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Gay Rights Champ Rep. Barney Frank Lashes Out At Critics The leading champion of gay rights in Congress ripped into what he called self-defeating ideological purists on the left who are unhappy with the Democrat-led Congress over issues such as the Iraq war and dropping transgender people from a job discrimination bill. Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts... Read more |
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US Income Gap Widens, Richest Share Hits Record Washington - The gap between America's richest and poorest is at its widest in at least 25 years, with the wealthiest taking home a record share of the nation's income that exceeds even the previous high in 2000. According to recent data from the Internal Revenue Service, the richest 1 percent of... Read more |
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Miami OK's Payout to FTAA Protesters With little discussion and no formal admission of wrongdoing, Miami city commissioners on Thursday approved City Hall's share of the largest legal settlement to date stemming from police conduct during 2003's Free Trade Area of the Americas summit. The half-million-plus payout, to be funded by... Read more |
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Rumsfeld Debate Heats Up At Stanford Disgruntled Stanford faculty will meet with Hoover Institution Director John Raisian to question the criteria used in the controversial appointment of Donald Rumsfeld as a "distinguished visiting fellow" - a title they say gives undeserved eminence to the former defense secretary. After a heated... Read more |
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China: Three Gorges Dam May Displace Millions More Beijing - As a trickle of environmental problems emerging from the Three Gorges dam area steadily grows into a deluge, Chinese authorities have begun weighing plans to relocate several million people to avert an ecological catastrophe. Breaking with a propaganda tradition of extolling the virtues... Read more |
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US Rights Group Sues Blackwater A US human rights group says it is suing private security firm Blackwater for unspecified damages for war crimes and wrongfully killing Iraqi civilians.The Center for Constitutional Rights is acting on behalf of an injured survivor and three families of men killed by Blackwater guards on 16... Read more |
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US Strike Kills Women and Children A US attack killed 19 insurgents and 15 civilians, including nine children, in Iraq - one of the heaviest civilian death tolls in an American operation in recent months. The military said it was targeting senior leaders of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. American forces have applied fierce and determined... Read more |
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Guarded Optimism for Moratorium Vote United Nations - Celebrities, campaigners and leading human rights organisations gathered here to celebrate the World Day Against the Death Penalty on Wednesday expressed cautious optimism about a global moratorium on executions expected to be voted on by the U.N. General Assembly in the coming... Read more |
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Anti-Poverty Index Scores US Last on Environment Policies United Nations - Despite its enormous wealth and phenomenal growth in technological inventions, the United States remains far behind other industrialized countries in trying to help poor nations embark on the path of development, a new study by an independent think tank concludes. The United States... Read more |
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Gore Wins the Norwegian Primary Having now won the Norwegian Primary, it is reasonable to ask why Al Gore would want to slog his way through the snows of New Hampshire. But the inconvenient truth is that never has the man who might yet be president needed to more seriously consider his personal legacy -- not to mention the small... Read more |
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Generals, War Correspondents Promote Treaty on Small Arms United Nations - Activists campaigning for tough international actions against illicit gunrunners made further gains this week when they found an unexpected ally in their lobbying efforts at the United Nations. On Tuesday, ahead of the new round of UN talks on the small arms trade, a group of... Read more |
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Palestinian Takes On UK In Court A 60-year-old Palestinian will begin a case against the UK government in the High Court later when he will say that sales of arms to Israel are illegal.Saleh Hassan, who lives on the West Bank, says his land was confiscated by Israel to make way for its barrier. He claims Israel uses military... Read more |
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US Military and Iraqis Say They Are Shut Out of Inquiry BAGHDAD - Nearly four weeks after the deadly shootings at a central Baghdad square involving the Blackwater USA private security firm, American military officials and Iraqi investigators say the F.B.I. and State Department are refusing to share information with them on their investigation into the... Read more |
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Stemming The Trickle-Up Effect: Finding Alternative Economies Washington - When he took office last year, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he was increasingly concerned about the widening gap between the nation's rich and poor. That gap has since shown few signs of narrowing -- quite the opposite, in fact -- and a growing number of experts are... Read more |
