By: TERI FIGUEROA - Staff Writer
Accused Marine's lawyers say political pressure prompted charges
CAMP PENDLETON -- A lance corporal charged with killing Iraqi civilians, including children, in Haditha in 2005 wants a military court to order U.S. Rep. John Murtha to submit to interviews about comments Murtha made accusing Marines of murder.
Attorneys for Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum also want to force an interview with retired Marine Corps Commandant Michael Hagee about what Hagee may have said to Murtha or others about the Haditha killings.
Defense attorney Jack Zimmerman argued in a Camp Pendleton courtroom Wednesday that the charges Tatum faces may have come not because they were warranted, but rather as a result of pressure ...
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Ex-congresswoman seeks presidency By SHANNON
McCAFFREY, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 19, 6:55 PM ET
ATLANTA - Former Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who
was ousted from office last year after a
headline-grabbing scuffle with a Capitol Hill police
officer, has decided to seek the presidency — as a
Green Party candidate. ...
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Qatif Girl’ Subjected to Brutal Crime: King
Ebtihal Mubarak, Arab News
JEDDAH, 19 December 2007 — The official pardon of “Qatif Girl”, which was released late Monday night by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, said that the “Qatif Girl” had been subjected to “a brutal crime”. The pardon, which was read by Justice Minister Abdullah Al-Asheikh on Monday night on Saudi Channel One, describes the reasoning for the decision. “According to what has been gathered in the file of this case from the evidence, the facts show that the woman was subjected to a brutal crime, which saddened us,” the statement from the king reads.
Enemies of Islam, organizers of hegemonic centers: Supreme Leader Arafat Desert, Saudi Arabia, Dec 18, IRNA
Hajj-Supreme Leader-Message
The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that today, the treacherous enemies of the Muslim Ummah are the organizers of the hegemonic centers.
He added expansionist and aggressive powers consider the Islamic awakening as a great threat to their illegitimate interests and their oppressive domination over the Muslim world.
The Supreme Leader made the remark in his message to the Hajj pilgrims, which was read by his representative for Hajj affairs, Hojjatoleslam ...
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A nonprofit group, set up in 2004 to serve the Hispanic community, issues membership cards that some say look too much like official identification that could mislead or wrongly benefit illegal immigrants.
Gabe Holmstrom, a spokesman for the Arkansas Attorney General's Office, says officials are looking into the Malvern-based Latin Community Organization and its cards. "Most often it's Arkansas citizens out there that run into scams or different things that people are doing out there," said Holmstrom.
Immigration a big issue to NH, Iowa GOP By HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press Writer
Mon Dec 17, 1:21 PM ET
CONCORD, N.H. - At opposite sides of New Hampshire, John McCain faced two corporate audiences in two college towns earlier this month. Only one topic came up in both places when he starting taking questions: illegal immigration.
The Republican presidential hopeful gets so many questions — sometimes hostile — about immigration at his town hall meetings that he quips, "This meeting is adjourned," before explaining his position at length. It was the first question asked when he visited the spacious headquarters of C&S Wholesale Grocers, a multibillion-dollar grocery supplier in Keene. ...
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Just that the US has gotten better at catching them
Pentagon report to accuse Iran of fueling Iraq strife: media Tue Dec 18, 3:38 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Pentagon report to be released Tuesday will accuse Iran of continuing to funnel weapons and technology to fighters in neighboring Iraq even as it cites lower violence overall, US media said.
Fewer fatalities among US and Iraqi troops and wider installation of basic services such as electricity are to be among the positives cited by the US military assessment of Iraq, the Wall Street Journal said citing officials familiar with the report to be given to Congress.
The report "also will reiterate US accusations that Iran is sending sophisticated explosives, rockets and mortars into Iraq," the newspaper said. ...
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U.N. Finds Fraud, Mismanagement in Peacekeeping
Task Force Says 'Multiple Instances' of Corruption Have a Cost of $610 Million
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2007; Page A06
UNITED NATIONS -- A U.N. task force has uncovered a pervasive pattern of corruption and mismanagement involving hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for fuel, food, construction and other materials and services used by U.N. ...
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Jefferson attorneys get time to prepare
Federal judge grants six-week extension Saturday, December 15, 2007By Bill Walsh
ALEXANDRIA, VA. -- A federal judge Friday gave Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, an additional six weeks to prepare for his public corruption trial after his attorneys complained about the large volume of evidence they must review.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III set Feb. 25 as the new date for a trial the Justice Department has estimated could last between three and six weeks. Jefferson's trial on multiple counts ...
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By KEITH WALKER
kwalker@potomacnews.com
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Linda Chavez, chair of the Virginia State Advisory Committee, asks a question during Friday's meeting of the Immigration Subcommittee of the State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, held at the McCoart Administration Building.
Linda Chavez tried several times to get at the specific criteria that the Prince ...
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Britons eye 'burkhas for boys' for Christmas by Elodie Mazein
Fri Dec 14, 10:22 AM ET
GREENHITHE, England (AFP) - A jacket with sunglasses sewn into the hood, dubbed a "burkha for boys," is shaping up as a big Christmas hit within weeks of its release in Britain.
The garment has raised eyebrows in a country wary of so-called "hoodies," or young men wearing hooded coats, but police admit they can do nothing in the face of the anonymity it bestows on the wearer. ...
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By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 15, 2007; Page A02
U.S. immigration agents investigated only 139 suspected fraud cases referred by the main anti-fraud unit of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services last year, or less than 1 percent of 1 percent of about 6 million applications for citizenship, green cards and other benefits, federal investigators reported yesterday.
The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, Richard L. Skinner, blamed a DHS policy set in February 2006 requiring that 100 percent of suspect applications be investigated, saying it overwhelmed claims officers ...
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02:21 PM CST on Saturday, December 15, 2007
Associated Press
AUSTIN – Republican Sen. John Cornyn stepped into election season Saturday, filing his candidacy for Texas' GOP primary and preparing for what could become a contentious general election battle in 2008.
"There's a lot at stake, for this generation and others, to make sure that we keep the promises that we have made, the commitments we have made for a better life for all Americans," Cornyn said, surrounded by a ...
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Andrew McCarthy makes some good points here about the shell game being played by the pro jihadist lawyers Weekly Standard
Due Process for Jihadists? Andrew McCarthy
Wed Dec 12, 10:01 AM ET
Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 013, Issue 14 - 12/17/2007 - "Isn't the main issue," Justice John Paul Stevens plaintively asked, "the fact that it has taken six years" to resolve the question whether alien enemy combatants "have been unlawfully detained" at Guantánamo Bay?
For the Supreme Court hearing arguments last week in Boumediene v. Bush, that should not even be a relevant issue. (Lakmar Boumediene is an Algerian who emigrated to Bosnia in the 1990s. He was arrested for plotting to attack the U.S. embassy in ...
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By SHAFQAT ALI
Monday December 17, 01:18 AM
Islamabad, Dec. 16: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said that Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden may be hiding somewhere in the lawless Bajaur Agency.
"No one knows exactly where Osama is but he must be somewhere in the Bajaur Agency. This is the tribal agency bordering Kunar province, where there were no coalition forces in the past," ," President Musharraf said.
He said his government is committed to eliminate terrorism from the country and will continue to play its role ...
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Qaeda's Zawahri says British "fleeing" from Iraq: Web
DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri said Britain's handover of security in southern Iraq showed that insurgents were gaining the upper hand, according to a Web video posted on Sunday.
"Reports from Iraq point to the increasing power of the mujahideen (holy war fighters) and the deteriorating conditions of the Americans," Zawahri said on the video. "And the decision of the British to flee is sufficient (proof of this)."
(Reporting by Firouz Sedarat; Editing by Charles Dick)
Minister slams Islamic Congress complaint against journalist
By Jennifer Ditchburn, THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA - A Conservative cabinet minister says the Canadian Islamic Congress is attempting to undermine basic Charter freedoms by filing complaints against a journalist who wrote a book on the Muslim world.
Jason Kenney, the secretary of state for multiculturalism, weighed in Wednesday on the controversy surrounding columnist Mark Steyn's bestseller America Alone. The Canadian Islamic Congress has filed complaints with federal and provincial human rights commissions based on an excerpt of Steyn's book that appeared in Maclean's Magazine in October. ...
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Baluyevksy accused the US of manipulating European arms agreements for political gain [AFP]
The Russian army's chief of staff has warned that the launch of US interceptor missiles under a proposed missile defence shield in Eastern Europe could trigger a Russian missile strike.
Speaking at a news conference on Saturday, Yury Baluyevksy also accused the US of playing politics with European arms control.
The general said: "The firing of an anti-missile rocket from Poland could be seen by Russia's automated system as the launch of a ballistic missile, which could provoke a responsive strike. ...
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Ecuadoran police find arsenal, Osama bin Laden photos
+ - 10:46, December 15, 2007
Ecuadoran police reported Friday they had seized an arsenal and Osama Bin-laden photos in a house in Santa Elena province, some 560 km southwest of Quito, and made one arrest.
The police raided a house in Manabi neighborhood of Anconcito in Salinas.
They found Osama bin Laden Photos, shooting practice targets, 37 high caliber weapons and 2,680 cartridges.
The police did not say when the operation was carried out, although they confirmed the arrest of Ecuadoran citizen Jacinto Rufino Munoz who allegedly said he was a security guard in charge of ...
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TANK/WANA, Dec 14: Local Taliban from tribal areas and some districts of the NWFP on Friday decided to set up a centralised organisation for a joint war against US and Nato forces in Afghanistan and appointed Baitullah Mehsud as their Central Amir, a spokesman for the militant commander told Dawn.
The militants have named their movement as Tehrik Taliban-i-Pakistan and said the aim of the movement was to enforce Sharia in their respective areas.
The decision was taken at a meeting of 40 Taliban leaders, held in an undisclosed place in South Waziristan Agency.
“The sole objective of the Shura meeting was to unite the Taliban against Nato forces in Afghanistan and to wage a ‘defensive jihad’ against Pakistani ...
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British Inquiry of Failed Plots Points to Iraq’s Qaeda Group
This article is by Raymond Bonner, Jane Perlez and Eric Schmitt.
LONDON — Investigators examining the bungled terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow six months ago believe the plotters had a link to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which would make the attacks the first that the group has been involved in outside of the Middle East, according to senior officials from three countries who have been briefed on the inquiry.
The evidence pointing to the involvement of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia includes phone numbers of members of the Iraqi group found on the plotters’ cellphones recovered in Britain, a senior American intelligence official ...
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Men To Plead Guilty In SoCal Terrorism Case
Prosecutors say two of four men accused of plotting attacks on Southern California military sites and Jewish targets have agreed to plead guilty to terrorism conspiracy charges.
The U.S. attorney's office says Kevin James and Levar Haley Washington are set to enter the pleas Friday morning in federal court in Santa Ana. Both were indicted in 2005 on federal charges, including conspiring to wage war against the U.S. government through terrorism.
Authorities claim that the plot was hatched in prison and that James, Washington and two others were part of a cell of radical Muslims that planned attacks on military facilities, synagogues and other sites in the Los Angeles area.
Police uncovered the plot in July 2005 while investigating a string of gas station robberies that authorities say were ...
The deal comes at a crucial time for an Iranian energy industry facing mounting international pressure [AFP]
One of China's biggest energy companies has signed a $2bn deal to develop a huge oil field in Iran, defying US calls for a trade boycott with Tehran.
Under the deal, China's biggest refiner, Sinopec, will eventually help pump out 185,000 barrels of oil a day from the Yadavar field in southwest Iran.
Gholam Hossein Nozari, Iran's oil minister, said the deal showed Western efforts to isolate Tehran had failed with Iran instead "solidifying our economic relations with China".
"This contract has a clear message that despite the negative atmosphere … trying to falsely imply that no one is willing to invest in Iran's ...
(more)
US authorities have accused Venezuelan agents of attempting to cover up an alleged $800,000 contribution to an Argentinian presidential campaign.
Prosecutors made the allegations during a Miami court hearing on Wednesday into a criminal complaint against four men charged with being illegal Venezuelan agents.
The government of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, called the charges a "fabricated scandal".
CARACAS (Reuters) - A video of a Gucci- and Louis Vuitton-clad politician attacking capitalism then struggling to explain how his luxurious clothes square with his socialist beliefs has become an instant YouTube hit in Venezuela.
Venezuelan Interior Minister Pedro Carreno was momentarily at a loss for words when a journalist interrupted his speech and asked if it was not contradictory to criticize capitalism while wearing Gucci shoes and a tie made by Parisian luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton.
"I don't, uh ... I ... of course," stammered Carreno on Tuesday before regaining his composure. "It's not contradictory because I would like Venezuela to produce all this so I could buy stuff produced here instead of 95 percent of what we consume being ...
(more)
McDermott: Christmas resolution wasted time
By JOHN IWASAKI
P-I REPORTER
A recent resolution to recognize the importance of Christmas and Christianity was a Republican tactic designed to draw attention from pressing issues in Congress, including health care and energy conservation, Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., said Thursday.
That's why he voted against it, he said.
"Obviously, it's a protest vote against Steve King," the Iowa Republican who sponsored the resolution that passed 372-9, McDermott said. Democrats cast all the nay votes.
McDermott supported House resolutions this fall to recognize the Islamic holiday of Ramadan and the festival of Diwali, celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains. He drew the line at Christmas, he said, because the resolution only stated "obvious facts" that Christianity was ...
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NEW YORK - Federal authorities subpoenaed financial records and employees in an apparent probe of the Rev. Al Sharpton's 2004 presidential bid, nonprofit civil rights group and for-profit businesses, newspapers reported Thursday.
As many as 10 Sharpton associates were subpoenaed Wednesday to testify before a federal grand jury in Brooklyn on Dec. 26, his lawyer told the Daily News.
"Here we go again," Sharpton, whose various ventures have come under scrutiny before, told the New York Post. "Whatever it is, it's part of the territory. I'm a public figure."
Spokeswoman Rachel Noerdlinger said Sharpton would "thoroughly address" the reports at a press conference Thursday morning. ...
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A North Augusta church encounters controversy trying to provide needy kids with shoes
Wednesday, Dec 12, 2007 - 05:15 PM
A church giving shoes to needy children in Aiken schools...it sounds like an ideal story for Christmas. But, a group from Washington, D.C. claims it violates the separation of church and state. WJBF-TV News Channel 6's Joy Howe tells us how a school district and a North Augusta church say they will not back down...
North Augusta, SC -- The program is called Laces For Love.
The mission at North Augusta's First Baptist Church is simple:
Mark Owens, First Baptist Church, North Augusta, SC, "We give shoes to kids who need them, all over Aiken ...
(more)
Zimbabwe minister brands Merkel comments fascist: report Mon Dec 10, 7:23 AM ET
HARARE (AFP) - A Zimbabwe minister branded German Chancellor Angela Merkel a "racist" and a "fascist", for comments she made about his government damaging Africa's image, state-run media reported Monday.
Minister of Information Sikhanyiso Ndlovu lashed out at Merkel for remarks she made at the recent European Union-Africa Summit in Lisbon, saying: "She should shut up on Zimbabwe or ship out."
"Zimbabwe is not a colony of Germany. This is racism of the first order by the German head of state," Ndlovu was quoted as saying by the state-run Herald. ...
(more)
Rep. Steve King Upset That Group of Democrats Opposed Christmas Resolution
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa
WASHINGTON — One Republican House lawmaker is taking offense at nine Democrats for what he said should have been a no-brainer: recognizing the importance of Christians and Christmas.
In the end, the House on Tuesday supported Rep. Steve King's resolution to recognize "the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world" and acknowledge "the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith."
But King, of Iowa, is upset that not everyone voted for his bill two weeks before an ...
(more)
India Builds the Largest Tank Force in Eurasia
December 10, 2007: India has bought another 347 Russian T-90S tanks, at a cost of $3.5 million each. India is also building another thousand T-90S tanks under license, and using many parts imported from Russia.
Last year, India adopted the Russian T-90 as its new main battle tank. There will be local production of about a thousand T-90s over the next 14 years. India already has imported 310 T-90s. Under this plan, by 2020, India will have 2,000 upgraded T-72s, over 1,500 T90s, and few hundred other tanks. ...
(more)
Sheehan among guests at Muslim conference in Newark
Peace convention brings distinguished speakers
By Jamaal Johnson, STAFF WRITER
Article Last Updated: 12/10/2007 07:14:58 AM PST
NEWARK — The fourth annual American Muslim Voice peace convention brought many speakers of various backgrounds to provide a blueprint for protecting civil rights in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, era.
