodhounds--at least at first. The two men were identified as members of the Finders. They were charged with child abuse in Florida. In Washington, D.C., police and U.S. Customs Service agents raided a duplex apartment building and a warehouse connected to the group. Among the evidence seized: detailed instructions on obtaining children for unknown purposes and several photographs of nude children. According to a Customs Service memorandum obtained by U.S. News, one photo appeared "to accent the child's genitals."

The more the police learned about the Finders, the more bizarre they seemed: There were suggestions of child abuse, Satanism, dealing in pornography and ritualistic animal slaughter.

UN special rapporteur on torture's findings likely to reignite criticism of US government's treatment of WikiLeaks suspect

The UN special rapporteur on torture has formally accused the US government of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment towards Bradley Manning, the US soldier who was held in solitary confinement for almost a year on suspicion of being the WikiLeaks source.

Juan Mendez has completed a 14-month investigation into the treatment of Manning since the soldier's arrest at a US military base in May 2010. He concludes that the US military was at least culpable of cruel and inhumane treatment in keeping Manning locked up alone for 23 hours a day over an 11-month period in conditions that he also found might have constituted torture.

"The special rapporteur concludes that imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence," Mendez writes.

Rap News Episode 12: YES WE KONY. It's March, and the Internet delivers 2012's first globe-consuming meme: the unstoppable, Stop-Kony 2012 video, which has highlighted the plight of African child soldiering like never before. But is it really good? Is it really bad? Or is the world really more complex than 'good guys' and 'bad guys'? Whatevers; one thing's for sure, this is momentous: never had a 27-minute video devoid of both cats and boobs ever achieved such virality. Is this a demonstration of the internet's ability to instantly inform and engage tens of millions; and a hopeful sign that there is a willingness among those millions, to engage passionately with something more meaningful? Or does Kony2012 just mark the dawn of a rapacious new style of viral marketing? Join your charitable host Robert Foster - and our special guest, General Baxter, direct from AFRICOM - as we delve into the dark heart of the matter.

Last week, Rep. Dennis Kucinich was defeated in a Democratic primary by Rep. Marcy Kaptur after re-districting pitted the two long-term incumbents against each other. Kucinich's fate was basically sealed when the new district contained far more of Kaptur's district than his. His 18-year stint in the House will come to an end when the next Congress is installed at the beginning of 2013.

Establishment Democrats have long viewed Dennis Kucinich with a mixture of scorn, mockery and condescension. True to form, the establishment liberal journal American Prospect gave Kucinich a little kick on the way out, comparing his political views to the 1960s musical Hair (the Ohio loser talked about "Harmony and understanding"!), deriding him as "a favorite among lefty college kids and Birkenstock-wearers around the country," and pronouncing him "among the wackiest members of Congress." Yes, I said The American Prospect, not The Weekly Standard.

The Prospect article also praises as "great" a snide, derisive Washington Post piece which purports to "highlight some of the particularly bizarre facts about" Kucinich. Among those is the fact that "he introduced impeachment articles against former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Cheney for their roles in the Iraq war" and "proposed a Cabinet-level agency devoted to peace." What a weirdo and a loser. Even more predictably, a team of four interns at The New Republic - the magazine that spent years crusading for the attack on Iraq, smearing Israel critics as anti-Semites, and defining its editorial mission as re-making the Democratic Party in the image of Joe Lieberman - denounced the anti-war Kucinich as "ludicrous," citing most of the same accusations as the Prospect and the Post.

Impeachment proceedings begin in the House and the Senate over Obama's brazen use of aggressive military force without congressional authority.

Since 2005, Veterans for Peace and others have been calling for the impeachment of the sitting president for war crimes. After their demands to lawmakers to uphold the rule of law against Bush were largely ignored, they renewed their effort to impeach Obama once he continued to bomb sovereign nations without congressional approval. Now, lawmakers seem to have finally decided to take the rule of law and Separation of Powers seriously.

Obama will face impeachment over his failure to seek congressional authorization before launching offensive military action in Libya last year. Official impeachment proceedings have now been filed in both the House and Senate.

Last week, North Carolina Representative Walter Jones filed an Impeachment Resolution in the House H.CON.RES.107.IH stating:

"Expressing the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution."

"Whereas the cornerstone of the Republic is honoring Congress's exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution:

Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that, except in response to an actual or imminent attack against the territory of the United States, the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress violates Congress's exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution and therefore constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution."