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Turkey May Request Incursion Into Iraq ANKARA - Turkey's prime minister will ask parliament next week to authorize a military push into north Iraq to fight Kurdish rebels amid Turkish anger on Thursday at a U.S. vote branding Ottoman Turk killings of Armenians genocide. Analysts say a large Turkish cross-border incursion remains... Read more |
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Bush and Congress Dispute Armenian 'Genocide' Status A Congressional committee last night defied George Bush, voting through a resolution describing the 1915 slaughter of Armenians as a genocide - a move the White House says would severely damage relations with Turkey, a vital ally in the Iraq war. "This resolution is not the right response to these... Read more |
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Greenpeace Tracks Whales As Japan Plans Hunt SYDNEY - Environmental group Greenpeace is satellite tracking 19 humpback whales as they travel from the South Pacific back to Antarctic waters this whaling season, to prove Japan does not need to kill whales to study them. Greenpeace said the tracking would gather data on the humpbacks' movements... Read more |
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Only Now, The Full Horror of Burmese Junta's Repression of Monks Emerges Monks confined in a room with their own excrement for days, people beaten just for being bystanders at a demonstration, a young woman too traumatised to speak, and screams in the night as Rangoon's residents hear their neighbours being taken away. Harrowing accounts smuggled out of Burma reveal how... Read more |
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Nobel Rumors Energize Groups Hoping To Draft Gore He has been honored with an Emmy and an Oscar as an innovator and environmental leader, but supporters of former Vice President Al Gore say he deserves still more - the White House. Hundreds of loyal "Draft Gore" activists in California and around the nation hope Gore hits a trifecta of public... Read more |
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Jimmy Carter: US Tortures Prisoners WASHINGTON - The U.S. tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday, adding that President Bush makes up his own definition of torture. "Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter... Read more |
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Tenn. School Fight Over 'Jena 6' T-Shirt NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A student is suing her suburban Nashville school district for the right to wear a T-shirt with the words "Free the Jena Six," a reference to the black students in a Louisiana town accused of beating a white classmate. According to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Nashville... Read more |
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Activists Call For Arms Trade Treaty at UN UNITED NATIONS - Former U.N. military commanders, pressure groups and diplomats urged the United Nations on Tuesday to pass more stringent controls on the global arms trade. At a news conference organized by aid group Oxfam International, they called for a framework to prevent arms transfers in... Read more |
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Costa Ricans Back CAFTA in Referendum But Opposition Refuses to Recognize Result SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- Costa Ricans prepared on Monday to join a controversial free trade agreement with Central American neighbors, the Dominican Republic and the U.S. after a thin majority apparently backed the pact in a national referendum. But even Sunday's vote on the Central American Free... Read more |
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Doors Closing on Displaced Iraqis A growing number of Iraqi provinces are refusing entry to internal refugees, the UN refugee agency has warned. The head of the UNHCR Iraq Support Unit told the BBC up to 11 governors were restricting access because they lacked resources to look after the refugees. Andrew Harper warned that, with no... Read more |
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Argentine Court Convicts Priest of Complicity in 'Dirty War' Deaths BUENOS AIRES - More than two decades after the end of Argentina's dirty war, an Argentine federal court on Tuesday convicted a Catholic priest of participating in a series of crimes that it said were "akin to genocide." A panel of three federal judges sentenced Christian von Wernich, 69, to life... Read more |
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New IMF Chief Urged to Reform Body to Help Poor NEW YORK - Calls for substantial changes in loan conditions for poor countries are on the rise as the new International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief prepares to take office next month. In a letter sent to the incoming IMF director general Dominique Strauss-Khan, numerous civil society groups said they... Read more |
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2 Iraqi Women Killed in Shooting by Security Convoy BAGHDAD - Two women died here on Tuesday when their white Oldsmobile was riddled by automatic gunfire from guards for a private security company, just weeks after a shooting by another company strained relations between the United States and Iraq. The guards involved in the Tuesday shooting were... Read more |