Visitors at the Chandni Restaurant in Newark on Sunday evening cheered and listened to guest speakers, such as anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, Muslim convert Brandon Mayfield and Ron Takaki, an ethnic studies professor at University of California,Berkeley.
The conventions theme was building a beloved community, which included topics such as Fighting for the ...
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Two Code Pink Protesters Pose as Media to Try to Get Senate Credentials
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
By Trish Turner
E-Mail Print Respond Digg This! del.icio.us
WASHINGTON — Anti-war demonstrators from Code Pink took a further step in their efforts to protest at the Capitol Tuesday, with two members of the group attempting to apply for media credentials with false information, FOX News has learned.
The two protesters, not dressed in the typical fuchsia used to identify group members at protests, entered the Senate Radio-TV Gallery with an application for credentials that indicated they were documentary workers for Dateline NBC.
A confrontation soon ensued with the gallery director, with the protestors growing more and ...
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U.S. slams "massive" U.N. budget rise By Claudia Parsons
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States urged the United Nations on Tuesday to cut spending and make tough decisions on its priorities to offset a "massive increase" in its proposed budget for the next two years.
The U.N. budget is typically settled through negotiations with major contributors like the United States and the European Union. Two years ago, Washington demanded U.N. reforms before the final figure was agreed.
U.S. ambassador Mark Wallace urged member states at a budget committee on Tuesday to delay approval of a proposed $4.2 billion initial budget until next year when full details are provided of additional items. ...
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Spitzer's popularity keeps falling
Joseph Spector
Albany bureau
(December 11, 2007) — ALBANY — Even after pulling the plug on his controversial plan to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, Gov. Eliot Spitzer's popularity in the state continues to drop, a new poll found Monday.
The Democratic governor's job-approval rating dipped to 27 percent, with 70 percent having a negative view of the first-year governor, according to a Siena College poll. That's down from a 33 percent approval rating in November and 55 percent in June.
"Voters have for the moment lost faith in the governor," said poll spokesman Steven Greenberg. ...
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Ex-DJ gets 7 years for scam
Smith's victims recount betrayal
By Andrew Wolfsonand Jason Riley
The Courier-Journal
Their voices choked by anger and tears, victims of radio personality Todd Kelly yesterday accused him of betraying them and the community by faking Lou Gehrig's disease and spending more than $120,000 raised for research on himself.
"Todd didn't kill anyone -- what he did was worse," one of his friends and former colleagues, Chrissie Sizemore, said before U.S. ...
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Indonesian militants get 19 years jail
12th December 2007, 4:54 WST
Four Islamic militants have been sentenced to up to 19 years in prison by an Indonesian court for terrorist acts, including the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls and the bombing of a market.
The men - Muhammad Basri, Arbin Djanatu, Iwan Ridwan and Tugiran - were found guilty by the South Jakarta District of violating the country's anti-terror law, imposed a week after the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreigners.
Basri was sentenced to 19 years in prison after he was convicted in the beheadings of three high-school students in October 2005 and the shooting of a priest and two ...
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Former Legislator Sentenced In Immigration Fraud Scheme
POSTED: 7:29 am CST December 11, 2007
UPDATED: 8:01 am CST December 11, 2007
ST. LOUIS -- Former Missouri State Rep. Nathan Cooper, somber and tearful in federal court, was fined $6,000 and sentenced to 15 months in prison Monday for an immigration fraud scheme that derailed his political and legal careers.
Defense attorney Joel Schwartz said the crime had cost his client the two things he cherished the most.
"The common thread of those who know him is that he did what he could to ...
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Hunting the Taliban, finding sick children by the score
By C.J. Chivers Published: December 10, 2007
KARAWADDIN, Afghanistan: The Afghan boy crouched near a wall in this remote village. His pupils were coated by an opaque yellow sheath.
Sergeant Nick Graham, a U.S. Army medic, approached. The villagers crowded around. They said the boy's name was Hayatullah. He was 10 years old and had developed an eye disease six years ago. "Can you help him?" a man asked.
Graham examined the boy. He was blind. There was nothing the medic could do.
A second man appeared pushing a wheelbarrow that held a ...
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Bronx Man First Punished Under Anti-Terrorism Law
Controversy Brews As Mexican Immigrant Gets 40 Years In Gang Shooting
Lou Young NEW YORK (CBS) ― A Bronx man involved in a shooting that left a 10-year-old girl dead in 2002 has become the first man to be punished under a law meant to stop Al Qaeda, but is instead being used to target local gangs.
Edgar Morales, 25, was sentenced Monday to at least 40 years behind bars for a Bronx gang attack designated as an act of terrorism. Some say the state is overreaching, but the surviving victims don't think so.
Spy Court Refuses To Release Wiretap Info
Rare Public Opinion States Docs Contain Secret Workings Of National Security Agencies
WASHINGTON (AP) ― The nation's spy court said Tuesday that it will not make public its documents regarding the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, in a rare public opinion, said the public has no right to view the documents because they deal with the clandestine workings of national security agencies.
The American Civil Liberties Union asked the court to release the records in August. Specifically, the organization asked for the government's legal briefs and the court's opinions on the wiretapping program. ...
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Top US military research labs infiltrated by hackers
By Ryan Paul | Published: December 09, 2007 - 01:21PM CT
Hackers successfully infiltrated Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), one of the nation's leading military research facilities. The attackers gained access by sending e-mails infected with trojan horses to ORNL employees. The lab claims that no classified information was retrieved, but admits that the perpetrators managed to acquire a database containing personal information about ORNL visitors and employees, including Social Security numbers.
"A hacker illegally gained access to ORNL computers by sending staff e-mails that appeared to be official legitimate communications. ...
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The U.N.-led scheme allows chemical plants to earn credits for destroying HFC-23, a waste product from the manufacture of a refrigerant and powerful greenhouse gas.
They can then sell these emission reduction offsets to rich countries which have overshot domestic greenhouse gas quotas.
Critics are concerned that the scheme is so lucrative that it has discouraged companies from cutting emissions of the greenhouse gas waste product, HFC 23, by giving them incentives first to produce it and then destroy it.
Some 190 countries are meeting in Bali from December 3-14 as they try to launch negotiations to agree a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol.
One issue for debate is whether companies should be allowed to earn carbon offsets for destroying extra HFCs produced above 2000-2004 levels, ...
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GREENVILLE, N.C. -- East Carolina University football fans are buying tickets to their team's bowl game in Hawaii, but they are donating them to military personnel who expect to spend time there during the Christmas holiday.
Assistant athletic director for ticketing and marketing Scott Wetherbee said ECU wants to be sure someone will sit in its seats for the Sheraton Aloha Bowl on Dec. 23 in Honolulu by buying tickets and donating them to active members of the service.
"We know were not going to take 5,000 fans to Hawaii," Wetherbee said.
Attempted Theft
Hugo Chávez tried to overturn the results of Venezuela's recent vote but was rebuffed by the military.
By Jorge Castañeda | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Dec 7, 2007 | Updated: 4:23 p.m. ET Dec 7, 2007
Related:Hugo Chavez Colombia Alvaro Uribe
Most of Latin America's leaders breathed a sigh of relief earlier this week, after Venezuelan voters rejected President Hugo Chávez's constitutional amendment referendum. In private they were undoubtedly relieved that Chávez lost, and in public they expressed delight that he accepted defeat and did not steal the election. But by midweek enough information had emerged to conclude that Chávez did, in fact, try to overturn the results. As reported in El Nacional, and confirmed to me by an intelligence source, the Venezuelan military high command virtually threatened him with a coup d'état if he insisted on doing ...
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Arrest Warrant Issued For Daniel Baldwin
NEW YORK (AP) ― A judge issued an arrest warrant for Daniel Baldwin on Friday when the actor didn't show up to court to give a progress report on his drug rehabilitation.
Los Angeles Superior Court judge Scott Millington issued the no-bail bench warrant and revoked Baldwin's probation after he failed to appear "without sufficient excuse" and without his lawyer, according to court documents.
An after-hours call to Baldwin's attorney, Grant Hoagland, was not immediately returned.
Baldwin, brother of actors William, Stephen and Alec Baldwin, was required to meet with the judge connection with a cocaine-possession case.
The case stemmed from the 47-year-old actor's arrest last year, when police found him and another man in a ...
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James Schugel SHOREVIEW, Minn. (WCCO) ― A soldier from Shoreview< Minn. is back home sharing his story of bullets, bloodshed and the innocent baby he helped save.
First Lieutenant Eric Laflin can tell stories of patrolling the streets of Iraq, being on the front lines and the dangers he faced every day.
He's lived through an explosion and received the Purple Heart for being shot.
"I went around the corner and took one to the shoulder," he said.
He received no award, just a good feeling, for something he's now known nationally for doing.
India issues stark terror warning
By Frank Gardner
Security correspondent, BBC News
India's national security adviser, MK Narayanan, has warned Western and Gulf Arab states to prepare for a new wave of attacks on economic targets.
Speaking at a security conference in Bahrain, Mr Narayanan said new al-Qaeda training schools had been established close to the Afghan-Pakistan border.
He said Indian intelligence reports had also identified the recruits as being from 14 different countries.
He said their targets also included high profile politicians.
Economic infrastructure in the Gulf region, such as oil pipelines and storage depots, electricity pylons and ocean going tankers are also at risk, said Mr Narayanan. ...
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Intelligence Ministry says agitators at Tehran University arrested Tehran, Dec 8, IRNA
Iran-Intelligence Ministry-Arrest
Iran's Intelligence Ministry said here Saturday evening it has arrested a number of agitators at Tehran University.
According to a report released by Intelligence Ministry Public Relations Office, a number of agitators with fake identification cards who had entered Tehran university campus to hold an illegal gathering in front of Technical College were recognized and later arrested by the officers from Tehran province branch of Intelligence Ministry.
According to the report, the arrested had been called from different cities by the enemies of the Islamic regime and certain political groups to hold an illegal gathering and create conflict and ...
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Building boon at Ft. Hamilton Army Base - Once on the verge of elimination, garrison now enjoys fresh infusion of funds
By Lesley Grimm 11/29/2007
The Fort Hamilton Army Base is a step closer to receiving $64 million in federal funds to construct a new reserve center. Photo by Leslie Grimm
What a difference a few years can make.
Once earmarked for closure, the Fort Hamilton Army Base in Brooklyn could now receive millions of dollars from the federal government for the construction of new buildings.
A total of $64 million is currently weaving its way through approval processes in Washington DC.
Last week New York Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton announced that a Joint House and ...
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Berkeley Cartoonist Takes Presidential Race to La Peña
By Judith Scherr (12-07-07)
You won’t have to remove your shoes when you enter Khalil Bendib’s White House.
“I will not bring the mosque into the oval office,” promised the Algerian-Berkeleyan cartoonist, who’s mounting a run for the presidency.
“I want to be top dog in a top-dog country—master of the universe,” he told the Planet in an exclusive one-on-one interview in his light-filled north Berkeley home, surrounded by his sculptures, paintings and campaign signs. It would be unthinkable to run for a lesser office, such as mayor or governor, he said.
Unfazed by what might be seen as a technical lack of eligibility as a ...
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D.C. flight added at Altoona airport
By Kay Stephens, kstephens@altoonamirror.com
December 6, 2007
The company providing passenger flights from the Altoona-Blair County Airport in Martinsburg is expected to add a round-trip flight to Washington Dulles International Airport, a move that could help travelers make connecting flights.
Representatives for Colgan Air Inc. declined Wednesday to offer details about an announcement to be made this morning at the airport, but they described the news as good for the airport and Blair County.
Colgan also plans to make an announcement this afternoon at the John P. Murtha-Johnstown-Cambria County Airport.
Altoona airport Authority Chairman Don Ruggery said he understands that Colgan has ...
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Legislators, residents speak out against REAL ID program
By DAN DiPAOLO
Daily American 30 North Chief
Tuesday, December 4, 2007 11:52 PM EST
JOHNSTOWN — The federal REAL ID program is beginning to see some real opposition in Pennsylvania.
Legislators in both the House and Senate have recently introduced bills to kill the licensing act and the groundswell touched this area when the American Civil Liberties Union hosted a town hall meeting on Nov. 29.
State Rep. Tom Yewcic, D-Johnstown, joined more than 60 people who came out to the Heritage Discovery Center to learn more about the act. “It’s a fundamental attack on our individual and state rights,” he said.
Strong rhetoric marked the evening speeches and commentary from the crowd, which included residents, local business leaders and a ...
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Hackers Launch Cyberattack on Federal Labs
Investigators Believe Chinese Hackers Carried Out 'Sophisticated' Hit
Oak Ridge National Laboratory complex. (AP Photo ) By JACK DATE, JASON RYAN, RICHARD SERGAY and THERESA COOK
Dec. 7, 2007
Share A "sophisticated cyberattack" has been detected at Oak Ridge National Laboratory over the last several weeks, and authorities suspect the hackers are based in China.
The breach might have compromised the personal information of thousands of visitors to the lab, according to a communiqué sent to employees.
The intrusion is under active investigation by multiple agencies. FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials tell ABC News they believe the attacks originated in China with Chinese entities probing U.S. systems.
Marty Griffin PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― A wounded Pittsburgh soldier is winning his fight against the U.S. Military.
Jordan Fox said the military asked for his bonus back after he was unable to complete his tour of duty in Iraq.
The military billed him for nearly $3,000 and claimed he did not fulfill his duties.
His story brought national attention and revelations of other injured vets in the same situation. After that scrutiny, Fox got results.
The bill he was sent was wiped clean and Fox just received a check from the military for nearly $7,000 for bonuses and other money owed. But Fox promises to continue his battle for ...
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Spared by chief justice, Iranian hangs anyway
Young man executed after 'victims' recant allegations of teen sex crimes
Less than a month after Iran’s chief justice spared the life of a 21-year-old condemned to die for sex crimes allegedly committed at age 13, the young man was reportedly hanged Wednesday morning at a prison in Kermanshah province.
"This is a shameful and outrageous travesty of justice and international human rights law," said Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, one of a number of human rights watchdogs that had focused attention on the case. Just last month, Ettelbrick had labeled the reversal of the young man’s death sentence a “stunning victory for human rights and a reminder of the power of global protest. ...
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Animal sacrifices, hunger strikes mark Bolivian political debate By Jack Chang, McClatchy Newspapers
SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA , Bolivia — In the view of Samuel Ruiz Arias , this country of 9.1 million people is already at war, and he's ready to take up arms if necessary to defend this city from what he's sure will be an eventual invasion of indigenous activists from the highlands.
"I'm sorry to say that this confrontation will have to happen," Ruiz Arias , 25, said. "They want to be the owners of everything, and we're not going to let them."
Ruiz Arias isn't the only one feeling combative. Bolivians of all stripes are filling plazas and streets to debate and at times fight over Bolivia's precarious future, made more fragile by a Dec. ...
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Suit Filed On Behalf Of Muslim Woman In Jail
SANTA ANA, Calif. (CBS) ― ACLU lawyers will detail on Thursday a lawsuit filed in federal court in Santa Ana that seeks to force the San Bernardino County sheriff to allow Muslim women to cover their heads while incarcerated in the jail system.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed the suit on behalf of Jameelah Medina, a 29-year-old San Bernardino County woman whose head covering was forcibly removed by deputies while she was in custody in the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, according to the ACLU's Celeste Durant.
The lawsuit asserts that Medina's religious freedom rights were violated and asks that the ...
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Imam Hassan Qazwini, head of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Mich., talks about these issues, and why these acts have angered people worldwide.
Candidate for Green Party strives to defeat two-party domination
By Megan Kaldis
Cynthia McKinney, former Georgia congresswoman and current Green Party Presidential candidate, takes questions from reporters Wednesday evening. McKinney held a fundraiser at Ruta Maya Coffee House Wendesday in South Austin.
Social justice, peace and the rejection of current foreign policies that promote war were some of points advocated by a presidential candidate of the Green Party Wednesday.
People should leave "behind the constraints inherent in the current political paradigm that forces you to accept torture and war," said Cynthia McKinney, presidential candidate for the Green Party and former Democratic member of the U.S. ...
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Daughter of imam under police guard for convertingRuth Gledhill: Religion Correspondent
The daughter of a British imam is under police protection after she received death threats from her family for converting to Christianity.
The woman, aged 32, whose father is a Muslim imam in Lancashire, has moved house 45 times to escape detection by her family since she became a Christian 15 years ago.
Hannah, who uses a pseudonym to hide her identity, told The Times that she became a Christian after she ran away from home at 16 to escape an arranged marriage. The threats against her became more serious a month ago, prompting police to offer her protection in case of an attempt on her life.