One year after the unrest in Syria started President Bashar Assad is still firmly in control of his country, US intelligence services say, despite their leaders claiming his regime is doomed.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, three US senior intelligence officials have said Assad holds a strong position in Syria and his inner circle is also very determined to back the cause and remain "steadfast," AP reports.

Intelligence officers noted that the disorganized Syrian opposition is providing little challenge to the regime and that the political leaders of the Syrian National Council do not work as a team and often fight among themselves.

Meanwhile, government forces are very well equipped, US intelligence experts assert. They describe Syria as a formidable military power, with some 330,000 soldiers on active duty, surveillance drones and a dense network of air-defense installations that would make it difficult to establish a no-fly zone.

"That leadership is going to fight very hard," said one of them.

Abdo Hussameddin, Syria's deputy oil minister, saying he can no longer overlook "the crimes of this regime."

A youtube video was put up on Thursday March 8, 2012 displaying the DEPUTY Oil Minister declaring a public defection.

Who is Hussameddian?

Hussameddin was employed by the Oil Sector as a technical employee to help run and distribute oil between August/September of 2009.

There are two positions the Syrian government put under the Oil Minister. One is a Deputy Minister and the other is a General Manager to help things run smoothly. A Deputy Minister is the Oil Minister's right-hand man and is more hands-on with political issues.

Hussameddian was a technical employee (General Manager), not the deputy minister. But of course we all know the propaganda stunts that the media pulls.

Italian police have broken up a pedophile network spanning at least 28 countries that used social media websites to swap pornographic images and videos of child abuse.

Ten people have been arrested in Italy, the United States, France and Portugal, and another 112 are being investigated on suspicion of child pornography, Italy's computer crime police bureau NIT said in a statement.

Police carried out raids in several countries on Thursday morning in "Operation Nanny" to dismantle what NIT called "an extensive international community of pedophiles".

Investigators froze computer data in U.S. social network servers and took down several online communities that served to recruit new members and pool illegal material.

The data revealed an Italian-founded criminal group with more than 700 followers around the world, exchanging thousands of images and videos, NIT said.

The Pedophocracy, Part I: From Brussels ...

"Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose ... I am also a theologian and as a theologian, I believe it is God's will that there be closeness and intimacy, unity of flesh, between people ... paedophiles can make the assertion that the pursuit of intimacy and love is what they choose. With boldness, they can say, 'I believe this is in fact part of God's will.'"

Ralph Underwager, 'expert' witness for the defense in scores of child abuse cases and former vocal member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, in an interview in Paidika (a pro-pedophilia publication), conducted in June 1991

To the vast majority of Americans, the name Marc Dutroux doesn't mean much. Drop that name in Belgium though and you're likely to elicit some very visceral reactions. Dutroux - convicted along with his wife in 1989 for the rape and violent abuse of five young girls, the youngest of whom was just eleven - now stands accused of being a key player in an international child prostitution and pornography ring whose practices included kidnapping, rape, sadistic torture, and murder.

Dutroux was sentenced in 1989 to thirteen years for his crimes, but was freed after having served just three. This was in spite of the fact that, as prison governor Yvan Stuaert would later tell a parliamentary commission: "A medical report described him as a perverse psychopath, an explosive mix. He was an evident danger to society."

The man who turned Dutroux loose on society, Justice Minister Melchior Wathelet, soon after received a prestigious appointment to serve as a judge at the European Court of Justice at the Hague. Shortly after Dutroux's release, young girls began to disappear in the vicinity of some of his homes. Though technically unemployed and drawing welfare from the state, he nevertheless owned at least six houses and lived quite lavishly.

In the past 48 hours across Gaza, Israeli airstrikes have killed 19 Palestinians, and injured 30 others.

In 2 seperate Drone attacks this morning, a 12 year old boy was killed in Jabalia, and in Gaza city, a 60 year old man also died.

Earlier this morning, in the Al Zaytoon area in eastern Gaza. 2 others were injured in the latest airstike to hit Gaza today. In the attack, Ahmad Deeb Salem was killed. Only 2 days ago he was married.

Israeli air raids killed at least one person and injured 2 others in Rafah in the south of the Gaza strip earlier on Saturday. Their motorcycle was hit by a missile fired from a drone.

The latest deaths came as Israeli drones fired missiles in Khan Younis killing Mansour Abu Nusaira and Hussein Hamad earlier this morning.