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'Run Granny Run': New Documentary Depicts 94 Year Old's Senate Run At 89, Doris Haddock walked 3,200 miles across the country to draw attention to campaign finance reform. At 94, she waged a quixotic campaign for U.S. Senate. Now, at 97, she will see those feats on screen in a documentary. "Run Granny Run" depicts Haddock's 2004 decision - with no money and no... Read more |
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ACLU Tries to Prevent Deportee Druggings LOS ANGELES - The American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion to stop immigration authorities forcibly drugging deportees as they are put on commercial flights back to their home countries. The motion, filed Tuesday in federal court, comes after an immigration official testified in the Senate... Read more |
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Nobel Win 'Would Boost Hopes of Gore Candidacy' Al Gore never quite closed the door on running for president again and his many loyalists are now pinning their hopes on Norway's Nobel committee, in the belief that the prize must be his, this year of all years. The Nobel Prize will be announced on Friday in Oslo and for many, Mr Gore is head and... Read more |
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Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month. "I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But... Read more |
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Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Case of German Allegedly Abducted by CIA WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday terminated a lawsuit from a man who claims he was abducted and tortured by the CIA, effectively endorsing Bush administration arguments that state secrets would be revealed if the case were allowed to proceed. Khaled el-Masri, 44, alleged that he was... Read more |
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A Revolutionary Icon, and Now, a Bikini SANTA CLARA, Cuba , Oct. 8 - Aleida Guevara March, the 46-year-old daughter of Che Guevara, says she can bear the Che T-shirts, the Che keychains, the Che postcards and Che paintings sold all over Cuba, not to mention the world. At least some of the purchasers truly cherish Che, she says. On Monday... Read more |
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US Considered Radiological Weapon In one of the longest-held secrets of the Cold War, the U.S. Army explored the potential for using radioactive poisons to assassinate "important individuals" such as military or civilian leaders, according to newly declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press. Approved at the highest... Read more |
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Greenpeace: Genetically Altered Rice in Budweiser Rice used by Anheuser-Busch Cos. to brew Budweiser beer is tainted with an experimental, genetically engineered rice strain, according to an analysis released yesterday by the environmental organization Greenpeace. Three of four samples of unprocessed rice from the beer maker's mill in Arkansas... Read more |
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Obama and Edwards Target Clinton on Iran Vote Barack Obama joined John Edwards on Monday in going after Hillary Clinton's support for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. "Senator Clinton obviously in 2002 voted to authorize the war in Iraq," Obama told ABC News' Sunlen Miller... Read more |
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ACLU, Lawmakers Press Pentagon On Killings of Iraqis WASHINGTON - The firestorm over the Sept. 16 shooting of more than a dozen unarmed Iraqis by members of Blackwater USA, a private security firm, has sparked renewed calls for the US military to release its own records related to the killing of Iraqi civilians at checkpoints or near convoys. Many... Read more |
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Scientist: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Hit Danger Mark Sooner Then Expected SYDNEY - The global economic boom has accelerated greenhouse gas emissions to a dangerous threshold not expected for a decade and could potentially cause irreversible climate change, said one of Australia's leading scientists. Tim Flannery, a world recognized climate change scientist and Australian... Read more |
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Democrats Seem Ready to Extend Wiretap Powers WASHINGTON - Two months after insisting that they would roll back broad eavesdropping powers won by the Bush administration, Democrats in Congress appear ready to make concessions that could extend some crucial powers given to the National Security Agency. Administration officials say they are... Read more |
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Italians March for Peace ASSISI, Italy - About 200,000 people marched from Perugia to Assisi Sunday calling for "all human rights for all" and the end of wars. The 24km "peace march" between the two towns in central Italy concluded a "peace week" featuring some 400 initiatives on peace and human rights. These included the... Read more |
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Clinton's Iran Vote Prompts A Harsh Back-and-Forth NEW HAMPTON, Iowa - Randall Rolph said he came to New Hampton, Iowa, on Sunday to see Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) with an open mind about whether to support her candidacy. After a tough exchange over Iran, he left saying he had ruled her out. Rolph was one of several hundred people who... Read more |