She was speaking on the eve of the opening of Lapido Media, a charity that is seeking to promote “religious literacy” in world affairs. ...
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Luke Worsley's dad told son died for nothingArticle from: AAPFont size: Decrease Increase Email article: Email Print article: Print Submit comment: Submit comment Mark Schliebs
December 05, 2007 01:00pm
A MAN claiming to be a Muslim cleric wrote to the father of slain soldier Luke Worsley that he "can't be proud" of his son - then posted the letter online.
John Worsley, father of 26-year-old commando Private Luke Worsley who was killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan last month, received the letter from “Sheikh Haron” just days after news broke of his son’s death.
“We were hurt (by the letter),” Mr Worsley told NEWS.com.au.
“We’re very proud of our boy.”
The letter – topped with Mr Worsley’s home address – has been posted on the internet by the mystery “Sheikh”.
04 December 07 - 19:49Keith Ellison gives prayer at FAU
Interesting...
Miami Herald
Muslim lawmaker at FAU
Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, spoke to students and others in Davie about civil liberties and the challenges of being a black Muslim.
Posted on Mon, Dec. 03, 2007Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
BY JAWEED KALEEM
The congressman's evening started with a prayer, on his knees, in Arabic.
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., spoke at a town hall-type meeting Sunday to more than 150 students and community members at Florida Atlantic University's Davie campus during a break from a fundraiser in South Florida.
Before a 1 ½-hour appearance that included a speech and a question-and-answer session, the first Muslim elected to Congress gathered outside the school grounds to pray with many of those who came to the event. ...
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Saudi Arab News
Parents Chain Young Woman at Makkah Home
Badea Abu Al-Naja, Arab News
JEDDAH, 5 December 2007 — Authorities in Makkah are investigating the case of a 19-year-old girl who left her home yesterday and climbed into a taxi with her feet in chains.
The driver of the taxi reported the girl to police after noticing the chains.
On questioning, the girl told the police that she was heading to meet her boyfriend, who had proposed to marry her but had been refused by her family.
The case has been transferred to the General Prosecution and Investigation Committee.
Makkah Police spokesman Maj. Abdul Muhsin Al-Mayman said that the Community Protection Office has been notified. “Parents should be more cautious about the safety of their children’s mental and ...
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Pakistan to deport Code Pink protesters
By S.A. Miller
December 4, 2007
Pakistan authorities today ordered the deportation of the leader of the feminist U.S. antiwar group Code Pink, who was in Lahore to join protests against the emergency rule imposed by President Pervez Musharraf, according to a spokeswoman for the group.
Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the group, said she was arrested at a student demonstration by agents of the Pakistan Inter-Service Intelligence and detained for about four hours before being released with orders to leave the country tomorrow morning. Pakistan officials told Ms. Benjamin that she was being deported for joining illegal protests.
"I'm OK — a little shaken up," Ms. Benjamin told The Washington Times by telephone from her hotel in Lahore. "They mistreated ...
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2 U.S. activists arrested in Pakistan
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Two U.S. human rights activists who had sought the release of a prominent Pakistani lawyer detained under the country's state of emergency were arrested Tuesday, officials and a witness said.
...
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Blogs Cited as Reason for Attorney's Change-of-Venue Request
Peter Page
Daily Business Review
December 4, 2007
A Tennessee defense attorney is arguing for a change of venue in a racially charged double murder by citing postings on Internet blogs along with newspaper and television reporting -- a move that legal observers say may become more common.
Attorney Philip Lomonaco of Knoxville, Tenn., called the Internet "the largest unregulated source for information" in the community, and said it had been used to "outrage and taint any jury pool" that could be seated to hear the case against Eric Dewayne Boyd.
Boyd, 34, faces federal charges of hiding the alleged ringleader of four suspects in a carjacking that resulted in the abduction, rape, torture and ...
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Letters | Soldiers deserve to speak
Mike Long
Issue date: 12/4/07 Section: Opinion
PrintEmail DoubleClick Any Word Page 1 of 1 I am writing to express my outrage and disappointment in the chairman of my department, Dr. Mark Rupert.
Last week, he decided to turn down a group of three U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In an e-mail sent to all political science majors this past Sunday, he described the purpose of the forum as "domestic propaganda" and "disingenuous." The context of his e-mail was a smug and embarrassing attempt to save face and dampen the flames of this controversy.
The "Why We Serve" forum is described by the coordinator as an attempt to put a human face on the global War on Terror. ...
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Jordanian-U.S. Citizen Missing After Covert CIA Transport
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 1, 2007; 4:01 AM
AMMAN, Jordan -- The CIA has been covertly transporting suspects here since at least 1999, when intelligence officials disrupted the Millennium Plot -- a plan by Islamic radicals to detonate bombs at tourist sites in Jordan.
On Dec. 14, 1999, Pakistani officials arrested Khalil Deek, a dual Jordanian-U.S. citizen, at his home in Peshawar. Intelligence agents believed he had arranged travel for Arab fighters seeking to cross the border into Afghanistan to join al-Qaeda training camps. He was also a prime suspect in the Millennium Plot; U.S. and Jordanian counterterrorism officials thought he might have information ...
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Jonathan Steele
Strategy aimed at waiting out U.S. troop surge
Bomb attacks mostly by Sunnis
Damascus: Iraq’s main Sunni-led resistance groups have scaled back their attacks on U..S forces in Baghdad and parts of Anbar province in a deliberate strategy aimed at regrouping, retraining, and waiting out President George Bush’s “surge”, a key militant leader has said.
U.S. officials recently reported a 55 per cent drop in attacks across Iraq. One explanation they give is the presence of 30,000 extra U.S. troops deployed this summer. The other is the decision by dozens of Sunni tribal leaders to accept money and weapons from the Americans in return for confronting Al-Qaeda militants who attack civilians. They call their movement Al-Sahwa (the Awakening). ...
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As the Council on American-Islamic Relations lobbies Congress to help strike its name from a list of co-conspirators in a federal terror case, WND has learned the Muslim group's ties to terrorism and extremism are far more extensive than first believed.
Although CAIR is a nonprofit organization, it does not disclose complete directories of its staff or advisory boards, and even refuses to make its federal tax filings readily available to the public.
But a review of federal criminal court documents, past IRS 990 tax records and Federal Election ...
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Former Iraqi general sees hope for future in Middle East
By DAVID CLOUSTON
Salina Journal
Iraq, under former leader Saddam Hussein, paid China for fully assembled nuclear bombs, but a former military adviser to Saddam and the No. 2 official in Iraq's air force says the deal was thwarted when the U.S. and its allies invaded in 2003, leading to Hussein's capture.
"This agreement was on. And the down payment was paid. I know the man, I know the branch and I know the bank, which did all this," said former Iraqi Gen. Georges Sada.
Sada, 67, was an insider privy to Saddam's plans to attempt to destroy Israel, hide weapons of mass destruction and control the Arab world, a description used as the tagline for the book he wrote last year: "Saddam's Secrets: How an Iraqi General ...
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December 04, 2007 03:34am
US troops are holding nearly 950 children and teenagers in a military prison at a Baghdad base, some as young as 10, a top commander said overnight.
Brigadier General Michael Nevin of US military police said many of these youngsters, mainly 15, 16 or 17 years of age are illiterate and have been detained for planting bombs and for "picking up a gun and firefighting".
The juveniles are being held in Camp Cropper near Baghdad airport and are part of the nearly 26,000 detainees held by the US military across Iraq.
But these youngsters, dressed in red jumpsuits, make up almost 25 per cent of the 4000 detainees held at Camp Cropper in Baghdad.
POSTED: 1:14 pm EST November 30, 2007
UPDATED: 9:48 pm EST December 1, 2007
Rep. John Murtha, historically an advocate for immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq, said on Thursday that he believes the troop surge is working.
In May, Murtha said the surge of 130,000 troops was not working. While he told reporters he now believes the surge is working, Murtha said that is just one piece of the puzzle.
In a statement released Friday, Murtha said, "The military surge has created a window of opportunity for the Iraqi government. Unfortunately, the sacrifice of our troops has not been met by the Iraqi government and they have failed to capitalize on the political and diplomatic steps that the surge was designed to ...
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Widow links Street to Abu-Jamal case
By Emilie Lounsberry
The widow of slain Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner charges that Mayor Street tried to interfere with a witness before Mumia Abu-Jamal's trial in 1982, when he was a first-term city councilman and practicing lawyer.
Street's involvement in the famous case is disclosed in a new book about one of Philadelphia's most scrutinized murder cases. The book, Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain, and Injustice, was written by Maureen Faulkner and Michael Smerconish, a radio host and columnist for The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. It is set to be released Thursday.
Maureen Faulkner discussed the book in an Associated Press interview distributed for publication today. ...
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Crisis-Mode Clinton Managed 'Tricky Balance'
Worked With Authorities, Hostage Families -- Offered to Talk to Hostage Taker, but Never Did
It was about 3 a.m. by the time Sen. Hillary Clinton finally made it back to her home in Washington this morning. Friday was a blur -- a terribly long day filled with gut-wrenching fear, frantic phone calls and crisis management.
When it was finally over, there was relief and perhaps even some amount of unanticipated political benefit.
"I am very grateful that this difficult day has ended so well," Clinton told cameras outside her home in Washington -- as the national evening news ...
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Frustrated patriot upset with Pentagon
BATTLEFIELD CALL FROM SON IN IRAQ HELPED FOCUS EFFORTS
By Peter Hecht
SACRAMENTO, Calif. --The first siege of Fallujah was under way in Iraq in April 2004 when a furious Marine lieutenant grabbed a satellite phone and shouted a stream of expletives at the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "Dad, we've already taken four K.I.A.," hollered Lt. Duncan D. Hunter. "But we're sweeping through the city, and we just got orders to stop attacking. What are you guys doing?"
Within minutes, said Rep. Duncan L. Hunter, the lieutenant's father, he was on the phone to the Pentagon, demanding why American troops halfway around the world were pulling back.
...
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Rants & Raves: You're in the Army now, so do your job somehow
By The Times-Union
I am deeply disturbed when I see local military recruitment personnel performing personal shopping on my tax dollars. On several occasions, I have witnessed Army recruiting personnel shopping at Wal-Mart during business hours when they should be doing their assigned jobs. In addition, they are driving government (license tag) vehicles paid for by the taxpayer. It is my understanding that their business hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Personal shopping mid-morning, mid-afternoon is definitely not in their job description. These activities are a disgrace and I protest.
Associated Press
Sunday, December 2, 2007 (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)
A Saudi Arabian newspaper said on Sunday that suspected al-Qaida terrorists were allegedly able to smuggle eight Chinese-made missiles into the kingdom before they were arrested as part of a terror sweep.
The daily Okaz, which is deemed close to the government, quoting unnamed officials as saying militants wanted to use the missiles to allegedly target hotels and other buildings in the kingdom.
The newspaper did not further describe the missiles.
The Saudi Interior Ministry last week announced that it made its largest terror sweep to date, arresting 208 al-Qaida-linked militants in six separate arrests in recent months. One of the alleged terror cells was led by a ...
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ABC News' Kate Snow reports: ABC News has learned that Leeland Eisenberg -- the man accused of holding hostages at Hillary Clinton's Rochester, N.H., campaign office for six hours on Friday -- allegedly cited one of Clinton's campaign commercials when police say he entered the office and claimed to have a pipe bomb strapped to his chest.
According to sources, the campaign office intruder was complaining about insurance issues and mentioned a recent campaign ad widely seen by New Hampshire voters.
"She helped that guy, she can help me," Eisenberg allegedly told Clinton campaign staffers, referring to Joe Ward, a Clinton supporter ...
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By Donald Rumsfeld
Sunday, December 2, 2007; Page B03
Today the people of Venezuela face a constitutional referendum, which, if passed, could obliterate the few remaining vestiges of Venezuelan democracy. The world is saying little and doing less as President Hugo Chávez dismantles Venezuela's constitution, silences its independent media and confiscates private property. Chávez's ambitions do not stop at Venezuela's borders, either. He has repeatedly threatened its neighbors. In late November, Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, declared that Chávez's efforts to mediate hostage talks with Marxist terrorists from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, were not welcome. ...
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Environment Canada warns of cold winter By Scott Haggett
Fri Nov 30, 6:19 PM ET
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Canadians should brace for a bitter winter, Environment Canada said on Friday, forecasting an unusually cold season for much of the country for the first time in more than a decade
The federal weather agency said it expects below normal temperatures for most regions this winter. Only parts of northern Canada and Ontario will be exempt from the trend, with temperatures in those areas expected to be normal.
If the forecaster is correct, it will be the first time since the winter of 1994-95 that the vast majority of the country has had a colder winter than usual.
"It's surprising because we've had such a spate of milder than normal winters," said Dave Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada. ...
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Tabloid's affair rumor dispelled, says John Edwards
Thursday, November 29th 2007, 11:56 AM
John Edwards believes he's stared down The National Enquirer.
The tab's editors have been promising a followup to The Enquirer's Oct. 10 story romantically linking the married presidential candidate with a female campaign staffer.
Edwards and the woman - identified on the Huffington Post and elsewhere as Rielle Hunter - denied allegations they'd had an affair. But one Enquirer source insisted that the tab would provide further evidence in the form of e-mails to a friend in which ...
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30 November 07 - 19:24Chavez "If people riot over my laws Im stopping oil to the US"
AFP NEWS
Chavez threatens to stop oil exports to US if poll violence
CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened Friday to stop oil exports to the United States if violence breaks out after a controversial and hotly contested weekend referendum.
He told thousands of supporters in Caracas that he was sending the army to "protect" all of the country's oil fields ahead of the plebiscite on Sunday aimed at bolstering his power by changing the constitution.
"If 'Operation Pincer' is activated Sunday or Monday, there won't be a drop of oil from Venezuela to the United States," Chavez said, referring to what he has often claimed is a CIA operation to topple him from power.
"If this (referendum) is used as a pretext to start violence in Venezuela, (Energy) Minister (Rafael) Ramirez on Monday will order that oil ...
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Soldier's Family Still Waiting For Paychecks
A Missouri National Guard soldier will be sent to Iraq soon. But his family is down to their last few dollars because of a bureaucratic blunder, KMBC's Martin Augustine reported.
The family asked to remain anonymous.
The soldier has been in training on the East Coast for several weeks now. His wife, a stay-at-home mother, is looking after their three children by herself, which she said is fine, except that her husband's direct-deposit paychecks haven't shown up in their bank account since October.
"I don't understand why it's taken almost seven weeks," the wife said.
She told Augustine that she is frustrated. She said doesn't want her husband in trouble, which is why she asked KMBC to protect her family's identity.
"Now they're saying they should have it to us by Dec. ...
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Vermont man hitting road to lobby Pelosi on impeachment
Email|Print| Text size – + By John Curran
Associated Press Writer / November 30, 2007
BRATTLEBORO, Vt.—He's got waterproof, size-11EEEE New Balance sneakers, a bright yellow poncho and a plan. He's got outrage in his heart, a Web site in his name and much of his retirement savings sunk into his cause. ...
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Edwards Supporters Rush Door at DNC Fall Meeting
Email
Share November 30, 2007 11:56 AM
ABC News' David Wright Reports: A riot seems about to break out here at the Democratic National Committee Fall meeting in Vienna, Virginia.
About a thousand supporters of former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., have waited Friday for three hours to hear their candidates address members of the Democratic National Committee.
So many are here that the DNC organized an overflow room for them. There's a widescreen TV where you can see the candidates clearly enough.
But there's no sound.
Many in the overflow area are trade union veterans and they're not shy about expressing their disappointment about not being able to hear their candidates. ...
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Bush may be willing to negotiate Iraq pullout, Murtha says
By Brian Bowling
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, November 30, 2007
U.S. Rep. John Murtha believes the Bush administration is beginning to show a willingness to negotiate with Congress an end to the war in Iraq.
The Johnstown Democrat said Thursday that Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, Bush's "war czar" for Iraq and Afghanistan, called him Wednesday after Murtha returned from a four-day tour of Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey and Belgium. Congressional leaders want to meet with Bush to discuss a plan for getting out of Iraq.
"In talking to General Lute, I got the impression that this is something that we might finally get to," Murtha said during a video conference from his Johnstown ...
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Exposing Blagojevich: Governor's Style An Obstacle
Critics Say Governor's Approach Has Made Progress In Springfield Next To Impossible
Mike Flannery SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (CBS) ― Mass transit is just one crisis currently facing Illinois. There's school funding and the public pension debt. And the state has just come off of a summer of stalemate over the budget.
