Tom Parfitt in Moscow guardian.co.uk, Friday 21 August 2009 20.05
Russia has declassified top-secret surveillance documents in an attempt to justify its occupation of Eastern Europe under the Nazi-Soviet pact, signed 70 years ago on Sunday.
The hidden protocols of the pact, in which Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler agreed to carve up Poland and other sovereign states, were denounced by the Soviet parliament in 1989, shortly after they were revealed for the first…
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Added by Tara on August 22, 2009 at 12:58pm —
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Neve Gordon
Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokeswoman, an actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the…
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Added by Tara on August 21, 2009 at 4:58pm —
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By: Morten Berthelsen and Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent
A leading Swedish newspaper reported this week that Israeli soldiers are abducting Palestinians in order to steal their organs, a claim that prompted furious condemnation and accusations of anti-Semitic blood libel from a rival publication.
“They plunder the organs of our sons,” read the headline in Sweden’s largest daily newspaper, the left-leaning Aftonbladet, which devoted a double spread in its cultural…
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Added by Tara on August 21, 2009 at 9:39am —
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Published: August 19, 2009
In the course of its 60 years, NATO has institutionalized three monumental transformations in world affairs: first, the end of the centuries-long “civil war” within the West for trans-oceanic and European supremacy; second, the United States’s post–World War II commitment to the defense of Europe against Soviet domination; and third, the peaceful termination of the Cold War, which created the preconditions for a larger democratic European…
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Added by Tara on August 20, 2009 at 10:03am —
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Ramzy Baroud
20 August 2009
With elections in Afghanistan, it might be timely to reflect on the US engagement with that stricken nation and consider just how much foreign intervention has contributed to the prospect and possibility of free and democratic elections.
More, it is fitting to consider what kind of example the US and its allies have given to the people of Afghanistan, if they have bestowed any wisdom and guidance for a nation facing a turbulent and…
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Added by Tara on August 20, 2009 at 12:27am —
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By Peter Moskos and Stanford "Neill" Franklin
Undercover Baltimore police officer Dante Arthur was doing what he does well, arresting drug dealers, when he approached a group in January. What he didn't know was that one of suspects knew from a previous arrest that Arthur was police. Arthur was shot twice in the face. In the gunfight that ensued, Arthur's partner returned fire and shot one of the suspects, three of whom were later arrested.
In many ways, Dante Arthur was…
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Added by Tara on August 19, 2009 at 10:51am —
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By Anthony Falzone
There is a fascinating debate raging about who owns the news -- or more precisely, who owns which parts of a news story. The AP kicked it off in earnest last April when Chairman Dean Singleton channeled his inner Howard Beale and announced the AP would no longer "stand by and watch others walk off with our work . . . . We are mad as hell, and we are not going to take it any more." Just a few days ago, the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard posted a confidential AP…
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Added by Tara on August 18, 2009 at 11:38am —
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This is somewhat good news mixed in with all the bad news lately. A majority of Americans are now opposed to the war in Afghanistan and I think we'll see the opposition numbers grow in the up and coming months! We've got to take any good news we can get right now and capitalize on it!!!!
http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm
Added by Tara on August 17, 2009 at 11:38am —
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CNN) -- A U.S. soldier arrested in connection with the killing of a Mexican drug cartel member in El Paso, Texas, allegedly worked as a hit man, court records say.
Pfc. Michael Jackson Apodaca, 18, was one of three men arrested Monday in connection with the shooting death of the mid-level drug cartel member who also worked as an informant for the United States, according to a complaint affidavit.
Apodaca joined the Army a year ago and worked as a crew member on a Patriot…
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Added by Tara on August 16, 2009 at 1:14pm —
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(Reuters)
16 August 2009 TEHRAN - The West must be held to account for stoking Iran’s post-election unrest, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday, as the third mass trial got underway of demonstrators accused of trying to overthrow clerical rule.
The June 12 vote has plunged Iran into its biggest internal crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution, exposing deepening divisions within its ruling elite and also further straining relations with Western…
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Added by Tara on August 16, 2009 at 12:47pm —
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Requests by police and other officials for information on people's phone calls and emails ran at an average of 1,381 a day last year, according to a report released today by the interception of communications commissioner, Sir Paul Kennedy.
