The Wall Street gang is at it again! It's been one year since Wall Street's collapse and bailout took trillions from taxpayers and the sinking economy. The speculative instruments that pulled down the economy were those super-risky sub-prime mortgages, credit default swaps, collaterized debt obligations-you know-Las Vegas East, using other peoples' savings.
As if to elaborate their gigantic con job, the investment banks, guaranteed by you the taxpayers, are… Continue
Added by Tara on September 12, 2009 at 11:31am —
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The United States was founded as an “infant empire,” in the words of George Washington. The conquest of the national territory was a grand imperial venture. From the earliest days, control over the hemisphere was a critical goal.
Latin America has retained its primacy in U.S. global planning. If the United States cannot control Latin America, it cannot expect “to achieve a successful order elsewhere in the world,” observed President Richard M. Nixon’s… Continue
Added by Tara on September 11, 2009 at 9:09am —
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Today (Wed. Sept 9th) Israeli human rights group B'Tselem published its findings on the number of Palestinians and Israelis killed in Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. According to B’Tselem’s research, Israeli security forces killed 1,387 Palestinians during the course of the three-week operation. Of these, 773 did not take part in the hostilities, including 320 minors and 109 women over the age of 18. Of those killed, 330 took part in the hostilities, and 248 were Palestinian police… Continue
Added by Tara on September 11, 2009 at 1:08am —
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WASHINGTON D.C. – Texas’ 14th Congressional Representative, Dr. Ron Paul appeared on CNN’s “Larry King Live” shortly after the conclusion of President Obama’s health care speech before a joint-session of Congress. Dr. Paul offers his opinion on whether or not the President changed his mind regarding government intervention into the economy as an effective path to reforming the ever-escalating cost of health insurance premiums.
The Israeli government has launched a television and internet advertising campaign urging Israelis to inform on Jewish friends and relatives abroad who may be in danger of marrying non-Jews.
The advertisements, employing what the Israeli media described as “scare tactics”, are designed to stop assimilation through intermarriage among young diaspora Jews by encouraging their move to Israel.
Two cases brought before Israeli courts last week revealed the attitude of the establishment towards Palestinian Arab citizens of the state. One shows how Palestinian citizens are treated as victims of police brutality, and the second shows how they are regularly victimised because of their opposition to injustice.
In the first, a policeman who shot and killed an Arab citizen in 2006 was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment. The unbearable leniency of the sentence is more evidence of… Continue
Added by Tara on September 8, 2009 at 11:44pm —
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By Linda S. Heard, Special to Gulf News
Published: September 07, 2009, 23:06
War is dirty, bloody and indiscriminate. It is nothing more than officially sanctioned murder perpetrated as part of a strategic end game. There is nothing uplifting about man's attempts to burn, dismember or torture his fellow kind. Can there be bravery in pressing a button at 30,000 feet in the foreknowledge that innocents - politely deemed 'collateral damage' - will die? Can the… Continue
Added by Tara on September 7, 2009 at 11:37pm —
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Arctic Sea ghost ship 'was carrying weapons to Iran'
Mystery has surrounded the ship, officially carrying a cargo of timber worth £1.3 million from Finland to Algeria, since its crew first reported a boarding in Swedish waters on July 24 after a raid by 10 armed English-speaking men posing as anti-narcotics police officers.
It was eventually recovered off the coast of west Africa on August 17. Russia has since charged eight men from Estonia, Latvia and Russia with… Continue
Added by Tara on September 7, 2009 at 12:36pm —
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LAWRENCEBURG, Ind. -- An Indiana man has filed a lawsuit claiming that police forcibly withdrew blood and urine from his body during a drunken driving arrest, WLWT-TV reported.
According to the suit, police arrested Jamie Lockard, 53, on suspicion of drunken driving in March.
Doctors and psychologists the CIA employed to monitor its "enhanced interrogation" of terror suspects came close to, and may even have committed, unlawful human experimentation, a medical ethics watchdog has alleged.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a not-for-profit group that has investigated the role of medical personnel in alleged incidents of torture at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other US detention sites, accuses doctors of being far more involved than hitherto… Continue
Added by Tara on September 3, 2009 at 9:10am —
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Another poll released today by CNN and Opinion Research Corporation (PDF) showed opposition to the war in Afghanistan continues to rise among Americans. Last month’s release of the same poll pointed to 54% of Americans against the war, and the number has now risen to 57%.