A recent poll found more than half of those questioned disapprove of the job Gov. Rod Blagojevich is doing as governor. An editorial in the Chicago Tribune called him "the governor who cannot govern." Critics say his inaccessibility, his poor skills at building relationships and his lack of interest in details have made him an ineffective leader.
As CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, he won re-election barely one year ago. ...
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Schumer wants retirees to help reduce immigration backlog
Associated Press - November 29, 2007 6:35 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AP) - New York Senator Chuck Schumer says immigration officials should rehire retirees to help clear a backlog of applications.
Democrat Schumer today said that backlog could keep some people from becoming citizens in time to vote in the November 2008 elections.
He says those who followed the law and waited their turn should not have to sit in bureaucratic limbo because the government wasn't prepared for a spike in applications before fees increased.
Schumer plans to introduce legislation making it easier for the agency to rehire retirees.
Citizenship and Immigration Services last week said people wanting to become U.S. citizens will have to wait 15 months to 18 months, rather than the national ...
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Lawyer suspended over contributions to Jalila Jefferson campaign
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS The Louisiana Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended a Gretna lawyer for one year and one day because he paid $1,800 in campaign contributions to the daughter of Rep. William Jefferson upon the request of the congressman's brother-in-law, a sitting state judge at the time.
Walter J. LeBlanc Jr. was caught on FBI videotape passing an envelope of $100 bills to state District Judge Alan Green in 2002. Green's office was videotaped during "Operation Wrinkled Robe," an investigation into corruption at the Jefferson Parish Courthouse. LeBlanc cooperated with federal investigators and was not charged in that case.
The Supreme Court took a tougher line on LeBlanc than a disciplinary board took in ...
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WASHINGTON — You would think that in a season of thanks Americans would share gratitude for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, especially when war-time sacrifices are as unequal as any time in our history.
Presidential candidates walk a tightrope by praising the troops before criticizing the war. This may be one Vietnam lesson that still holds: that soldiers don't make policy and don't deserve to be spat upon, cursed or shunned when they return from unpopular wars.
But the praise is not that simple, as we have learned in Iraq.
In a Thanksgiving column three years ago, I wrote of the gratitude owed to the tens of thousands of Americans who volunteer to serve in the military. It was based on an ...
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LOADING TREES FOR TROOPS Chalonda Roberts (Scottsville, N.Y.) - Tree farmers are helping military families and troops have an old-fashioned Christmas by donating thousands of trees.
It’s part of the national Trees for Troops program.
Darling Tree Farm is among the 170 farmers in the state who are donating Christmas trees.
"We had a local soldier that got killed a year ago," said owner Dick Darling. "It touched me, and I wanted to get involved."
Darling is the state chairman for the program. He helps coordinate the ...
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Murtha finds military progress in trip to Iraq
Warns that Iraqis must do more for their own security
Thursday, November 29, 2007
By Jerome L. Sherman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. John Murtha today said he saw signs of military progress during a brief trip to Iraq last week, but he warned that Iraqis need to play a larger role in providing their own security and the Bush administration still must develop an exit strategy.
"I think the 'surge' is working," the Democrat said in a videoconference from his Johnstown office, describing the president's decision to commit more than 20,000 additional combat troops this year. But the Iraqis "have got to take care of themselves."
Violence has dropped significantly in recent months, but Mr. Murtha said he was most encouraged by changes in ...
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Former sailor, from Phoenix, fights to keep evidence from terror trial
The Associated Press
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The roommate of a former Navy sailor accused of giving a terrorism supporter information on Navy ships confirmed the allegations to an undercover witness for the FBI, the witness testified in federal court Wednesday.
Hassan Abu-Jihaad, 31, of Phoenix, pleaded not guilty in April to charges he provided material support to terrorists with intent to kill U.S. citizens and disclosed classified information relating to the national defense. He is accused of disclosing the location of Navy ships and the best ways to attack them.
The government is trying to show that Abu-Jihaad was part of an ongoing conspiracy to attack military personnel and recruiting stations in 2003 or 2004. Prosecutors have not charged him with regard to that. ...
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Car Bombs Shake, Scare Oakdale Neighborhood
Reporting
Darcy Pohland OAKDALE, Minn. (WCCO) ― An Oakdale family and their neighbors fear for their safety after two car bombs went off on the same day. They exploded in the driveway on the 2700 block of Grenada Avenue.
Police are now asking for your help to find out who's behind this.
"I was just waking up in the middle of the night with an earth shattering bang and it was definitely an explosion," said the victim's neighbor Stacie Demer.
Demer and her family were asleep in the early morning hours when a bomb went off in their neighbors driveway.
Court Clears Two Commission Members of Wrongdoing
Raid Qusti, Arab News
RIYADH, 29 November 2007 — The judges in the case of two members of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice who were accused of causing the death of Salman Al-Huraisi following a raid of his house in May dismissed the charges yesterday in the Riyadh High Court.
The court in Riyadh “acquitted the two members of the Commission of the charge of being directly responsible for the death of Al-Huraisi, for lack of sufficient evidence,” the commission’s lawyer Yussef Al-Nuqaidan said.
The judges’ ruling came after they had listened to the testimony of eyewitnesses — who also worked for the Commission — who said the two defendants had entered the deceased’s house with a metal object. The two Commission members had earlier ...
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Violence Against Women Is Still a Problem
Abeer Mishkhas, abeermishkhas@arabnews.com
Last Sunday, along with the rest of the world, Saudi Arabia celebrated a day dedicated to Eliminating Violence Against Women. Newspapers carried articles and editorials on the importance of the day and TV naturally gave the day a lot of coverage. Aside from celebrations, speeches and good intentions, we need to remember that the problem of violence against women and children has not gone away; it is very much with us — in the Kingdom and everywhere else.
We cannot but see the irony of the day against the backdrop of the continuing coverage of the Qatif girl and how her story has turned from a clear case of rape to a bigger and wider one that at its core ...
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Chinese alien smuggling ring indicted in Puerto Rico Tue Nov 27, 5:31 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Fifteen members of a human trafficking ring that smuggled Chinese immigrants into the United States through the US territory of Puerto Rico were indicted in San Juan Tuesday, and could face as much as 10 years in jail, the US Justice Department said.
Most of the suspects, who operated out of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, were arrested November 15 in Puerto Rico after a police investigation that included an undercover informant from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Two of the suspects were still at large, the Justice Department said in a statement.
The 15 suspects, the majority of Chinese origin, have been issued a 21-count indictment by a grand jury in San Juan for ...
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Court sentences al Qaeda supporter to 25 years By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Florida-based doctor convicted of supporting al Qaeda for swearing allegiance to Osama bin Laden and agreeing to help treat wounded fighters was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Wednesday
Rafiq Sabir, 52, was found guilty by a federal jury of two terrorism charges based on an oath he and his friend Tarik Shah made in Arabic in May 2005 to an undercover FBI agent posing as an al Qaeda recruiter. He taped both men pledging support to the militant Islamic group and "Sheikh Osama."
Sabir, a strict Muslim raised in New York, pleaded innocent and said he had been misled by Shah, a martial arts expert and jazz musician.
"I had no clue I was being asked to treat al Qaeda members," Sabir said in pleading for leniency to U.S. ...
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Jordan asked Nixon to attack Syria, declassified papers showStory Highlights
Telegram: King Hussein wanted U.S. strike on invading Syrian troops in 1970
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Jordan's King Hussein sent a secret message to President Richard Nixon in 1970 pleading with him to attack Syria, according to declassified documents released Wednesday by the former president's library.
The papers are among about 10,000 documents released by the Nixon Presidential Library, some of which offer harbingers of present-day events, such as concerns about terrorism and Saudi Arabia.
Library director Timothy Naftali said the documents describe challenges such as how to get the Saudis more involved in solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, how to get them more engaged against terrorism, how to address the Arab view that the United States always sides ...
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The Section Under Dispute
Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2007 Article ToolsPrintEmailReprintsSphereAddThisRSS SEC. 3. ADDITIONAL AUTHORIZATION OF ACQUISITIONS OF COMMUNICATIONS OF NON-UNITED STATES PERSONS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES WHO MAY BE COMMUNICATING WITH PERSONS INSIDE THE UNITED STATES. Section 105B of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) is amended to read as follows:
ADDITIONAL AUTHORIZATION OF ACQUISITIONS OF COMMUNICATIONS OF NON-UNITED STATES PERSONS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES WHO MAY BE COMMUNICATING WITH PERSONS INSIDE THE UNITED STATES
SEC. 105B. (a) IN GENERAL. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General may jointly apply to a judge of the court established under section 103(a) for ...
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Pigs' head protest against Islamic school
5:00AM Thursday November 29, 2007
Outrage has followed an apparent protest in which two pigs' heads were rammed on to metal stakes, with an Australian flag between them, on the site of a proposed Islamic school in Sydney.
The NSW Community Relations Commission has branded the act "a display of hatred".
A member of the public alerted the police after making the discovery on the empty block of land earmarked for the Islamic school on Cawdor Rd at Camden, in Sydney's south-west.
The proposed Islamic school, which would have 1200 pupils, has been a source of tension in the local community. This month more than one thousand residents protested against it, with some saying the school would damage the area's social fabric. The local council also received several thousand ...
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Spitzer Orders Charters To Pay Union Wages
By JACOB GERSHMAN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
November 28, 2007
Without seeking legislative approval, the Spitzer administration has quietly ordered charter schools to start paying union wages on all construction, repair, and maintenance projects.
Handed down by an administration that has encouraged the growth of charter schools in New York, the new policy came as a surprise to charter school operators and advocates, who say it will force them to spend as much as 30% more on building costs and divert classroom expenditures.
Several charter school groups have filed suit against the state's Department of Labor to overturn the wage mandate, which went into effect September 20, contending that education law exempts the schools from paying union wages and that the labor department, in mandating the change, ...
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During meeting Eliot Spitzer says he supports salary increases, lawmaker say
BY ELIZABETH BENJAMIN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, November 28th 2007, 4:00 AM
Gov. Eliot Spitzer managed to neutralize a room full of hostile state lawmakers Tuesday by uttering two words that were music to their ears: pay raises.
In a closed-door meeting at the Brooklyn Marriott, Spitzer sought to repair his relationship with his fellow Democrats in the Assembly, who have been alternately disappointed in, and flat-out furious with, the man who was supposed to restore them to power after 12 years of GOP rule.
Several lawmakers said Spitzer told them he supports salary increases for judges, legislators and state commissioners, none of whom have seen a boost in base pay since 1995. Legislators' ...
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UW-Milwaukee students object to security fee for anti-Islamic speaker
Associated Press
MILWAUKEE — A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student group that's invited a speaker who's raised the ire of some Muslim organizations elsewhere because of his anti-Islamic message is objecting to a school demand that it post extra security fees for the appearance.
UWM's Conservative Union said the university is trying to kill the Dec. 4 campus appearance by Walid Shoebat, and to stifle free speech.
"We wanted to bring him in as an example of how a person can change and bring him in to speak about terrorism,'' Conservative Union president A.J. Piwarun said of the former Palestinian Liberation Organization member who speaks on "Why I Left Jihad.''
Piwarun said the $2,500 fee is exorbitant and the need for security is overhyped. ...
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Somali man gets 10-year sentence in Ohio bomb plot Tue Nov 27, 5:44 PM ET
CINCINNATI (Reuters) - A Somali man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for planning to bomb an Ohio shopping mall with two other men and seeking training in preparation for "violent jihad," the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.
Nuradin Abdi, 35, pleaded guilty in July of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists after traveling to Ethiopia in 1999 in attempt to be trained in radio usage, guns, guerrilla warfare and bombs, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Abdi, a cell phone salesman, befriended co-conspirators Christopher Paul and Iyman Faris at a mosque in Ohio and later planned to blow up a suburban mall in Columbus. The attack was never carried out. ...
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Funeral Services Held For 23-Year-Old Killed In Iraq
POSTED: 2:08 pm EST November 26, 2007
MIAMI -- Overcast skies blurred the sun as the family of a South Florida soldier killed in Iraq while giving toys and candy to children followed behind his casket Monday.
Family members stood with their eyes hidden behind dark glasses as Pfc. Marius Ferrero's casket was escorted into St. Raymond's Catholic Church for his funeral.
Once family and friends had filled the pews inside, the priest told the congregation, "For us Christians, death is not the end."
Ferrero, 23, of Miami, was killed last Sunday in Baqouba, Iraq, with two other ...
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Terrorism: New Bin Laden video 'must be posted to Western websites'
Dubai, 27 Nov. (AKI) - A new al-Qaeda video containing Osama Bin Laden's latest message "must be posted to Western websites," the terror network's media arm as-Sahab has ordered cyber jihadists.
"You must spread the new message from Sheikh Osama bin Laden in every way, especially via Western websites," said As-Sahab, which produces al-Qaeda's videos and audiotapes.
In a web message announcing the imminent posting of bin Laden's new message, entitled "To the European people", As-Sahab also gives instructions on how best to distribute the new ...
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Is a very telling video. It shows the Taliban hiding in burkhas and even in one case using a very young boy as a human sheild guard to protect a safe house
Report: Some Non-Citizens Voting In U.S. Elections
Chris Salcedo FORT WORTH (CBS 11 News) ― Every American's vote counts. It's a basic pillar of our electoral system.
But a CBS 11 investigation discovered that election officials can't guarantee that only American citizens vote in elections.
After the review of data from Tarrant and Dallas Counties, it appeared, at least on the surface, that some non-citizens were participating in U.S. elections.
Since 1976, 1,900 people have been removed from the voter rolls because of their citizenship status in Dallas County. Of those, 221 had voter histories.
Tarrant County election data from 2004 and 2005 shows 43 people have been removed from the voter ...
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By Aman Ali, The Journal News
PEEKSKILL, N.Y. — Kieran Michael Lalor says he wants to send Rep. John Hall "back to Woodstock" come 2008.
In announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination in the 19th Congressional District race in New York, Lalor said the freshman Democrat "wants to spend your glorious tax dollars on hippies."
"When it comes to the people in Peekskill, I'm one of them," Lalor said. "We can't have a leader that is out of touch with 80 to 90% of the people here."
Lalor, a 31-year-old Iraq war veteran, is seeking to represent a district that covers Putnam County and parts of Westchester, Dutchess, Rockland and Orange counties. He has yet to file paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission, but he said he would do that this week.
...
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William Tracy
Democratic Campaign Slogans I'd Like To See
Posted November 26, 2007 | 03:21 PM (EST)
Hillary Clinton:
Clinton For President: Calm Down, It's Not Who You Think
Hillary Clinton: Fighting For What 51% Of Polled Americans Believe In
Vote For Hillary: Couldn't Fuck An Intern If She Tried
John Edwards:
John Edwards: Beating A Dead Horse Since 1998
Vote For Edwards: Or Just Wait Until He's Vice President
Edwards In '08: There Are Two Americas, And Neither One's Voting For Him
John Edwards: America's Least-Favorite Horatio Alger Story
Vote For Edwards: Just A Regular Hard-Working American With A 6 Million Estate On 100 Acres
Dennis Kucinich:
Kucinich For President: Christ, Again? ...
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Hillary Clinton's Radical Summer
A Season of Love and Leftists
By JOSH GERSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
November 26, 2007
Lee Balterman/Time Life Picture/Getty; Clem Albers/Corbis; Barney Peterson/Corbis; Art Frisch/San Francisco Chronicle/Corbis
Clockwise from top, the future first lady while at Wellesley College in 1969, and partners at the law firm Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, Robert Treuhaft, Doris Walker, and Malcolm Burnstein.
OAKLAND, Calif. — In a life marked largely by political caution, one entry on Senator Clinton's résumé stands out: her clerkship in 1971 at one of America's most radical law firms, ...
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Swift Boat issue becomes crucial to Kerry anew
Globe Staff / November 21, 2007
WASHINGTON - Senator John F. Kerry, in aggressively pursuing a forum in which to disprove allegations about his Vietnam military service, is drawing new attention to an issue that he was slow to address during his 2004 presidential campaign but that he now contends is vital to his political future.
Questions about his military service reemerged on Nov. 6 when T. Boone Pickens, a Texas financier who helped to fund the original Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Kerry during the 2004 presidential election, offered $1 million to anyone who could prove that ...
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Sex offender mayor barred from City Hall Thu Nov 22, 3:42 PM ET
POTEET, Texas - The mayor pleaded guilty to indecent conduct toward two girls and is barred from going to City Hall because it is near a youth center. But he still doesn't plan to resign.