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Blackwater Shootings 'Murder,' Iraq Says BAGHDAD - The Iraqi prime minister's office said Sunday that the government's investigation had determined that Blackwater USA private security guards who shot Iraqi civilians three weeks ago in a Baghdad square sprayed gunfire in nearly every direction, committed "deliberate murder" and should be... Read more |
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Homeless Families on the Rise, with No End in Sight AMHERST, Mass. - There is just enough space for Lisa Rivera's family to sleep at Jessie's House homeless shelter. In one room, she fits the full-sized bed she shares with her 9-year-old daughter, the trundle for her 11-year-old son, a twin bed for her 14-year-old daughter and a playpen for her 1 1/... Read more |
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Che Guevara Honored on 40th Anniversary of Death HAVANA - For decades a global symbol of rebellion, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara is to be honored Monday with ceremonies in Cuba, where his myth was forged, and Bolivia, where he was executed 40 years ago spreading the gospel of Marxist revolution. The main ceremony in Cuba will begin at 8:00 am (1200 GMT... Read more |
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Protesters Grow Frustrated as War Wears On Some activists use civil disobedience to force change Read more |
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Iraqi Guard's Widow Reports No Compensation Her husband was killed by a Blackwater guard Christmas Eve. An Iraqi panel finds last month's shooting unjustified. Read more |
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'State Secrets' Case May Get Airing WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court is set to decide as early as Tuesday whether the government can invoke the doctrine of "state secrets" to quash a legal claim that CIA bungling resulted in a man being abducted, imprisoned and tortured. After five months of such treatment, CIA agents apparently... Read more |
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Dubai Police Chief Warns Against Western Attack on Iran DUBAI -- Dubai's influential police chief has said Western powers should be warned that their relations with Gulf Arab states would suffer if they launch a military strike on Iran over its nuclear program. General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, whose remarks often reflect the views of the political... Read more |
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EPA Refused to Warn of Asbestos Dangers; Millions of Homeowners at Risk Congressional investigators will hammer the Environmental Protection Agency in a soon-to-be-released report for its flawed examination and cleanup of hundreds of factories that once processed asbestos-contaminated vermiculite into insulation. But public health specialists say the investigation... Read more |
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Pelosi Says US Appears Guilty of Torture US House Speaker says violent interrogation methods do not work, harm US reputation Read more |
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Three Iraqs Worse Than One? WASHINGTON -- With a strong majority of U.S. citizens favouring withdrawal from Iraq within a year and presidential elections set for 2008, Democrats and moderate Republicans continue to face an uphill struggle to force President George W. Bush to change course. But as many Washington insiders have... Read more |
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Clinton Strategist Represents Blackwater Mark Penn is the chief strategist for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, working 24/7 on her behalf (indeed, he is known to send email at 2 a.m.) and earning tens of thousands of dollars in fees. With that sort of day-and-night job, you would think Mr. Penn would have time for little... Read more |
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Climate Change and Entire Landscapes on the Move BROOKLIN, Canada - The hot breath of global warming has now touched some of the coldest northern regions of world, turning the frozen landscape into mush as temperatures soar 15 degrees C. above normal. Entire hillsides, sometimes more than a kilometre long, simply let go and slid like a vast green... Read more |
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Amid Hate and Conflict Hope Flowers For West Bank School For the Palestinian children of Hope Flowers School, violence and conflict is a part of everyday life. Just six km (four miles) from Jerusalem, their village has seen repeated Israeli incursions, shootings and demolitions by the army. It is fertile breeding ground for militancy, but, at the hilltop... Read more |
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Climate Activists Tipped For Peace Prize OSLO - Former Vice President Al Gore and other campaigners against climate change lead experts' choices for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, an award once reserved for statesmen, peacemakers and human rights activists. If a campaigner against global warming carries off the high world accolade later this... Read more |
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Obama Stops Wearing Flag Pin Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he no longer wears an American flag lapel pin because it has become a substitute for "true patriotism" since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He commented on the pin in a television interview Wednesday and then again on Thursday at a... Read more |