A total of 504,073 surveillance requests to telephone and internet companies were made in 2008, the equivalent of one in 78 adults being targeted. The figure was slightly lower than in 2007, but higher than in 2006, when Kennedy issued his first…
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Added by Tara on August 14, 2009 at 12:10pm —
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A 34-YEAR-OLD woman, the mother of a 12-year-old girl, has been locked up in a Virginia jail for three weeks and could remain there for at least another month. Her crime? Blogging about the police.
Elisha Strom, who appears unable to make the $750 bail, was arrested outside Charlottesville on July 16 when police raided her house, confiscating notebooks, computers and camera equipment. Although the Charlottesville police chief, Timothy J. Longo Sr., had previously written to Ms. Strom…
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Added by Tara on August 14, 2009 at 10:00am —
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By Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. military lawyer for a Kuwaiti detainee held at the American prison at Guantanamo Bay charged on Wednesday the Obama administration was hampering his efforts to clear his client's name.
Navy Lieutenant Commander Kevin Bogucki said the U.S. State Department would not issue him clearance to travel on Friday to Kuwait, where he planned to hold a news conference outlining the case involving his client, Fouad Al…
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Added by Tara on August 13, 2009 at 12:45pm —
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Israeli soldiers unlawfully shot and killed 11 Palestinian civilians, including four children, who were in groups waving white flags during the Gaza war, a report prepared by the US-based Human Rights Watch says.
Civilians Killed Holding White Flags in Gaza, published on Thursday, is HRW's third publication in five months condemning Israel's actions during the Gaza conflict, following allegations over white phosphorous and drones.
For its part, the Israeli government…
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Added by Tara on August 13, 2009 at 9:55am —
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By Michael Scherer / Washington
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the medical ethicist and oncologist who advises President Obama, does not own a television, and if you catch him in a typically energized moment, when his mind speeds even faster than his mouth, he is likely to blurt out something like, "I hate the Internet." So it took him several days in late July to discover he had been singled out by opponents of health-care reform as a "deadly doctor," who, according to an opinion column in…
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Added by Tara on August 12, 2009 at 11:22am —
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Boycotted by activists, the Israeli company AHAVA is backed by one of Israel's most powerful families
http://therealnews.com/id/4095/August 11, 2009/Who+profits+from+Israeli+occupation%3F
After the Israeli attack on Gaza earlier this year, the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaing (BDS Movement) escalated all around the world. Now,…
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Added by Tara on August 11, 2009 at 12:33pm —
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In its war in Afghanistan, the US seeks to target 50 Afghan drug traffickers who help finance the Taliban instead of halting the country's increasing drug production.
The Pentagon says it has planned to 'kill or capture' Afghan drug traffickers to disrupt the flow of drug money to the Taliban, the New York Times reported Sunday.
According to a Congressional study to be released this week, US military commanders announced that the policy is legal under the military's rules…
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Added by Tara on August 10, 2009 at 10:40am —
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Iran has slammed West's double standards in dealing with terrorism a day after the US and France admitted their role in Iran's post vote unrest.
"We expect officials of Western countries to adopt an honest approach to terrorism and condemn activities of anti-Iran terrorists including members of the Monarchy Organization of Iran and the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO)," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told reporters on Monday.
Muhammad-Reza Ali-Zamani,…
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Added by Tara on August 10, 2009 at 10:35am —
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By Nicholas Johnston and Roger Runningen
Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama and his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, discussed combating drug cartels, preparations for flu season and Mexican truck access to U.S. roads at the start of a two-day summit today.
Obama committed to resolving the trucking issue after it was raised by Calderon during a 45-minute meeting at the North American Leaders Summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, said an Obama administration…
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Added by Tara on August 9, 2009 at 11:48pm —
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09 August, 2009, 11:32
According to the Russian Prosecutor’s office, the Georgian attack last August killed 162 Ossetians and wounded 250. For people who lost relatives in the attack, the grieving continues.
One year after the war, vigils are being held in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinval to remember those who were killed in the Georgian attack.
Local churches will be holding dozens of memorial ceremonies over the course of the next four…
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Added by Tara on August 9, 2009 at 12:08pm —
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