Mayor Lino Donato entered the pleas Oct. 31 to three counts of indecency, cutting short a trial on accusations that he exposed himself to two girls between 1996 and 2000 and improperly touched one of them.
He planned to resign at a meeting a week later, but he changed his mind, saying he wasn't guilty.
As a registered sex offender, Donato is required to stay more than 1,000 feet from places where children congregate, and the Atascosa Boxing Club and Youth Center is less than that distance from City ...
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U.S. says Texas oilman not reformed, deserves prison By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, has not reformed and should receive the maximum prison sentence, U.S. prosecutors said in court papers filed on Monday.
During his trial in October, Wyatt, 83, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one of five charges against him stemming from the scandal, in which millions of dollars in kickbacks were paid to Saddam Hussein's government to win oil contracts from Iraq.
In a sentencing memo, U.S. prosecutors said Wyatt should receive the maximum sentence under his plea agreement of between 18 to 24 months when he is sentenced Tuesday. ...
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Filner enters plea in airport incident By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., has entered a plea days before he was set for trial on assault and battery charges over allegations he pushed a United Airlines baggage employee at Dulles International Airport.
At a hearing in Loudoun County's General District Court on Monday Filner entered a so-called Alford plea to trespassing, according to a statement issued through his attorney. That means he did not admit guilt, but acknowledged sufficient evidence exists for a conviction.
He was fined $100, according to the court clerk.
Filner was accused in the Aug. 19 incident of trying to barge past a female baggage worker into an employee-only area after his ...
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Official: Bride, groom stopped in Iraq actually terror suspectsStory Highlights
Soldiers became suspicious because car wouldn't stop; convoy was all male
Troops also suspicious that groom refused to life his bride's veil, official says
Stubbly-faced man in bride's gown, three others arrested on terror-related charges
From Mohammed Tawfeeq
CNN
BAGHDAD (CNN) -- Soldiers manning a checkpoint near Baghdad stopped a wedding convoy to find that the purported bride and groom were wanted terror suspects, an Iraqi Defense Ministry official said Monday.
Abbas al-Dobbi, left, and al-Bahadli were reportedly part of a wedding convoy that drew soldiers' ...
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Posted on Mon, Nov. 26, 2007reprint or license print email Digg it del.icio.us AIM
U.S. fending off constant cyberattacks
By DAVE MONTGOMERY
Star-Telegram Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- War in cyberspace makes no noise, but the battlefront is crowded with increasingly sophisticated enemies, according to military and government officials who warn of the potential for "an electronic Pearl Harbor" in the United States.
The Department of Homeland Security received 37,000 reports of attempted breaches of government and private computer systems in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, compared with 24,000 a year earlier. Assaults on the systems of federal agencies increased 152 percent, to 12,986 from 5,143.
Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of assaults bombard the firewalls of government computer systems daily. ...
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Municipal Fraud Inquiry Clouds Washington Anew
By IAN URBINA
Published: November 24, 2007
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 — It takes a lifetime to build a reputation — and a moment to destroy it.
Prosecutors say officials at the Washington municipal tax office bilked the city out of more than $30 million in refunds.
This lesson looms large here in a city that has spent the last decade and a half trying to escape its image as a pit of municipal government dysfunction and corruption and establishing itself as a place of budget surpluses and streamlined administration.
The municipal government’s reputation was tarnished anew this month when federal investigators revealed the largest corruption inquiry in the city’s history. ...
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Terror trial defendant gets 11 years By MIKE ROBINSON, Associated Press Writer
Wed Nov 21, 5:42 PM ET
CHICAGO - A former business professor accused of taking part in a Palestinian terrorist network was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison Wednesday for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury.
Abdelhaleem Ashqar, 49, a former associate professor of business at Washington's Howard University, was taken into custody by federal marshals immediately after the sentencing during which prosecutors warned that he might flee.
Ashqar was convicted earlier this year of criminal contempt and obstruction of justice for refusing to testify in 2003 before a grand jury investigating the Palestinian militant movement Hamas. Prosecutors had granted him immunity. ...
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NEW YORK (CBS News) ― A United Nations committee said Friday that use of Taser weapons can be a form of torture, in violation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture.
Use of the electronic stun devices by police has been marked with a sudden rise in deaths - including four men in the United States and two in Canada within the last week.
Canadian authorities are taking a second look at them, and in the United States, there is a wave of demands to BAN them.
The U.N. Committee Against Torture referred Friday to the use of TaserX26 weapons which Portuguese police has acquired. An expert had testified to the committee that use of the weapons had "proven risks of harm or death."
"The use of TaserX26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and that in certain ...
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25 November 07 - 15:49Pakistan Army finally gives terrorist info to US
Progress late but still progress. Add to it news that 80 Taliban were ambushed and killed
Times Online
Nearly 80 Taliban killed in Afghan air strikes: official Sun Nov 25, 12:43 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Nearly 80 Taliban rebels were killed in a series of air raids by international military forces near eastern Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, a provincial government spokesman said Sunday.
About 65 were killed in a single air assault late Saturday in eastern Paktia province on a "large group of Taliban," said Din Mohammad Darvish, a spokesman for the local administration
RIYADH (AFP) - Saudi Arabia, waging a crackdown on Islamist militants, has released 1,500 extremists after they repented, a newspaper said on Sunday.
The 1,500 were among 3,200 militants with whom a government-appointed "advice committee" met around 5,000 times since it was formed three years ago, Al-Watan said, quoting committee member Mohammad al-Nujaimi.
The paper did not clarify if the rest had refused to renounce the ideology of "takfeer" -- branding other Muslims as infidels in order to legitimise violence against them.
The ideology is espoused by militants who advocate the use of force to overthrow regimes deemed corrupt or unrepresentative and to establish a ...
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25 November 07 - 03:35Bush veiws Iraq as part of a long war
Pasadina Star News
Judging the Iraq war on Bush time
Article Launched: 11/23/2007 07:28:32 PM PST
George W. Bush has accepted that he won't live long enough to witness his legacy, though he still hopes to capture Osama bin Laden before leaving office in just over a year.
These were among his thoughts during an in-flight interview aboard Air Force One on Monday following a Thanksgiving address in Virginia. Bush looked relaxed in a blue jacket, and frequently gazed out the window as he reflected on his years in office, the war and this season of gratitude.
For his part, the president said he's grateful for men and women who volunteer to fight the war against radicals and extremists and help others "realize the blessings of liberty."
"I'm amazed at our citizens who understand the risks, understand the hardships, who volunteer to do ...
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By Thomas Lippman
For the Washington Post
November 25. 2007 12:01AM
The subtitle of Yaroslav Trofimov's fascinating and important book about the 1979 takeover of the Great Mosque in Mecca by heavily armed fanatics refers to that event as "the forgotten uprising." Perhaps it has been forgotten here but not in the Muslim Middle East, where it was a seminal event of the region's most traumatic year in modern times.
That year began with the Iranian revolution and ended with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In between, Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, radicalizing the Palestinians. Saddam Hussein took power in Iraq. And the former prime minister of Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was hanged by the general who overthrew him, Mohammed Zia ...
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WASHINGTON - Among the five members of the U.S. Senate seeking the presidency, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has a considerable lead in using the federal budget to pay for special projects known as earmarks.
Democratic Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois, Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Joe Biden of Delaware also have dozens of these projects in 2008 spending bills passed by the Senate. But they don't use them as widely and systematically as their New York counterpart, according to a Gannett News Service review of a database compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Clinton's 147 earmarks totaling $728.3 million topped the $640.8 million obtained by Dodd, the $118.6 million by Obama and $108.3 million by ...
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Al-Qaeda kingpin: I trained 9/11 hijackers –
From his Turkish jail, a senior terrorist claims a key role in atrocities around the worldInsight: Chris Gourlay and Jonathan Calvert
IN a small windowless cell lit by a single light bulb, Louai al-Sakka sits isolated from the world and fellow inmates for 24 hours a day.
His concrete box is in the bowels of Kandira, a high-security F-type prison 60 miles east of Istanbul, which was built to house Turkey’s most dangerous criminals.
The prison has been criticised by human rights groups such as Amnesty International. The guards control everything, including the cell’s light switch.
Sakka’s only visitor is Osman Karahan, a lawyer who shares his fervent support for militant Islamic jihad. ...
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24 November 07 - 18:41MSNBC's Candidate Match Matrix
Here is a very cool site by MSNBC. It allows you to veiw and rate candidates on various issues
Way it works is as follows. It has a grid system that links each candidate to an issue. You click on the grid for that candidate's veiw on the issue. You get to watch a little video(some of the time) of that candidates stance on an issue. You rate it using the rating system on the right. Once you complete all the videos you want to watch you hit "Submit Matrix" to get which candidate is best suited for you
Warning this is for political junkies. Is alot of videos and candidates to rate
RENO, Nev. (AP) - A new poll shows Gov. Jim Gibbons' approval rating among likely voters has improved, but those who hold an unfavorable view of him still outnumber those who approve of his job performance.
In a survey of 600 likely voters conducted for the Reno Gazette-Journal, 40 percent said they approve of Gibbons' job performance. That's a 7 percentage point increase since August. But 45 percent said they disapprove of the job he's doing.
Reid, a Democratic, also has been suffering from declining approval numbers since becoming Senate majority leader.
Of 600 likely voters surveyed, 39 percent said they approved of Reid's job performance and 49 percent said they did not. His support among Democrats, nonpartisan, women and Clark County has dropped substantially since a May 2006 ...
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14 enter immigration pleas
By Venita Jenkins
Staff writer
ADVERTISEMENT
RALEIGH — More than half of the illegal immigrants arrested in August on suspicion of identity theft have entered pleas in federal court.
Some have been sentenced to a year in federal prison. After serving their time, they will face deportation, according to court records. Others are awaiting sentencing.
Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 25 illegal immigrants Aug. 22 during raids in Cumberland, Bladen, Hoke and Robeson counties. They were current or former employees of Smithfield Packing Co. in Bladen County.
They pleaded guilty to fraud and misuse of visas, permits and other documents.
Two of the women who were arrested were released to receive medical attention. One is pregnant. Four immigrants were detained and ...
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Identity Theft by Illegal Immigrants a Growing Problem Locally
by Samuel King (king@wsbt.com)
Illegal immigrants using stolen identities to get jobs is a growing problem. Some local cities, including Elkhart and Goshen, have devoted detectives full-time to the issue. Carlos Hernandez of Three Rivers says he's had his identity stolen more than once. (WSBT photo)
By WSBT News1
(WSBT) Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the country. What's also growing is the number of illegal immigrants using fake identities to get jobs. Some local cities, including Elkhart and Goshen, have devoted detectives full-time to the issue.
Multimedia Watch The Video As the number of victims of identity theft grows, more people are living a nightmare.
A Frozen Life
Carlos Hernandez of Three Rivers says somewhere at some ...
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Massachusetts Might Face $147M Funding Shortfall In Health Reform Plan, According To Projections
Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance News
Article Date: 21 Nov 2007 - 7:00 PST
Massachusetts could face a $147 million funding shortfall by the end of this fiscal year if enrollment in Commonwealth Care continues at a higher-than-expected rate, the Boston Globe reports. Commonwealth Care provides comprehensive health coverage to people who do not have access to insurance through their employers and who have incomes less than 300% of the federal poverty level. The state fully or partially subsidizes premiums for Commonwealth Care beneficiaries based on income, and beneficiaries are required to contribute copayments for services. ...
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New York, Nov 22 - Doctored photos have a way of affecting your memory, according to a new study that used digitally altered images of public events.
The study, initiated by the University of California at Irvine, found that doctored photos of public events can make them appear bigger and more violent than they actually were.
Findings of the study have been published in the latest issue of the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, Sciencedaily.com reported.
Shown digitally altered images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest in Beijing and a 2003 anti-war protest in Rome, participants in the study recalled the events differently from the way they unfolded.
Doctored photos, which began as Internet hoaxes, have been making their way into mainstream media as well. ...
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Smoke Clearing on Anti-War Blockade
“Lawsuits will be forthcoming” over police’s use of batons, pepper spray on protesters
By CYDNEY GILLIS, Staff Reporter
Protesters and supporters of the police came out for the last day of a 10-day series of nonviolent actions that interrupted a Fort Lewis battalion’s work to move freight used in the Iraq war. Photo by Andrew Drawbaugh.
Day 11: About 400 anti-war protesters made a final march through the streets of Olympia to a waterfront plaza where they held a rally to celebrate what they had done.
From Nov. 7 to Nov. 17, they had created a series of Dumpster and human blockades, weathered police batons and gallons of pepper spray, and turned the 3rd Stryker Brigade’s two-day ...
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By Lee Hill Kavanaugh - The Kansas City Star
Posted : Friday Nov 23, 2007 11:39:04 EST
ATCHISON, Kan. — The stares bother him the most.
People see the red flesh that creeps along his cheekbone and jaw. The dangling left arm with permanent nerve damage. The wheelchair. The stump where his lower left leg was.
“It’s what I gave for Iraq,” Army Spc. Scott Stephenson, 23, says with a shrug, and then he’s quiet for a moment.
He’s grateful that the rest of him is back in the U.S., even if his home for nearly a year has been the Brooke Army Medical Center at San Antonio. ...
23 November 07 - 18:02Wound soldier was also to be charged interest ?
Found this story on US army Times. Seems Jordan got another letter a few days ago US Army Times
Fox, 21, from the Pittsburgh suburb of Mount Lebanon was partially blinded in his right eye and sustained a back injury in a roadside bomb explosion in Baqubah in May. He returned to the U.S. two months later and received a discharge.
In late October, Fox got a letter from the Army seeking repayment of part of his enlistment bonus because he had only completed about a year of his three-year service. Another letter arrived a week later warning he could be charged interest if he didn’t make a payment within 30 days.
23 November 07 - 17:43Aint no mountain high enough
BBC Sports
Anthem gaffe 'lifted Croatia'
By Frank Keogh
Croatia rose to the occasion in their crucial Euro 2008 defeat of England - after an apparent X-rated gaffe by an English opera singer at Wembley.
Tony Henry belted out a version of the Croat anthem before the 80,000 crowd, but made a blunder at the end.
He should have sung 'Mila kuda si planina' (which roughly means 'You know my dear how we love your mountains').
But he instead sang 'Mila kura si planina' which can be interpreted as 'My dear, my penis is a mountain.'
Replay: Croatia anthem singer's mistake
Now Henry could be one of the few Englishmen at the Euro 2008 finals in Austria and Switzerland as Croatian ...
23 November 07 - 17:36Kavkaz Jihadist website Thanks NY Times for letting us know what the US is up to !
Kavkaz is one of the premier Jihadist websites out there. Today they are crowing about the Ny Times article that informs that the US will be backing factions inside pakistan. From the Times lips to jihadist ears
steps up plans for military intervention in Pakistan
Publication time: 23 November 2007, 20:33
IN THE midst of public statements of support for "democracy" in Pakistan and the recent visit to Islamabad by the American envoy John Negroponte, Washington is quietly preparing for a stepped-up military intervention in the crisis-ridden country.
According to the New York Times Monday, plans have been drawn up by the US military's Special Operations Command for deploying Special Forces troops in Pakistan's frontier regions for the purpose of training indigenous militias to combat forces aligned with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. ...
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Consternation as Muammar Gaddafi seeks to pitch his tent on Nicolas Sarkozy’s lawnAdam Sage in Paris
Colonel Gaddafi of Libya has flummoxed France’s presidential protocol service with a request that a Bedouin tent be erected in central Paris where he can entertain guests during a visit to France next month.
Libyan officials have told their French counterparts that the dictator wants the tent put up in the grounds of the Hotel Marigny, the 19th century Parisian state residence used to house important foreign visitors.
The protocol service is unsure how to respond, since it is unwilling to displease the volatile ruler but unsure whether to ...
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Maria Arita FORT WORTH (CBS 11 News) ― The Star of Bethlehem has befuddled scholars throughout the ages. Now, a Texas law professor claims to have scientific proof that the Star was real, and not purely biblical myth. He has another major discovery as well, which resulted from his study of the Star.
Texas A&M adjunct law professor Frederick Larson began researching the Star after putting up a nativity scene for his daughter. The lawyer in him, Larson said, required him to investigate what it was that he was putting up in his front yard. Beginning with the book of Matthew, he ended up on a decade-long odyssey into astronomy.
Larson is emphatic in saying that, although his ...