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McCoffees Help Fuel Ethical Trade Boom · Fast food restaurant chain reports 15% rise in sales· UK at forefront of demand, says Rainforest Alliance Read more |
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New 'Positive Change' Magazines Thrive In Fertile Bay Area Soil When the editors of the monthly news magazine Ode moved from the Netherlands to Mill Valley three years ago, they gained more than a view of Mount Tam. They gained proximity to innovation and to readers who crave it. "Most of the positive change in the world comes from California," said Ode's... Read more |
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White House On Defensive Over Torture Memos U.S. officials confirm existence of documents that appear to endorse extreme interrogation Read more |
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Executions On Hold Across US WASHINGTON - A sudden halt to executions in Texas, the United States's most active death penalty state, may signal that there is now an unofficial national moratorium in place across the nation, pending a ruling by the Supreme Court on whether a specific lethal injection cocktail is legal. On... Read more |
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Iraq Struggles With Cholera Outbreak BAGHDAD - Majida Hamid Ibrahim seemed no different from any other victim in Iraq - her body was put in a plastic bag and sent to the morgue for relatives to collect. But authorities were already bemoaning her death. Just days before, the 40-year-old woman from Baghdad's southern outskirts became... Read more |
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Families Brace for SCHIP Demise Many Poorer Families Fear Presidential Veto Threatens Their Chidren's Health Care Read more |
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Sighting of Amazon Group Bolsters Environmentalist Case · Hunter-gatherers seen in area sought by loggers· Uncontacted people not 'absurd' after all Read more |
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Aussies Lose Confidence In The US and George W. Bush Australians have suffered a dramatic loss of confidence in the ability of the US to manage international affairs amid growing dissatisfaction with President George W. Bush and his conduct of the Iraq war. The first survey of attitudes by a centre set up by the Howard Government to improve relations... Read more |
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Gorbachev: US 'Victory Complex' Is Costly, Prevents More Peaceful World Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said last night that the United States developed a "victory complex" after the Cold War that has proved costly to the goal of building a more peaceful world. Gorbachev received several rounds of applause from a packed house at the Kentucky Center's Whitney... Read more |
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US Wants to Bring Colombia Tactics to Afghan Drug War The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, is resisting American pressure to authorise a major programme of crop spraying to eradicate the country's massive opium crop amid warnings that it would lead to a rise in support for the Taliban. The plan has been strongly opposed by the British, who hold that it... Read more |
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Amnesty Lists Horrors of US Executions The use of lethal injections in the US has led to at least nine bungled executions, including one in which the prisoner took 69 minutes to die and another in which the condemned man complained five times: "It don't work," a report by Amnesty International says today. The report contains a catalogue... Read more |
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Blackwater Project Foes Hope For Backlash Opponents are optimistic that the controversy in Washington will help derail the company’s training camp project near San Diego. Read more |
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Code Pink Finds Marine Recruiters In Berkeley - Protests Begin In a city where opposition to the Iraq war is routine, a U.S. Marine Corps recruiting station has been operating quietly in downtown Berkeley for nine months without even a peep from peace activists. The recruiting station, in a storefront at Shattuck and University avenues, opened in January to... Read more |
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Secret US Endorsement of Severe Interrogations WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 - When the Justice Department publicly declared torture "abhorrent" in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations. But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales... Read more |
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Chevron's Links to Burma Stir Critics to Demand It Pull Out Chevron Corp. of San Ramon is drawing harsh criticism for its business ties to Burma, the Asian nation conducting a brutal military crackdown. The company owns part of a natural gas project in Burma, where soldiers crushed pro-democracy protests last week and killed at least 10 people. U.S... Read more |
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Minnesota College Bans Nobel Laureate Tutu From Talk On Peace and Justice Last week's visit by Iran's president to Columbia University symbolized to many the openness of American higher education to hearing controversial ideas and individuals. An incident coming to light at the University of St. Thomas, in Minnesota, illustrates that some speakers are denied campus... Read more |
