By Erika Niedowski | WASHINGTON // Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, effectively bade farewell yesterday to a critical ally in the US war on terrorism, Pervez Musharraf, and pledged US support to the new government in Pakistan and to bolstering the country’s democratic reforms.
Ms Rice called Mr Musharraf, who resigned rather than fight [...]
The Public Record | Four months before the United States invaded Iraq, the Department of Defense was secretly working with Vice President Dick Cheney’s old company, Halliburton Corp., on a secret deal that would give the world’s second largest oil services company total control over Iraq’s oil fields, according to interviews with Halliburton’s most senior executives.
Previously [...]
98 Percent of Drug Trials on Children Have no Safety Checks
By David Gutierrez | Fewer than 2 percent of drug trials conducted on children have independent safety advisory boards, a review published in the journal Acta Paediatrica has found.
Researchers from Nottingham University reviewed reports on 739 international drug trials that had been published between 1996 [...]
By Bob Egelko | After more than six years as a prisoner of the United States, former TV cameraman Sami al-Hajj is back at work with Al-Jazeera, the largest broadcaster in the Arab world, a thorn in the side of most Arab governments - and, by most indications, a target of deep hostility from the Bush [...]
ISLAMABAD (IPS) | Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf resigned from office on Monday ending weeks of speculation over whether he would quit or face impeachment on charges of illegally seizing power by a parliament elected in February and dominated by political parties opposed to him.
Musharraf, who grabbed power in a bloodless military coup in October 1999, was [...]
CRAWFORD, Texas - The United States on Sunday accused Russia of stalling its military pullback in Georgia, but the Bush administration is not rushing to repudiate Moscow for its actions.
The White House is struggling to figure out the best way to penalize Russia. It doesn’t want to deeply damage existing cooperation on many fronts or [...]
By Kevin Carey | On November 16, 2005, Willie “Bo” Mitchell and three co-defendants — Shelton “Little Rock” Harris, Shelly “Wayne” Martin, and Shawn Earl Gardner — appeared for a hearing in the modern federal courthouse in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. The four African American men were facing federal charges of racketeering, weapons possession, drug dealing, and [...]
Cambridge News | A War On Terror board game designed in Cambridge has been seized by police who claim the balaclava in the set could be used in a criminal act.
The satirical board game was confiscated along with knives, chisels and bolt cutters, from climate protesters during a series of raids near Kingsnorth power station, [...]
By Barrie Collins - Spiked | Last week, the Rwandan government published the findings of its commission of inquiry into the role France played in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. It found French diplomats, military leaders and politicians – including former president François Mitterand – complicit in the genocide.
Considering that the current Rwandan leadership has vilified [...]
By Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D. | The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental action organization, recently conducted an in-depth study into the quality of drinking water across the United States. Reviewing the tap water quality data for 19 major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, they compiled their findings and made [...]
TomDispatch | To the problem of an overstretched, over-toured military, there is but one answer in Washington. Both presidential candidates (along with just about every other politician in our nation’s capital) are on record wanting to significantly expand the Army and the Marines. In part two of his series at TomDispatch, [...]
The Pentagonization of the United States shows no sign of slowing down.
By Matthew Rothschild | Here’s the news flash from Wednesday’s New York Times: “Al Qaeda is more capable of attacking inside the United States than it was last year.”
That’s not my conclusion.
Or the conclusion of a Bush critic like Richard Clarke.
No, that’s the conclusion of the Bush Administration’s senior terrorism analyst, Ted Gistaro.
What a damning [...]
iol | British intelligence organisation MI5 and the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are the masters of South Africa’s elite crime fighting unit, the Scorpions, a public hearing into their dissolution heard in Durban on Tuesday.
Sam Kikine, the head of the International Traditional and Medicine Research Council, accused these two organisations of controlling the [...]
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart | Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge, chief medical officer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told a congressional subcommittee on July 22 that the risk of a large-scale biological attack on the nation is significant and that the U.S. government knows its terrorist enemies have sought to use biological [...]
By Elizabeth Olson | Blackwater Worldwide, the contractor whose provision of private security in Iraq has been under scrutiny, and its affiliated companies may have improperly obtained more than $100 million in contracts meant for small businesses, according to federal auditors.
A report by the Small Business Administration’s inspector general, issued in July, found that Blackwater [...]
By Richard Rubin | Most corporations, including the vast majority of foreign companies doing business in the United States, pay no income taxes, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday.
During the eight-year period covered by the report, 72 percent of foreign-owned corporations went at least one year without owing taxes, and the same [...]
Truthdig | In the past two decades I have had the opportunity to participate in certain experiences pertaining to my work that fall into the category of “no one will ever believe this.” I usually file these away, calling on them only when events transpire that breathe new life into these extraordinary memories. Ron Suskind, [...]
The above events have come to fruition with precision as “foretold” by Tom Clancy.
It’s basically what you would expect: Appoint a national cyber security advisor, invest in math and science education, establish standards for critical infrastructure, spend money on enforcement, establish national standards for securing personal data and data-breach disclosure, and work with industry and academia to develop a bunch of needed technologies.
I could comment on the plan, [...]
For past seven years, Israeli companies have been helping Gerogian army to preparer for war against Russia through arms deals, training of infantry units and security advice
By Arie Egozi | The fighting which broke out over the weekend between Russia and Georgia has brought Israel’s intensive involvement in the region into the limelight. This involvement [...]
Iraq’s foreign minister insisted Sunday that any security deal with the United States must contain a “very clear timeline” for the departure of U.S. troops. A suicide bomber struck north of Baghdad, killing at least five people including an American soldier.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters that American and Iraqi negotiators were “very close” to [...]
1000 U.S. troops began a military training exercise in Georgia on July 15 against a backdrop of growing friction between Georgia and neighboring Russia.
Via Bruce Schneier | According to a recent court ruling, we are all subject to the provisions of the DMCA, but the government is not:
he Court of Federal Claims that first heard the case threw it out, and the new Appellate ruling upholds that decision. The reasoning behind the decisions focuses on the US government’s sovereign immunity, [...]
A Guantanamo detainee on Wednesday urged a human rights panel that investigates abuse cases in the Americas to review his accusations that he was tortured in the US “war on terror” prison.
Djamel Ameziane, an Algerian who has been held at the US naval base in Cuba for six years as an “enemy combatant” without charge, [...]
The United States has far less control over events in Iraq than politicians and the press would have us believe.
In the days immediately following September 11th, the most powerful people in the country were panic-stricken. The radical decisions about how to combat terrorists and strengthen national security were made in a state of utter chaos and fear, but the key players, Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, used the [...]
The deadliest biological assault on the United States may have been perpetrated by a church-going white man, with anthrax from our own weapons labs.
SEOUL, South Korea - Police fired water cannons at thousands of protesters Tuesday as President Bush got a volatile reception in South Korea at the start of his three-nation Asian trip.
Dueling demonstrations reflected mixed sentiments in this U.S. ally, where public opinion surveys remain generally positive about America, though many people decry Washington for a [...]
By Andy Worthington | The ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus wrote: “In war, truth is the first casualty.” These words are particularly apt in relation to the British Overseas Territory of Diego Garcia, leased to the United States in 1971, where the truth – that a secret “War on Terror” prison existed from 2002 until as recently [...]
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