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We fret over Europe, but the real threat to sovereignty has long been the US
Britain's biggest foreign influence is the one politicians don't dare debate: not immigration, not Brussels, but America
Linda Colley
Friday November 23, 2007
The Guardian
One knows something is important when the powers that be choose not to acknowledge it in public. Since 1945, Britain has been subject to at least three invasions. Two of these invasions have been massively discussed, and are widely viewed as having challenged and complicated understandings of what it means to be British. The empire came home, in that migrants from former overseas ...
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22 November 07 - 20:13California Ballot Inititive to divide Electoral votes seems certain
However I doubt it would pass in general election
ABC 7 San Fransico
California proposal in play could sway 2008 presidential election
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 22, 2007 - A Republican-linked group is on pace to gather enough petition signatures to place a proposal before California voters to revamp the way the state awards its electoral votes -- a change that could sway the 2008 presidential election, organizers said Wednesday.
A political committee has raised more than $1 million to push a change that Democrats depict as an attempt to hijack the presidential race.
"We are confident we will have enough signatures to qualify for the June ballot," said Lew Uhler, president of the Sacramento-based National Tax Limitation Committee and one of the initiative's leading supporters.
David Gilliard, a spokesman for California Counts, the committee raising money to place ...
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Taliban control half of Afghanistan, says report
Last Updated: 2:36am GMT 22/11/2007
The Taliban has a permanent presence in most of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into the group's hands, according to a report from an international think tank.
The Senlis Council claimed that the insurgents controlled "vast swathes of unchallenged territory" and were gaining "more and more ...
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22 November 07 - 19:49Saudi Journalistic Integrity
Dont think that just the Saudi Judiciary is screwed up. It runs deeper than that. Here is the Saudi Arab news lamenting that local Saudi Papers dont properly edit completely rediciously stories
Fabricated Stories and Misquotes
Hassna’a Mokhtar, Arab News
JEDDAH, 23 November 2007 — A couple of weeks ago dozens of people carrying tools and shovels flocked to a construction site outside a Jeddah mall to uproot a “possessed” palm tree, following reports in local newspapers that the mall was offering SR1 million to anyone who could complete the feat.
However, to the surprise of the people that had assembled there, the tree was not possessed and there was no bounty. This is not the first time and nor will it be the last that local newspapers publish half-truths.
8454 friends Ron Paul
4606 friends Barack Obama
3704 friends Dennis Kucinich
1302 friends Mike Gravel
619 friends John Edwards
436 friends Mike Huckabee
299 friends Joe Biden
299 friends Fred Thompson
284 friends Mitt Romney
271 friends Rudy Giuliani
257 friends John McCain
254 friends Bill Richardson
199 friends Chris Dodd
193 friends Hillary Clinton
152 friends Alan Keyes
88 friends Tom Tancredo
82 friends Duncan Hunter
Hugo Chávez let Radio Caracas Televisión continue to air for five years after the station supported a coup attempt.
By Bart Jones
from the June 4, 2007 edition
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's refusal to renew the license of Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) might seem to justify fears that Mr. Chávez is crushing free speech and eliminating any voices critical of him. Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; the Committee to Protect Journalists; and members of the European Parliament, the US Senate, and even Chile's Congress have denounced the closure of RCTV, Venezuela's oldest private television network. Chávez's detractors got more ammunition last week when the president included another opposition network, Globovisión, among the "enemies of the homeland." ...
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Ecuador protests mishandling of president at US airport Tue Nov 20, 8:18 PM ET
QUITO (AFP) - Ecuador's foreign ministry said Tuesday it had lodged a formal protest to the government of the United States over the treatment last week of President Rafael Correa by immigration officials at Miami's International Airport.
Correa refused to be searched as if he were an ordinary passenger by US screening officials, who apparently were unaware he was a head of state heading to Riyadh for the summit of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
The ministry said in a statement it had lodged the "strongest protest" before the US government "for the lack of basic manners shown Ecuador's head of state by immigration authorities" at Miami's airport. ...
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Israeli: Syrian site hit not a reactor By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - A Syrian site bombed by Israel in September was probably a plant for assembling a nuclear bomb, an Israeli nuclear expert said Thursday, challenging other analysts' conclusions that it housed a North Korean-style nuclear reactor.
Tel Aviv University chemistry professor Uzi Even, who worked in the past at Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor, said satellite pictures of the site taken before the Israeli strike on Sept. 6 showed no sign of the cooling towers and chimneys characteristic of reactors.
Even said the absence of telltale features of a reactor convinced him the building must have housed something else. And a rush by the Syrians after the attack to bury the site under tons of soil suggests the facility was a plutonium processing plant ...
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22 November 07 - 12:22Durbin Makes effort to rescue Palistinian Woman
I guess I dont get this story. This isnt a US citisen and she is in her Home now. Why is he trying to get the state department to bring her back to the states ?
SIUC student still stranded in Gaza
BY SCOTT FITZGERALD, The Southern
CARBONDALE - An attempt by Illinois delegate leader, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Springfield, and Southern Illinois University President Glenn Poshard earlier this month to free a Palestinian student trapped in Gaza fell short of the mark, according to a Southern Illinois University Carbondale spokesman.
Mona Bkheet, 26, was to begin her academic work this fall toward a Ph.D. in civil engineering at SIUC, but has been among 670 Palestinian students who have become trapped in Gaza since the Islamic militants took over rule this summer and Israel halted travel in and out of the territory. More than 30 of the students including Bkheet are enrolled at U.S. universities.
"President Poshard contacted Durbin, who in turn contacted the State ...
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Bali bombers still defiant
THE three men responsible for the carnage of the 2002 Bali bombing were yesterday defiant, unapologetic and welcoming of their forthcoming executions as they were visited in their island jail by some of their family members.
Imam Samudra had a chilling message for Australia: "Next year Australia will be down because it is one of the world's Christian armies
Samudra, the so-called field commander of the Bali bomber, took the opportunity to hold a press conference to correct what he said was misinformation.
He ...
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U.S. Electronic Surveillance Monitored Israeli Attack On Syria
Nov 21, 2007
David A. Fulghum and Robert Wall/AviationWeek.com
The U.S. provided Israel with information about Syrian air defenses before Israel attacked a suspected nuclear site in Syria, Aviation Week & Space Technology is reporting in its Nov. 26 edition.
The first event in the raid involved Israel's strike aircraft flying into Syria without alerting Syrian air defenses. The ultimate target was a suspected nuclear reactor being developed at Dayr az-Zawr. But the main attack was preceded by an engagement with a single Syrian radar site at Tall al-Abuad near the Turkish border.
The radar site was struck with a combination of ...
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22 November 07 - 01:23Hoiday Season help for soldier
Heartwarming story of neighbors helping young soldier's wife
WCNC
kindness of strangers 6:35 PM
06:35 PM EST on Wednesday, November 21, 2007
By MARIO ROLDAN / WCNC
Postal customers thank soldier CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Let’s face it. The post office can turn into a stressful place at times. Tuesday, the wife of a soldier serving in Iraq couldn't stop crying. The Charlotte woman’s tears however, were tears of joy.
"One of the ladies that was in front of me, I guess she noticed the address in my package," said Trisha Petersen.
Petersen was in line waiting to send a holiday package to her husband Jeremy in Iraq when a stranger handed her $20 to pay the postage.
"I was like, 'no, no, please--thank you though.' And she said, 'no, thank you' and she just walked off. ...
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Lebanon Soldier's Plight Grabs Headlines
Marty Griffin PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― A wounded Pittsburgh soldier's fight against the military has now become a national debate, and tonight, it is part of the race for President.
Sen. Hillary Clinton is joining the growing number of people demanding change. In a letter sent to the Secretary of Defense, Clinton said, "It shocks the conscience that the Army could demand that wounded soldiers return their enlistment bonuses."
21 November 07 - 13:42SEC investigating Company with strong ties to Hillary
AP News Yahoo
SEC Investigates by Database Company
Wednesday November 21, 12:48 pm ET
By Josh Funk, AP Business Writer
InfoUSA Discloses SEC Investigation of Company Spending
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an investigation into spending by database marketer InfoUSA Inc.
The Omaha-based company said in a filing Tuesday that it would cooperate with the SEC's request for documents related to expense reimbursement, transactions with related parties, some corporate expenditures and certain trades of company stock.
The company did not specify what spending the SEC is looking for, but a lawsuit two hedge funds filed earlier this year may offer some clues.
InfoUSA did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday.
The hedge funds -- Cardinal Value Equity Partners and Dolphin Limited Partnership ...
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21 November 07 - 13:27Micheal Scheuer. "How Bin Laden easily beat the US"
For background want to point out that Scheuer is a back of Ron Paul. He and Paul held a conference on the theory of "blowback"
Wiki Micheal Scheurer On May 24, 2007, Ron Paul and Scheuer held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington DC about the causes that led up to 9/11, American foreign policy and its implications on terrorism, security and Iraq.[9] Paul and Scheuer argued that Rudy Giuliani is wrong on security and foreign policy and provided documentation about the unintended consequences of interventionism - known to many in the intelligence world as blowback -
Now we get to Scheuer's latest column where he concludes that "Bin Laden has easily beat the US and is just waiting to move in.
Bin Laden’s words are a bit more hyperbolic than usual, but they match the presiding sense of what he described as the “amazement” that exists ...
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Spitzer Speaks on Modified Immigration Plan
Governor Spitzer also spoke about his now-defunct plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
After withering criticism of the plan, and a plummet in his popularity polls, the governor recently retreated from the plan. But he still supports a modified plan of driver I.D's for foreigners --a system which the Governor says is very important to our neighbors to the north:
"The part of it that is really important is the western hemisphere travel initiative" said Spitzer. "To have an enhanced driver's license available to those who want to cross the Canadian border because the absence of that would be ...
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20 November 07 - 21:54British Army Chaplins want to carry guns
Its against the rules of war but the Taliban dont follow the geneva conventions and would love to behead a Christian Army Preast on Video This is London
Army chaplains want right to carry weapons to protect themselves against the Taliban
21.11.07
British military chaplains in Afghanistan are urging an historic change in the rules to allow them to carry weapons when out on patrol alongside troops fighting the Taliban, because of the risk of capture.
For the first time in any theatre of conflict chaplains are no longer considered to be protected by the rules of war, because of the propaganda Taliban extremists would gain from showing "trophy" footage of a captive Christian priest. ...
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Military Says Bonus Letter Was A 'Mistake'
Reporting
Marty Griffin MT. LEBANON (KDKA) ― A KDKA investigation is getting national attention and results for a wounded soldier from Mt. Lebanon and perhaps thousands of others.
The Army ordered Jordan Fox to return thousands of dollars in bonus money because his injuries prevented him from completing his tour.
When in Iraq, Fox survived ...
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Dems says Pentagon using scare tactics By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - In their latest tussle with the White House on the Iraq war, two leading House Democrats said Tuesday the Pentagon was using scare tactics to try to goad Congress into passing another war spending bill. Murtha said the Pentagon was issuing "irresponsible" propaganda.
"They're scaring people," he said. "They're scaring the families of the troops . . .That's the thing that's so despicable."
When asked whether public opinion could eventually turn against Democrats if they hold out too long, Murtha said no because the Pentagon has destroyed credibility.
"Go back and look: mission accomplished, al-Qaida connection, weapons of mass destruction," he said. "On and on and on and you'll believe the Pentagon? ...
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KSBY
Congressman honored for his work getting military photos back on display at the Paso Robles Post Office
Posted: Nov 20, 2007 10:58 AM EST
Monday, November 19, 2007
Reported by: Kory Raftery
PASO ...
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Wounded Soldier: Military Wants Part Of Bonus Back
Marty Griffin PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.
To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.
Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.
One of them is Jordan Fox, a young soldier from the South Hills.
He finds solace in the hundreds of boxes he loads onto a truck in Carnegie. ...
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Father of fallen Texas soldier fulfills son's last wish
(11/19/07 - GALVESTON, TX) - A pair of flags has helped the father of a Texas soldier killed in Iraq fulfill his son's final wish.
-------------- KTIV
Town Raises Money For Fallen Soldier's Family
-------------------------- WXOW
Wisconsin Soldier Adopts Iraqi Boy
Port protest cases could swamp Olympia municipal court
Associated Press
Last updated: Monday, November 19th, 2007 09:40:59 AM
OLYMPIA -- The Olympia city attorney's office has charged two anti-war demonstrators with misdemeanors for blocking military equipment at the Port of Olympia.
The two pleaded not guilty last week to charges of pedestrian interference, resisting arrest or obstructing a peace officer. If convicted they could face up to 90 days in jail.
City Attorney Tom Morrill says it remains to be seen whether all the people who were arrested will be charged in Olympia Municipal Court. The court only has two prosecutors and one judge.
Demonstrators didn't stop military equipment from Iraq from returning to Fort ...
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Analysis: Iran's secret Syrian plan
By OLIVIER GUITTAPublished: November 19, 2007
Syria's President Bashar Assad: Syria's President Bashar Assad. KRT
Print StoryIsrael has been providing intelligence and satellite images to the U.S. about a secret Syrian nuclear program for several months, according to media reports. Discussions between Israel and the United States took place last summer regarding a possible strike. But when Israel found the matter so pressing that when they realized the U.S. was not ready to act, on September 6 they attacked a Syrian nuclear site. Hence the question: what is Syria really up to or more to the point what is Iran up to?
First, let's start with an underreported explosion that occurred in a Syrian military base outside Aleppo on July 26. Jane's Defense Weekly reported, citing Syrian ...
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'60 Minutes' airs video of Omar Khadr
COLIN FREEZE
From Monday's Globe and Mail
November 19, 2007 at 12:33 AM EST
CBS News has broadcast shocking new footage of a Canadian terrorism suspect allegedly building bomb timers and planting land mines while he was a 15-year-old militant hoping to take on American soldiers in Afghanistan.
The footage, some of it shot on a night-vision camera by alleged al-Qaeda fighters before it was seized by U.S. forces after a deadly ...
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Websites That Spread Misinformation About Islamic Teachings
Adil Salahi, Arab News
Q. I read on a website that answers queries about Islam that it is right to force non-Muslims to accept Islam, even through war. The person who answered the question says that the verse stating that ‘there is no compulsion in religion’ has been abrogated by verses 8: 39 and 9: 5. Please comment.
A. Taqui
A. We need to be wary when we read something on the Internet. Cyber space is open to all and no one can have control over what is written. There are many sites that are hostile to Islam, but there are several which manage their hostility in a subtle way. They try to appear objective, or indeed Islamic, but they often resort to half-truths, or ...
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Bombs strike children, US troops in Iraq By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber detonated his explosives as American soldiers were handing out toys to children northeast of Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least three children and three of the troopers, U.S. and Iraqi authorities said.
Seven children were wounded in the attack in Baqouba, where U.S. soldiers wrested control from al-Qaida in Iraq last summer.
The attack, along with a series of other blasts in the capital and to the north, underlined the uncertainty of security in Iraq even as the American military said overall violence is down 55 percent since a troop buildup began this year.
Police said the attack occurred as U.S. soldiers were handing out toys, sports equipment and other treats in a playground near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. ...
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Racist e-mail via Obama site: suit
'TELL A FRIEND' | Firm says notes claimed to be from CEO
November 18, 2007
BY STEVE PATTERSON Staff Reporter spatterson@suntimes.com
An unknown person used Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign Web site to send out threatening and derogatory e-mails to employees at a Texas-based company, according to a lawsuit filed by the company Friday in Cook County Circuit Court.
Like many Web sites, Obama's has a function to "tell a friend" or "pass the word," allowing a visitor to fill in e-mail addresses in the "to" and "from" lines.
The suit, filed against a John Doe and seeking in excess of $30,000, claims someone sent e-mails to all employees of CCR Technologies in September, each time claiming they were from the CEO. ...
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The event had all the makings of a celebration: A large crowd of dignitaries, medical personnel, and civilians gathered for the opening of an emergency room at Khost City Hospital in Afghanistan. It was a scene that would not have taken place during the reign of the Taliban – and a scene the enemies of a free Afghanistan try to prevent at all costs. On February 20, 2007, Staff Sgt. Jason Fetty, at great personal risk, thwarted a suicide attack at the hospital, and saved countless people. For his actions, he was given the Silver Star, the first ...
Iran says its nuclear programme is only for peaceful purposes
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to discuss with Arab nations a plan to enrich uranium outside the region in a neutral country such as Switzerland.
He made the announcement in an interview for Dow Jones Newswires in Saudi Arabia where he is attending a petroleum exporters' summit.
Gulf Arab states recently proposed setting up a consortium to provide nuclear fuel to Iran and others.
The scheme could allay fears Iran is enriching uranium for a nuclear bomb.