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'Howl' Too Hot To Hear: 50 Years After Poem Ruled Not Obscene, Radio Fears To Air It Fifty years ago today, a San Francisco Municipal Court judge ruled that Allen Ginsberg's Beat-era poem "Howl" was not obscene. Yet today, a New York public broadcasting station decided not to air the poem, fearing that the Federal Communications Commission will find it indecent and crush the... Read more |
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Venezuela Defends Iran, Blasts 'Hypocritical' US Policy On Terror UNITED NATIONS - Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday used the General Assembly podium here to defend Iran and to blast Washington's "hypocritical" policy on terrorism. He slammed the escalating international media campaign "aimed at demonizing the Iranian people and government"... Read more |
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US Protests Shrink While Anti-War Sentiment Grows WASHINGTON - Crowds at antiwar rallies in Washington have dwindled even as U.S. opinion has turned against the war in Iraq, as organizers feud and participants question the effectiveness of the street protests. Rival antiwar groups, which in years past jointly sponsored massive rallies on the... Read more |
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Abu Ghraib Prisoners Accuse US Companies of Torture WASHINGTON - Two US Army subcontractors accused of torturing prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail go to court Wednesday in a case that highlights the murky legal status of private US companies in Iraq. Titan and CACI International were hired by the Army to provide interrogators and interpreters... Read more |
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Ex-White House Lawyer Speaks of 'Legal Mess' of Illegal Spying A former top lawyer for the Bush administration on Tuesday said that parts of the President Bush's much-criticized eavesdropping program were illegal. There were aspects of the Terrorist Surveillance Program "that I could not find the legal support for," Jack Goldsmith, the former head of the... Read more |
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More Schools Are Riding An Eco-Friendly Green Wave Jacob Chapman wants to plant a rooftop garden at Olathe South High School. He encourages classmates to recycle plastic bottles and paper. And he would like them to reduce their use of disposables in the school cafeteria."Our school is farther along than some, but I'm sure we could do more," he said... Read more |
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Soldiers Hunt Dissidents in Myanmar YANGON, Myanmar -- Soldiers announced that they were hunting pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar's largest city Wednesday and the top U.S. diplomat in the country said military police were pulling people out of their homes during the night. Military vehicles patrolled the streets before dawn with... Read more |
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New Details In The Blackwater Shootings Don't Mesh With Firm's Version It started out as a family errand: Ahmed Haithem Ahmed was driving his mother, Mohassin, to pick up his father from the hospital where he worked as a pathologist. As they approached Nisour Square at midday on Sept. 16, they did not know that a bomb had gone off nearby or that a convoy of four... Read more |
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Israel Says It Bombed Syria, But Still Won't Say Why JERUSALEM - Nearly a month after a mysterious Israeli military airstrike in Syria generated political aftershocks from Washington to North Korea, the Israeli government lifted its official veil of secrecy Tuesday. It didn't provide much new information about what took place on Sept. 6, however... Read more |
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Citigroup, Bank of America Raked Over Coal WASHINGTON - U.S. environmentalists seeking to turn up the heat on the coal industry, which they blame for a litany of problems, are targeting two banks they say have taken the lead in financing mines. Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. are the targets of a new campaign launched Tuesday by... Read more |
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'I hate All Iranians,' US Aide Tells British MPs Britsh MPs visiting the Pentagon to discuss America's stance on Iran and Iraq were shocked to be told by one of President Bush's senior women officials: "I hate all Iranians." And she also accused Britain of "dismantling" the Anglo-US-led coalition in Iraq by pulling troops out of Basra too soon... Read more |
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US House Democrats Seek January 2009 Iraq Pullout WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush's request for nearly $200 billion more to fund the Iraq war will not be approved unless it is linked to a plan to bring home U.S. combat troops by January 2009, the head of the House appropriations committee said on Tuesday. Rep. David Obey, a Wisconsin... Read more |
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Gay Rights Groups Angered by Weaker Antidiscrimination Bill Leading gay rights organizations, with the pointed exception of the Human Rights Campaign, withdrew their support Monday from a landmark gay civil rights bill after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., pulled transgender people from the legislation that would... Read more |
