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Last Updated: May 9th, 2008 - 00:51:35 |
Special Reports
The mouse that roared: Georgia's Saakashvili trying to provoke Russia
By Eric Walberg
While
Georgians see themselves as part of Europe, “the whole history of Georgia is of Georgian
kings writing to Western kings for help, or for understanding. And sometimes
not even getting a response,” said its thoroughly Westernised president, Mikheil Saakashvili, in a recent interview. “Not just
being an isolated, faraway country, but part of something bigger.”
May 9, 2008, 00:22
Special Reports
Halliburton bribe case haunts Cheney
By Jason Leopold
Dick Cheney’s tenure at Halliburton ended eight years
ago, but a federal investigation of alleged bribes from a company subsidiary to
Nigerian officials lingers from the Cheney era, raising questions about what
the vice president knew or should
have known.
Apr 30, 2008, 00:22
Special Reports
The Bush team's Geneva hypocrisy
By Jason Leopold
Newly released U.S. government documents, detailing
how Bush administration officials punched legalistic holes in the Geneva
Conventions' protections of war captives, stand in stark contrast to the
outrage some of the same officials expressed in the first week of the Iraq war
when Iraqi TV interviewed several captured American soldiers.
Apr 28, 2008, 00:16
Special Reports
The Palestinians are coming
By Eric Walberg
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas just returned from
Moscow, where he met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov, and reached agreement on a proposal for a Middle East peace
conference in Moscow as early as June.
Apr 25, 2008, 00:21
Special Reports
VA tried to conceal extent of attempted veteran suicides, email shows
By Jason Leopold
Top officials at the Veterans Administration tried to
conceal information from the public about the sudden increase of attempted
suicides among veterans that were treated or sought help at VA hospitals around
the country, a previously undisclosed internal VA email indicates.
Apr 23, 2008, 00:19
Special Reports
VA confirms 18 vets commit suicide every day
By Jason Leopold
In a stunning admission, top officials at the Veterans
Health Administration confirmed that the agency’s own statistics show that an
average of 126 veterans per week -- 6,552 veterans per year -- commit suicide,
according to an internal email distributed to several VA officials.
Apr 22, 2008, 00:19
Special Reports
Torture question hovers over Chertoff
By Jason Leopold
John Yoo and some other Bush administration lawyers
who built the legal framework for torture are now out of the U.S. government,
but one still holds a Cabinet-level rank: Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff.
Apr 21, 2008, 00:22
Special Reports
Publish and perish: The thought police are haunting Europe
By Eric Walberg
A French civil servant was sacked in late March for
publishing what has been widely reported as a “violent anti-Israeli diatribe”
on the oumma.com website, a crime that was investigated by no less than
Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.
Apr 18, 2008, 00:22
Special Reports
Maliki’s Iraq: The Khan ithan
By Abbas J. Ali
Though their country is occupied and they are
experiencing a frightening calamity, Iraqis have not lost their sense of humor
or sanity. Burdened by the occupation and targeted by merciless enemies, the
Iraqis, in their tacit way, tell their executioners, “You are able to kill us
but you can never take away our dignity.” This is succinctly captured by their
saying: “Are we Khan ithan?”
Apr 17, 2008, 00:19
Special Reports
FBI email says Bush signed exec order authorizing torture
By Jason Leopold
President George W. Bush’s comment to ABC News -- that
he approved discussions that his top aides held about harsh interrogation techniques
-- adds credence to claims from senior FBI agents in Iraq in 2004 that Bush had
signed an executive order approving the use of military dogs, sleep deprivation
and other tactics to intimidate Iraqi detainees.
Apr 17, 2008, 00:17
Special Reports
Risky geopolitical game: Washington plays ‘Tibet Roulette’ with China
By F. William Engdahl
Washington has obviously decided on an ultra-high risk
geopolitical game with Beijing’s by fanning the flames of violence in Tibet
just at this sensitive time in their relations and on the run-up to the Beijing
Olympics. It’s part of an escalating strategy of destabilization of China which
has been initiated by the Bush administration over the past months. It also
includes the attempt to ignite an anti-China Saffron Revolution in the
neighboring Myanmar region, bringing US-led NATO troops into Darfur where
China’s oil companies are developing potentially huge oil reserves. It includes
counter moves across mineral-rich Africa. And it includes strenuous efforts to
turn India into a major new US forward base on the Asian sub-continent to be
deployed against China, though evidence to date suggests the Indian government
is being very cautious not to upset Chinese relations.
Apr 14, 2008, 00:20
Special Reports
Iraq war costs skyrocketing, but Congress unable to scrutinize spending
By Jason Leopold
Nearly all of the $516 billion allocated by Congress
to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has come in the form of emergency
spending requests, a method the White House has abused, depriving Congress of
the ability to scrutinize how the Pentagon spends money in the so-called global
war on terror.
Apr 14, 2008, 00:18
Special Reports
'Power of the purse' best hope Dems have to change direction in Iraq
By Jason Leopold
Tuesday’s highly anticipated congressional testimony
by General David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, and Ryan
Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, appeared to be an exercise in futility.
Apr 10, 2008, 00:20
Special Reports
American Israeli Jeff Halper arrested for the 8th time in Jerusalem
By Eileen Fleming
JERUSALEM -- On April 3, the Associated Press in
Jerusalem reported, "An Israeli wrecking crew knocked down Shadi Hamdan's
home in an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem in just a couple of hours, reducing
the upholsterer's savings to a pile of gray rubble . . . Since 2004, Israel has
leveled more than 300 homes in Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods, citing a lack of
building permits. However, critics say the permits are virtually impossible to
obtain and consider the demolitions part of a decades-old policy to limit
Palestinian population growth in the disputed city." [1]
Apr 8, 2008, 00:17
Special Reports
White House asked DOJ how Bush could sidestep Fourth Amendment
By Jason Leopold
Last week, the Pentagon declassified an 81-page
memorandum John Yoo, a former deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal
Counsel, drafted in March 2003 that authorized military interrogators to use
brutal techniques to obtain information about terrorist plans from prisoners
held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Apr 7, 2008, 00:18
Special Reports
Building a legal framework for torture
By Jason Leopold
On Jan. 17, 2003, Mary Walker, the Air Force general
counsel, received an urgent memo from the Pentagon's top attorney. Attached to
the classified document was a set of directives drafted two days earlier by
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Apr 4, 2008, 00:42
Special Reports
Why food prices will go through the roof in coming months
By F. William Engdahl
A deadly fungus, known as
Ug99, which kills wheat, has likely spread to Pakistan from Africa, according
to reports. If true, that threatens the vital Asian Bread Basket including the
Punjab region.
Apr 4, 2008, 00:40
Special Reports
Pigs causing illness in humans even before they’re eaten
By Martha Rosenberg
The bad news just doesn't end for the hog industry.
Apr 4, 2008, 00:38
Special Reports
The Great Lake of Gaza: A new crisis in the making
By Suzanne Baroud
In a place just a few miles from sandy beaches and
soaring skyscrapers, white stone villas and sky-blue swimming pools, it seems
the epitome of irony and injustice that over 1.5 million people would be
subjected to drinking sewage-contaminated water. When there is such a fine line
bordering wealth and poverty, privilege and need, how unsettling to realize
that just a stone's throw away, mothers and fathers must nourish their families
with poison. As if the occupier could not find one more creative way to torment
his victim.
Apr 1, 2008, 00:38
Special Reports
A third American war crime in the making
By Paul Craig Roberts
The US Congress, the US media, the American people,
and the United Nations, are looking the other way as Cheney prepares his attack
on Iran.
Mar 31, 2008, 00:20
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