Iran has insisted that its right to pursue a civilian nuclear programme is not up for negotiation.
UN sanctions
Mr Ahmadinejad's comments come after moves by Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey to facilitate talks between Iran and the US. ...
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Maryland bill opposes illegals as drivers
By Tom LoBianco
November 17, 2007
ANNAPOLIS — A Republican senator plans to introduce a bill today during the General Assembly's special session that would bar illegal aliens from getting driver's licenses in Maryland.
Sen. E.J. Pipkin, Eastern Shore Republican, said he will introduce the measure with a second bill calling on officials to conduct a study to determine how much the state spends providing services to illegal aliens.
"The Annapolis tax-and-spend crowd has spent the last three weeks raising taxes. I introduced a billion dollars in spending cuts, and the Senate refused to adopt them," Mr. Pipkin said. "I am now asking the legislature to take action concerning illegal aliens and their impact on the ...
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Migrants lose jobs as law nears
Employers verifying status fire hundreds, attorneys say
Daniel González
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 18, 2007 12:00 AM
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of undocumented workers have been fired as a result of Arizona businesses reviewing the work-eligibility forms of their employees as the state's new employer-sanctions law draws near.
The fired workers couldn't provide missing information uncovered during the reviews or confessed to being in the country illegally, say attorneys involved in the reviews.
The number of firings could grow significantly once the law goes into effect Jan. 1 as employers scramble to make sure they are in compliance. ...
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Sikhs-for-Clinton Fund-Raiser Scuttled for 'Security Reasons'
By JOSH GERSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
November 16, 2007 updated 11/17/07 12:23 am EST
A $1-million fund-raiser Sikhs were planning to hold in Bakersfield, Calif. on Sunday morning for Senator Clinton's presidential campaign has been abruptly canceled, or at least postponed, people familiar with the event said today.
The invitations said both Mrs. Clinton and President Clinton were to attend, a rare occurrence that signals the large sums that were expected and the political pull of the organizers.
"It was canceled for security reasons," a person behind the $1000-a-plate breakfast, Sharnjit Dhaliwal, told The New York Sun today. She initially would not elaborate on the problem, but said they were hoping to stage the event later.
A Democratic Party official in Kern County, Calif. ...
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US and Israel 'face up to' Iran bomb
By Philip Sherwell in New York and Matthew Kalman in Jerusalem
Last Updated: 1:25am GMT 18/11/2007
America and Israel are secretly drawing up plans to deal with an Iran that has acquired nuclear weapons, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.
Teheran's two arch-foes are preparing for what they have long declared is an unacceptable scenario, as the prospects for air strikes to cripple Iran's nuclear network fade, and China and Russia undermine efforts to forge an international sanctions regime.
Israel's air force trains for possible long-range raids, and bombed a suspected nuclear site in Syria recently. But military chiefs face the same intelligence problems as the US as well as refuelling difficulties if they cannot fly over hostile Arab states to reach Iran.
Israel is believed to be ...
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$3 million will restart virtual border watch
El Paso Times Staff
Article Launched: 11/18/2007 12:00:00 AM MST
By Brandi Grissom
Austin Bureau
AUSTIN -- More than a year and a half after Gov. Rick Perry promised to put hundreds of cameras on the border and broadcast live footage of undocumented border crossers on the Web, the project is about to become reality.
Perry has found $3 million to restart his virtual border watch program, and the cameras could be up and running by January, a spokeswoman said. Though, she added, it might take longer to make the footage available online.
"We're going to put these cameras in strategic high-traffic areas along the border," spokeswoman Allison Castle said.
During his re-election campaign in 2006, Perry promised to put hundreds of cameras on the Texas-Mexico border and broadcast the video over the Web so ...
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18 November 07 - 02:12"Son of Sam" Killer to benefit from Spitzer deal ?
Courier life
Stricken family protests murderer’s possible parole
Senator Marty Golden, who stood with the Ryman family Saturday, said that Governor Spitzer’s deal would favor the rights of violent criminals, “even Sam Berkowitz, the ‘Son of Sam.’”
“The effort to provide 1,000 of New York State’s most vicious criminals with another opportunity to be released from prison is an outrageous threat to public safety that must be stopped,” Golden said. “If this policy is approved, we are endangering the welfare of all New Yorkers and challenging the progress made in fighting crime, reducing homicides, and preventing robberies here in the Empire State.”
Speaking of Young, Golden said: “Those who kill police officers, and all citizens, do not deserve another chance to be a free member of our society.”
King of the road? Soldiers dig the MRAP
Troops learning fast the benefits of new vehicles
By Scott Schonauer, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, November 18, 2007
BAGHDAD — As the convoy rumbles down the dust-and-gravel road on Camp Liberty, heads turn and cars stop. Some people whip out digital cameras to steal a snapshot, while others strain their necks to get a glimpse.
Among military machines, the new MRAP — a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle — is a celebrity and everybody wants a look.
“When we go by, it’s like everybody comes out,” said Dimethus Thompson, a former soldier who is now training soldiers to drive the ...
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Tehran, Nov 17, IRNA
Canada-Human Rights Violations
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini on Saturday expressed outrage over alarming human rights violations in Canada.
Canada's treatment of immigrants and workers has gone on spotlight of the international organizations expressing alarm over violation of human rights by Canada.
International Workers' Rights Advocate, Director of Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Janek Kuczkiewicz protested to Canadian authorities against violations of rights of immigrant workers.
International organizations also have expressed abhorrence over violation of human rights by the Canadian police.
Citing murders of Iranian expatriates Keyvan Tabesh and Barghi as well as Polish immigrant, Zaniewska, as examples of human rights violations, ...
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Three U.S. Agencies Reviewing Decision to Export High-Tech Support to Syria
Last Edited: Saturday, 17 Nov 2007, 3:43 PM MST
Created: Saturday, 17 Nov 2007, 2:13 PM MST
By George Russell
Officials from three U.S. agencies are now reviewing their records over the past three years to see if permission should have been granted for a major American computer company to ship "sensitive" technology to Syria, a state sponsor of terrorism.
The gap between the Bush Administration’s anti-Syrian rhetoric and reality emerges in the book-keeping of the $5.2 billion United Nations Development Program, the U.N.’s flagship development agency, which has come under heavy fire for its improper funneling of cash to the regime of North Korean dictator and nuclear proliferator Kim Jong Il.
...
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Rep. John Murtha|
Two Years after I Called for a Redeployment of U.S. Forces from Iraq, Bush Refuses to Provide the American People with a Responsible Exit Strategy
It requires the redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq to begin within 30 days, with a target for completion of December 15, 2008. It ensures that our troops are fully trained and equipped before they are sent to Iraq. It extends the Army Field Manual to all personnel, making torture not only unacceptable but also unlawful. And it transitions our forces from a combat roll to specifically supporting and training Iraqi Security Forces and counterterrorism operations.
Analysis: Richardson defends undocumented immigrants licenses
Barry Massey, Associated Press
Saturday, November 17, 2007
About 45,000 licenses have been issued to people without a Social Security number. That's about 3.6 percent of all the licensed drivers in New Mexico. Ortiz assumes most of the 45,000 are foreign nationals, but the state doesn't know how many are illegal immigrants because immigration status information isn't collected by MVD.
So will Bush nuke Iran?
By MICHAEL BURLEIGH - More by this author »
Last updated at 11:38am on 17th November 2007
Ignoring the West's requests: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Increasingly powerful voices in the U.S. are urging war against Iran to stop the country acquiring nuclear weapons. This week, in his Mansion House foreign policy speech, Gordon Brown declared the U.S. to be Britain's greatest ally and stressed that Iran's nuclear programme was a matter of concern. But how could the ...
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Anti-war demonstrators protest military ship unloading in Olympia
Nov 6, 9:57 AM EST
Nearly 40 people were arrested at the port during protests in late May 2006 when the same unit's equipment was loaded onto a ship bound for the Middle East. All charges were dropped because of document-handling problems and errors by prosecutors and sheriff's deputies. Last week, Port Commission President Paul Telford contacted two peace activists, City Council member TJ Johnson and Lawrence Mosqueda, a professor at The Evergreen State College, to inform them of the impending arrival of the Brittin and to seek their aid in avoiding trouble this time.A private security firm has been hired, Telford added.
...
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“I’m going to be like Dan Rather on YouTube,” joked Couric in her video, alluding to Rather by fiddling with her coat. “Geez, don’t you think he deserves a little payback?”
She then added, laughing: “This tart is ready to go!”
Brazil eyes nuclear sub to defend oil By ALAN CLENDENNING, Associated Press Writer
Fri Nov 16, 12:36 PM ET
SAO PAULO, Brazil - This month's discovery of a monster offshore oil reserve justifies Brazil's plan to build a nuclear submarine because it would be used to protect the find, the defense minister said.
"When you have a large natural source of wealth discovered in the Atlantic, it's obvious you need the means to protect it," Nelson Jobim said Thursday at a defense conference in Rio de Janeiro.
Jobim said Brazil must safeguard the Tupi field and its 5 billion to 8 billion barrels of oil reserves from other nations and from "actions that could come from the area of terror," the government's Agencia Brasil news service reported.
Brazil has been talking about building a nuclear submarine for decades, but the project got a boost in July ...
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Iran has been blocked many times from buying nuclear materials
By Warren Hoge Published: November 16, 2007
UNITED NATIONS, New York: Iran has been denied purchases of nuclear-related materials at least 75 times over the past nine years because of suspicions the purchases could have been used for building bombs, an international monitoring group says.
The denials, most of which have occurred since 2002, have resulted from interventions by members of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, an offshoot of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The suppliers group is charged with monitoring trade to make sure that nuclear technology transferred for peaceful purposes is not directed to military use. Iran is a signatory to the treaty but not a member of the suppliers group.
Made up of representatives of technologically ...
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Fake gold and silver Ron Paul coins seized
Federal agents raid 'Liberty Dollar' headquarters in Indiana
updated 12:28 p.m. ET, Fri., Nov. 16, 2007
EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Federal agents raided the headquarters of a group that produces illegal currency and puts it in circulation, seizing gold, silver and two tons of copper coins featuring Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Agents also took records, computers and froze the bank accounts at the "Liberty Dollar" headquarters during the Thursday raid, Bernard von NotHaus, founder of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act & Internal Revenue Code, said in a posting on the group's Web site.
The organization, which is critical of the Federal Reserve, has repeatedly clashed with the federal government, which contends that the gold, silver and copper coins it ...
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Gov. Spitzer eyes deal in suit to spring heinous killers
BY JOE MAHONEY in Albany and THOMAS ZAMBITO in New York
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Thursday, November 8th 2007, 9:43 AM
A rogue's gallery of cop killers, arsonists and rapists would win new parole hearings under a deal being worked out with the Spitzer administration.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer will fight felons' lawsuit
Thursday, November 15th 2007, 4:00 AM
ALBANY - Gov. Spitzer has opted to fight a lawsuit that ultimately could have speeded up ...
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Afghanistan: Bin Laden hiding in border mountains, claims ex-Taliban militant
Swat Valley, 15 Nov. (AKI) - Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was hiding in the remote mountains on the Afghani-Pakistani border and moving constantly to avoid detection by intelligence agencies, according to a Taliban sympathiser.
Ahmad Farooq, a Pakistani Pashtun has told the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, that bin Laden had been moving from village to village in the area from Chitral to the "corridor of Waqan", the mountainous Hindu Kush region of Pakistan bordering Tajikstan and China.
It is a rare account of bin Laden's life since he ...
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Taliban kill Afghan boy for teaching English: police By Elyas Wahdat
Thu Nov 15, 7:22 AM ET
KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban militants shot dead a teenage boy in southeastern Afghanistan for teaching English to his classmates, police said on Thursday.
Taliban militants have killed a number of teachers and students in recent years for attending government-run schools, taking part in classes for girls or what the hardline Islamist militants consider un-Islamic subjects.
Armed men arrived at the school in the Sayed Karam district of Paktia province and grabbed a 16-year-old student and dragged him outside.
"Taliban militants took the boy out and killed him outside the school just because he was teaching English to his classmates," said General Esmatullah Alizai, the police chief of Paktia ...
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UK court agrees radical cleric's U.S. extradition
Thu Nov 15, 2007 11:22am ET
LONDON (Reuters) - A British court ruled Thursday that radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri could be extradited to the United States to face terrorism charges including trying to set up an al Qaeda training camp in Oregon.
Egyptian-born Hamza, 49, serving a seven-year jail term in Britain for inciting his followers to murder nonbelievers, is wanted by U.S. authorities on 11 charges.
The U.S. indictment accuses Hamza -- who had a hook in place of a missing hand -- of attempting to set up a terrorist training camp in Bly, ...
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15 November 07 - 01:15Become a Volunteer at the Cindy Sheehan Peace Award !
The mind boggles at the potential
http://www.cranbrookpeace.org/
Want to attend the Annual Lecture, but can't afford it? Consider volunteering!
We have a number of volunteer needs for the Annual Lecture, and in return for your services we'll give you a complimentary ticket. We will have volunteer trainings at Cobo Hall in Detroit on Tues. Nov. 6, 6-8:30 pm and Thurs. Nov. 15, 6-8:30 pm at which you will receive your complimentary ticket. In both cases we'll meet in lower atrium area just behind the statue of Joe Louis. The Michigan Peace Team will also be joining us on Nov. 15 to train those interested in being security volunteers in nonviolent conflict prevention tactics. Our special thanks to Michigan Peace Team and Veterans for Peace for their assistance.
Click on the following links to volunteer:
- Youth & Sheehan Dialogue Assistant
- Youth & Sheehan Greeters
Boston Common visitors get line to Iran
By GLEN JOHNSON ~ The Associated Press
BOSTON (AP) -- It was a diplomatic hot line for the people: a red phone in Boston Common with a sign inviting passers-by to speak directly to someone in Iran.
"May I ask how the U.S. is portrayed in the media?" said Sarah Shugars, 24, an Emerson College master's student who was the first to take the phone. Organizers said a 25-year-old artist was on the other end in Iran, though they wouldn't give her name or hometown for fear of Iranian reprisals.
The translator, a 29-year-old MIT student from Iran, also would only provide her first name, Rana, for fear of fallout from her home government.
Islam links Saudi - Iran ties: Saudi official
Saudi Arabia-Iran, Politics, 11/14/2007
Saudi Prosecutor General Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Fahd Abdullah said today that close ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia would be to the benefit of Muslim World.
The Saudi official made the remarks in a meeting with Iran's Ambassador to Riyadh Muhammad Hosseini.
Referring to the current good ties between the two countries, the Saudi official expressed pleasure with the current level of ties between the two countries.
Given the cultural, historical and religious bonds, there is no reason for any rift between the two countries, he said. "We are happy to see that Iran's governing rules are based on Islamic Sharia," he said. The Iranian ambassador, for his part, referred to "plots hatched by the enemies of Islam" who try to ...
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Washington, Spitzer directed blame toward a federal government that "has lost control of its borders," let millions of illegal immigrants into the country, "and now has no solution to deal with it."
While he said he continued to believe the licensing plan was a practical way to increase security and make roads safer, "fear-mongering" forces who equated immigrant dishwashers with Osama Bin Laden and a driver's license with "a passport to terror and a license to kill" were too strong.
Democratic presidential-nomination hopeful and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich railed against President Bush's administration and an overall mindset promoting war on Monday at the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Islamic Center.
Approximately 70 people saw Kucinich speak mostly on foreign policy, calling for a new "era of diplomacy."
Kucinich, a two-time long-shot, ran for president unsuccessfully in 2004, and he currently has nearly 1-percent support among likely Iowa caucus attendees in most polls.
He has been a vocal critic of the Bush White House, and he recently attempted to bring articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney. ...
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Obama says he has no Illinois records By MIKE BAKER and CHRISTOPHER WILLS, Associated Press Writers
RALEIGH, N.C. - Barack Obama, who's been scolding Hillary Rodham Clinton for not hastening the release of records from her time as first lady, says he can't step up and produce his own records from his days in the Illinois state Senate. He says he hasn't got any.
"I don't have — I don't maintain — a file of eight years of work in the state Senate because I didn't have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records," he said at a recent campaign stop in Iowa. He said he wasn't sure where any cache of records might have gone, adding, "It could have been ...
Voters May Dump Spitzer Because Of License Plan
ALBANY (AP) ― Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to provide illegal immigrants with driver's licenses has sunk his favorability rating to an all-time low of 41 percent, and has left only 25 percent of voters planning to re-elect him, according to a poll the Siena Research Institute released Tuesday.