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Report: State Dept., Blackwater Cooperated To Neutralize Killings WASHINGTON - State Department officials worked closely with the private security contractor Blackwater USA to play down incidents in which company operatives killed innocent Iraqis, according to Blackwater and State Department documents obtained by a congressional committee. When a drunken... Read more |
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U.N.: Violence In Afghanistan Up Almost 25 Percent In '07 WASHINGTON - Afghanistan is currently suffering its most violent year since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention, according to an internal United Nations report that sharply contrasts with recent upbeat appraisals by President Bush and his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai. "The security situation in... Read more |
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Court Reverses Bush On Archive Secrecy WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Monday tossed out part of a 2001 order by President George W. Bush that lets former presidents keep some of their presidential papers secret indefinitely. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the U.S. Archivist's reliance on the executive order to... Read more |
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Poor Suffer Most from Crime and Disasters, Says UN THE HAGUE - The urban poor are the worst affected by crime, natural disasters and insecurity, says the Global Report on Human Settlements published by UN-HABITAT on World Habitat Day Monday. Just policies and good governance at the local level are crucial for safe cities, the report says. Half the... Read more |
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In Oregon, 'Impeach' Is Not Just A Bumper Sticker Every Thursday, they gather outside the congressman's office, a sign-waving brigade of activists with one word on their minds -- and their T-shirts: "IMPEACH." "It can happen," says John Bradach, one of the organizers of the weekly protest outside U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer's headquarters in... Read more |
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Supreme Court Denies Hearing For Fired 'Honk For Peace' Teacher An elementary-school teacher who was dismissed after telling her class on the eve of the Iraq war that "I honk for peace" lost a U.S. Supreme Court appeal Monday. The justices, without comment, denied a hearing to Deborah Mayer, who had appealed lower-court decisions upholding an Indiana school... Read more |
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Most in Poll Want War Funding Cut Most Americans oppose fully funding President Bush 's $190 billion request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , and a sizable majority support an expansion of a children's health insurance bill he has promised to veto, putting Bush and many congressional Republicans on the wrong side of public... Read more |
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Obama to Urge Elimination of World's Nuclear Weapons WASHINGTON - Senator Barack Obama will propose on Tuesday setting a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism, aides say. In a speech at DePaul University in Chicago, Mr. Obama will... Read more |
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Poll: Most Israelis Support Using Nukes Approximately 72 percent of Israelis support the use of nuclear weapons in certain circumstances, according to a Canadian survey released recently.The survey - conducted jointly at the end of July by the Simons Foundation and Angus Reid Strategies - was answered by adults in six countries and... Read more |
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Burma: Thousands Dead In Massacre of The Monks Dumped In The Jungle Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed. The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've... Read more |
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Ecuadoran President Celebrates Victory After Reform Vote QUITO - Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa celebrated victory Monday after claiming that his ruling coalition had won a solid majority in a newly elected assembly that will rewrite the country's constitution. "The projections are clear: the victory of the citizens is unquestionable," Correa... Read more |
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Arrests On Last Day of Faslane Nuclear Protest Dozens of protesters have already been arrested at the Faslane Naval Base in Scotland on the last day of a year-long anti-nuclear blockade.Up to 1,000 demonstrators, including politicians, are expected at the Naval Base on the Clyde, home to the fleet of Trident nuclear submarines for the... Read more |
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US Is Top Arms Seller to Developing World WASHINGTON - The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, according to a Congressional study to be released Monday. Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers. The global arms market is highly... Read more |
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A Divided Iraq Unites Against Partition Plan Even US Embassy Opposes Resolution Read more |
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Deforestation Needs To Be In Next Climate Pact JAKARTA - Cutting emissions from deforestation will be key to curbing climate change and should be agreed upon in December's climate talks in Bali, a leading Indonesian forestry researcher said on Monday.The conference on the resort island is expected to initiate talks on clinching a new deal by... Read more |