In spite of the opposition to the war, a majority of Americans (59%) believe that the war is still winnable, though apparently many feel the cost of the hypothetical… Continue
Added by Tara on September 2, 2009 at 12:46pm —
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Globalization and unfettered capitalism have been swept into the history books along with the open-market theory of the 1920s, the experiments of fascism, communism and the New Deal. It is time for a new economic and political paradigm. It is time for a new language to address our reality. The voices of change, those who speak in powerful and yet unfamiliar words, will cry out Sept. 25 and 26 in Pittsburgh when protesters from around the country gather to defy the… Continue
Added by Tara on September 1, 2009 at 11:30am —
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By Mustafa Abu Sway
Commentary by
Monday, August 31, 2009
The Palestinian-Israeli “road map” was supposed to be a performance-based plan leading to a two-state solution by 2005. Israel “accepted” the road map, yet it presented 14 reservations, a classic move aimed at placating the international community while, at the same time, presenting its own understanding of what peace or a peace process should look like. This imposition of a Zionist narrative onto attempts at… Continue
Added by Tara on August 31, 2009 at 12:43am —
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The rancorous atmosphere in Washington has spread to healthcare town hall meetings
By Kenneth T. Walsh
Posted August 27, 2009
No matter how much politicians say they want to get along, a dominant feature of the political landscape in Washington is still the blame game. And it will intensify next month when congressional Democrats and Republicans return from their summer break to do battle on healthcare, the economy, climate change, and the wars in Afghanistan and… Continue
Added by Tara on August 28, 2009 at 2:28pm —
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An Afghan man detained for six-and-a-half years in Guantanamo Bay, the US military detention centre in Cuba, is to sue the US government, his lawyer has said.
Major Eric Montalvo, the US military lawyer representing Mohammed Jawad, said the former detainee's family will be suing for compensation in US courts.
Jawad was released after his confession to throwing a hand grenade that wounded two US soldiers was rejected as having been coerced out of… Continue
Added by Tara on August 27, 2009 at 11:56am —
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Developing nations at the UN nuclear watchdog are backing Iran’s push to debate a ban on military attacks targeting nuclear facilities at a meeting of the IAEA next month.
Israel, which along with Western powers fears Iran’s declared civilian nuclear energy programme is a front for bombmaking, has not ruled out military action to prevent Tehran acquiring atom bombs and threatening the Jewish state.
While nearly eight out of 10 Americans say they favor a "public option" insurance plan in national health care reform proposals now before Congress, fewer than four out of 10 can correctly define what a public option means, a new poll underwritten by AARP shows.
Those and other poll findings are bad news for President Barack Obama, who's facing the possible defeat of most or all of one of his administration's highest-priority goals -- health care reform -- and the increasing… Continue
Added by Tara on August 26, 2009 at 12:57am —
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I wrote earlier today about Eric Holder's decision to "review" whether criminal prosecutions are warranted in connection with the torture of Terrorism suspects -- that can be read here -- but I want to write separately about the release today of the 2004 CIA's Inspector General Report (.pdf), both because it's extraordinary in its own right and because it underscores how unjust it would be to prosecute only low-level interrogators rather than the high-level officials who implemented the torture… Continue
Added by Tara on August 25, 2009 at 11:58am —
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Barack Obama, the US president, is attempting to seal an Arab-Israeli peace deal that has eluded the region for more than six decades.
Ahead of an initiative expected to be announced in September, Al Jazeera is examining the prospects for peace in a week-long series from Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan.
In the first of the series, Al Jazeera's Nisreen El-Shamayleh speaks to Palestinian refugees about an Israeli plan that Jordan become their… Continue
Added by Tara on August 24, 2009 at 12:10pm —
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As part of an expanding programme of battlefield automation, the American Air Force has said it is now training more drone operators than fighter and bomber pilots.
In a controversial shift in military thinking - one encouraged by the death of Pakistani Taleban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a drone strike on August 5 - the Air Force is looking to hugely expand its fleet of unmanned aircraft by 2047.
DW Description: Chris Langan is known to have the highest IQ in the world, somewhere between 195 and 210. To give you an idea of what this means, the average...