Forty-six percent had an unfavorable opinion of Spitzer, and 49 percent said they would "prefer someone else" as the next governor. Last month, 54 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of the governor.
Swiss gunman injures one
Nov 13, 2007 10:01 PM
A lone gunman used a military assault rifle to fire on a dozen worshipers at an Islamic centre in French-speaking Switzerland, injuring one seriously, police said.
A 23-year-old local man, described by police as a practicing Swiss Muslim, was detained in connection with the attack.
Police had scrambled to intercept a man carrying a weapon openly on the streets of Bussigny-pres-Lausanne near the lakeside city of Lausanne, according to a police statement.
The man entered the centre and fired over a dozen rounds toward a prayer room, police spokesman Jean-Christophe Sauterel said.
"He injured one person seriously before worshipers immobilised him on the ground," police said.
Sauterel said a possible motive for the shooting had not been established and that the man had acted alone. ...
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Spitzer Could Soon Seek To Nationalize License Debate
By JACOB GERSHMAN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
November 13, 2007
Governor Spitzer is considering a new strategy to redirect the flood of criticism of his plan to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, administration sources said.
Members of the governor's administration are debating whether to nationalize the issue by drawing attention away from the controversy over New York licenses and pushing it toward other issues — what they see as the failure of the federal government to determine a proper path to legal citizenship for millions of illegal aliens or develop a better way to tighten border enforcement.
In doing so, Mr. Spitzer would be seeking to change the perception that his policy is a rogue attempt to treat illegal aliens as legal residents, and to insist that it's ...
(more)
Top militant’ seized for harbouring Al QaedaPublished: Tuesday, 13 November, 2007, 01:27 AM Doha Time
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani security forces yesterday seized a top militant accused of harbouring Al Qaeda insurgents, beheading troops and supplying arms to a rebel cleric in the country’s northwest, officials said.
The man was captured in the northwestern Swat Valley, a former tourist spot where Pakistani troops are battling pro-Taliban Islamists seeking to impose Shariah law, security officials said.
Chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad confirmed that security forces had arrested a “top suspect involved in militancy.”
“He is under interrogation. The man identified himself as Parwant and says he is local,” Arshad said, adding the man’s real name was not yet known. ...
Gays should be hanged, says Iranian ministerDominic Kennedy
Homosexuals deserve to be executed or tortured and possibly both, an Iranian leader told British MPs during a private meeting at a peace conference, The Times has learnt.
Mohsen Yahyavi is the highest-ranked politician to admit that Iran believes in the death penalty for homosexuality after a spate of reports that gay youths were being hanged.
Britain regularly challenges Iran about its gay hangings, stonings and executions of adulterers and perceived moral criminals, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) papers show.
The latest row involves a woman hanged this June in the town of Gorgan after becoming pregnant by her brother. He was absolved after expressing his remorse. ...
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This week, Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York, plans to introduce legislation to bar states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington offer driving privileges to illegal immigrants, according to the National Immigration Law Center.
"It gives identification to people here illegally and people who could be terrorists," King says. "It encourages or rewards illegal immigrants.
British forces to capitalise on Taliban 'split'
By Tom Coghlan in Sangin, Helmand province
Last Updated: 1:39am GMT 13/11/2007
British commanders have pushed an armoured column deep into Taliban-held territory in southern Afghanistan, threatening the stronghold of Musa Qala as commanders seek to capitalise on a rift within enemy ranks.
Senior British officers told The Daily Telegraph that the convoy of more than 50 armoured vehicles from the Scots Guards is designed to "disrupt and confuse" the Taliban.
Activists Already Planning RNC Disruptions
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ― Shrouded in black, with a bandanna masking her face, the self-proclaimed anarchist slips into her combat boots and dashes through town, tossing a Molotov cocktail here, launching a bowling ball there.
The YouTube video is more parody than threat: The flaming cocktail ignites a charcoal grill, and the bowling ball knocks down pins instead of crashing through a Navy recruiting office window.
71% Have Favorable Opinion of U.S. Military
Friday, November 09, 2007
This Veterans Day, 71% of adults have a favorable opinion of the U.S. military. A Rasmussen Reports
national telephone survey found that just 11% hold an unfavorable view while 18% who are not sure.
Those with a favorable opinion of the military include 76% of men and 67% of women. From a generational
perspective, 65% of those under 40 have a positive opinion of the military along with 76% of those over
40. On a partisan basis, 81% of Republicans offer a favorable opinion along with 60% of Democrats and 70%
of unaffiliateds.
This action figure represents Real Hero Sgt. Tommy Rieman, who is literally the face of America's Army's new "True Soldiers" for X-Box 360. The program is scheduled to release four action figures in Toys "R" Us stores by the end of August and two more later this year. Photo by Don Wagner
Click below to see his picture and read more about him
Sgt. Rieman and his team were sent on a reconnaissance mission near the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq on Dec. 3, 2003. Before reaching its destination, the three-vehicle convoy came under heavy enemy fire. ...
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Parole for criminals sees big boost under Gov. Eliot Spitzer
BY JOE MAHONEY and CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Sunday, November 11th 2007, 4:44 AM
Harry Morrison free after serving 27 years.
Maurice Murrell free after serving 23 years.
Gerald Balone free after serving 30+ years.
New York parole officials are speeding up the release of hard-core criminals who spent decades behind bars - including violent murderers and cop killers.
Parole boards under Gov. Spitzer are springing jailbirds at a far higher rate than they did during Gov. George Pataki's administration, state Division of Parole ...
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Al Qaeda Loses Its Tail
November 9, 2007: The various terrorist groups in Iraq, especially the Sunni Arabs and al Qaeda, appear to be having supply problems. In a word, the enemy is running out of ammunition. Their logistical "tail" is being chopped to bits. Captured documents and prisoner interrogations mention these shortages. There are other signs as well. Many of the bomb factories, or bomb storage sites, are full of homemade explosives. Apparently most of the Saddam era, ready-made stuff, is gone. Most of the pre-2003 military explosives have been found and destroyed by American combat engineers over the last four years.
"Fatal Error" Changed Nuclear History
New Book Claims That The U.S. Turned A Blind Eye To Pakistan's Black Market Dealings
NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2007
(CBS) By CBS News producer Wendy Krantz.
As searing images of Pakistani policemen with automatic weapons and riot gear appeared this week on our network and elsewhere, hours after Gen. Pervez Musharraf imposed martial law, two dogged investigators for the National Security News Service suggest in a new book that we may be one step away from a catastrophic meltdown in a country where the Taliban, al Qaeda and nuclear weapons are all in play.
Bush's loyal 'families of the fallen'
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg Published: November 9, 2007
WASHINGTON: Late one night last year, while her husband was a U.S. Army scout in Iraq, Melissa Storey sat in the quiet of her bedroom to write President George W. Bush a letter. She wanted him to know that "we believed in him." And after Staff Sergeant Clint Storey, 30, was killed by a roadside bomb, his widow put pen to paper again.
"I felt like I needed to let him know I don't hate him because my husband is dead," she said, "that I don't blame him for Clint dying over there."
The correspondence did not go unnoticed. In May, Storey received a surprise telephone call from the White House inviting her to a Memorial Day reception there. As she mingled about, too nervous to eat, her 5-year-old ...
(more)
Venezuela's Chavez condemns opposition By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer
CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez condemned Venezuela's opposition on Friday for resorting to "fascist violence" in protesting constitutional changes that would greatly expand his power, but he did not respond to accusations that his government is responsible for the upheaval.
Portraying his political foes as anti-democratic right-wingers, Chavez accused opponents of seeking help from Washington and Venezuela's military.
"I urge the people of the right not to go down the fascist path," Chavez told state ...
(more)
Giuliani faults Bill Clinton's military spending
JONATHAN ROOS
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Ames, Ia. —Republican Rudy Giuliani, campaigning in Iowa the same day that Bill Clinton was in the Hawkeye State, charged today that the former president had weakened the American military and intelligence services through spending cuts during his administration.
“Our military is too small to deal with the Islamic terrorism threats, but it really is too small to deter would-be aggressors to even think of challenging us. And that’s due to Bill Clinton,” Giuliani told students and others in the audience of about 350 at Iowa State University’s Memorial Union.
“Bill Clinton cut our military and our intelligence budget by such a huge amount that we’ve never made up the difference,” said the former New York ...
(more)
Liberal members warn Dem leaders on SCHIP
By Jonathan E. Kaplan
November 09, 2007
Some liberal House Democrats are warning leadership officials that they are going too far in seeking to strike a deal with Republicans on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
Leading black, Hispanic, Asian and progressive lawmakers sent a letter on Tuesday to Democratic leaders objecting to making further compromises that they say would make proof-of-citizenship requirements more stringent and cut funds to minority outreach programs.
“We are deeply concerned by the continued compromises that we may be asked to make on ...
(more)
Stem-cell, tax-relief initiatives defeated
By Maria Panaritis
In a stunning blow to Gov. Corzine's plan to turn New Jersey into a national leader in biomedical research, voters yesterday refused to approve $450 million in grants for stem-cell research.
Voters also defeated a measure favored by the Democratically controlled Legislature to set aside a half-cent of last year's penny sales-tax increase for property-tax relief. It was the first time in 17 years that Garden State voters defeated ballot initiatives.
SEATTLE, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Two U.S.-based e-mail services, Microsoft and Yahoo!, have taken Iran off their country lists.
Yahoo! issued a statement saying it continually reviews its business operations to comply with U.S. restrictions on "conducting business in specified countries, such as Iran."
"Consistent with this policy, our current practice is to not accept registrations from countries subject to these restrictions," the company said.Microsoft had no comment, said The Register, a British Web site covering the online world.
Iran remains an option for Google G-mail users. The company said it did not believe that keeping Iran on its country list violates the sanctions.
Journalist or enemy combatant?
St. Paul, Minn. — Minnesota's 5th District congressman Keith Ellison is calling for a trial for a journalist being detained in Guantanamo. Sami al-Haj was a camera man for the news service Al-Jazeera in 2001 when he was covering the war in Afghanistan.
Anti-Photo ID Legislation Would Promote Election Fraud, Says Group
Washington, D.C. - Legislation introduced by Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) to prohibit photo ID requirements for voting in federal elections would promote election fraud, say members of the black ...
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Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, right, greets representative of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, Ivan Marquez after a meeting at the presidential palace in Caracas, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007. (AP Photo/Gregorio Marrero)
Political storm hints at Chávez rift with army
By Benedict Mander in Caracas
Published: November 8 2007 21:30 | Last updated: November 8 2007 21:30
President Hugo Chávez caused a stir earlier this year when he ordered members of Venezuela’s armed forces to salute their superiors with the words “Fatherland, Communism or Death!”
It fuelled debate in the military over its ...
(more)
1 arrested at Olympia anti-war protest Thu Nov 8, 10:54 AM ET
OLYMPIA, Wash. - Police made one arrest and used batons to clear roads as demonstrators tried to keep military convoys from leaving the Port of Olympia.
Protesters tried to run in front of the convoys and others dumped garbage on roads Wednesday night to try to halt the transport of gear for an Army Stryker brigade that recently returned to nearby Fort Lewis from Iraq.
The demonstrations began peacefully, with more than 100 protesters chanting slogans, but rose in intensity as the night wore on.
Police kept their use of force to a minimum, said Cmdr. Tor Bjornstad.
"We've had officers spit on tonight," Bjornstad said. "They've had to put up with an awful lot."
Counter-Terrorism
Fatal Jealousy
November 7, 2007: One thing that keeps the Islamic world favorably disposed towards Islamic terrorism is
widespread fear and hatred of the Western world.Opinion surveys continue to show that Moslems hate and
fear the West, more than Westerns hate and fear Moslems (despite the growth of Islamic terrorism.)
The fear comes largely from the poor economic, political and scientific performance of the Moslem,
especially the Arab, world when compared to the West. It's a perverse expression of jealousy and resentment.
There are practical reasons for this lack of progress. For example, the Arab world didn't adopt printing
until two centuries after it became common in the West. ...
07 November 07 - 21:29Non Citisens being allowed to vote ?
O kaayyy
Illegal immigration debate extends to voting booth
Allowing non-citizens to cast ballots being considered by more cities
By EUNICE MOSCOSO
Cox News Service
Published on: 11/07/07
Should non-citizens be allowed to vote? Officials in Takoma Park, Md., think so. The city, a liberal enclave near the nation's capital, is one of a few local jurisdictions that encourage non-citizens to vote. Since Takoma Park does not ask for proof of legal residence, it is possible that illegal immigrants were casting ballots this week
November 7, 2007
New York Democrats Say License Issue Had Little Effect
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Democrats declared yesterday that Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants had not proved to be the electoral boon Republicans had hoped for in local elections, despite the Republicans’ aggressive efforts to exploit overwhelming public opposition to the proposal.
07 November 07 - 19:08John Murtha's priority for national defense
I watched part of the clip. Murtha at first defends the defence bill by saying he's "saved" the country a lot of money by getting smaller companies to compete in the system. Then he crows about how Johnston is getting alot of those dollars.
Then he goes a tangent about how Diabetes is high in Johnson and why the DEFENCE bill is good for this too..
07 November 07 - 16:59France Stands with US in WOT
No comment from Democrats if they stand with the US in WOT> Guess their bumper is full of other stickers
Sarkozy hailed the friendship between France and the United States and paid tribute to American sacrifices in World War II, in a rare address Wednesday to the US Congress.(AFP/File/Saul Loeb)
06 November 07 - 22:46Illegal Immigration Dont Ask dont tell
Spitzer on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Policy
by Azi Paybarah
Published: November 6, 2007
Tags: Politics, Eliot Spitzer
Here's a clip from yesterday's press conference of Eliot Spitzer talking about the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that some Latino lawmakers are asking him to sign on to.
Spitzer said he's looking into it, but that it may already be covered by existing state law.
John Kerry: I'm Now Prepared to Fight Off Swift Boat
Veterans
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, perhaps preparing to
get back into the presidential ring one day, claims
he's now armed with materials that will make war
record critics from his 2004 presidential campaign go
running tail between legs.
The 63-year-old Democratic senator told The
Patriot-Ledger on Tuesday that the Swift Boat Veterans
for Truth, a group of Navy servicemen who served with
Kerry and criticized his record in Vietnam, will be
revealed as liars.
US. military in Iraq says to release 9 Iranians By Paul Tait
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Nine Iranians being held in Iraq would be released soon, the U.S. military said on Tuesday, just days after U.S. officials signaled a possible change in approach by noting positive Iranian developments in Iraq.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari hailed the announcement, saying it was a confidence-building measure that would encourage more productive talks between Iran, Iraq and the United States on improving security in Iraq.
Bombs targeting Afghan lawmakers kill 64 By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Two bomb blasts targeted a group of lawmakers touring a factory north of Kabul on Tuesday, killing at least 64 people, including five parliamentarians, the deadliest attack in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, officials said.
The bombs went off outside a sugar factory in the northern province of Baghlan as the lawmakers were about to enter. The twin blasts struck school children, Afghan elders and government officials gathered to greet the visiting delegation, officials said.
At least 64 people were killed, said a government minister who asked not to be identified because he was releasing information not yet made ...
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Viewpoint: Hold Dingell accountable
By Mary Sweeters on 11/2/07
Our country is at a turning point. We are at a place where the history books will look back and remind the world how America took on one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced: climate change. It's a problem spanning ecology, economics and public health and will undoubtedly affect huge portions of the global population.
UN condemns violence in Afghanistan By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
Mon Nov 5, 9:49 PM ET
UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. General Assembly on Monday strongly condemned the increasing violence and terrorist activity by the Taliban, al-Qaida and other extremist groups in Afghanistan and called for stepped up efforts to help the nation build a stable future after two decades of war. ...
(more)
Friday, Nov 02, 2007 - 11:20 AM
By Associated Press
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - The state attorney general filed court papers today naming state Senator Bobby Singleton, a Greensboro Democrat, and others as suspects in a voter fraud investigation in west Alabama.
The court papers also accuse Circuit Judge Marvin Wiggins of trying to impede the Hale County investigation to "protect members of his family," ...
Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has taken thousands of dollars in cash donations from Islamists under federal investigation for terror-financing, money laundering and tax fraud, WND has learned.
The Democrat senator over the past seven months has received $1,000 from M. Yaqub Mirza and another $500 from M. Omar Ashraf, federal campaign records show. Federal agents raided the Virginia homes and offices of the Muslim donors after 9/11 for ties to terrorism.
Others tied to the still-active probe also have contributed money to Clinton, including one Muslim ...
