AMMAN, Jordan -- Inside his cold, crumbling apartment, Saad Ali teeters on the fringes of life. Once a popular singer in his native Baghdad, he is now unemployed. To pay his $45 monthly rent, he borrows from friends. To bathe, he boils water on a tiny heater. He sleeps on a frayed mattress, under a tattered blanket.
Outside, Ali, 35, avoids police officers and disguises his Arabic with a Jordanian dialect. He returns home before 10 p.m. to stay clear of government checkpoints. Lik... (more)
Several speakers at the event emphasized the importance of "deepening economic integration," "integrating the energy infrastructure" and "the development of new institutions" between the three North American nations.
Participants promoted the idea of using popular issues, such as concern over climate change, to push integration of energy and environmental governance and the possibility of imposing a carbon tax.
Judicial Watch released yesterday the documents it rece... (more)
US officials in Baghdad and Washington are expected to unveil a secret intelligence "dossier" this week detailing evidence of Iran's alleged complicity in attacks on American troops in Iraq. The move, uncomfortably echoing Downing Street's dossier debacle in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, is one more sign that the Bush administration is building a case for war.
Nicholas Burns, the senior US diplomat in charge of Iran policy, says Washington "is not looking for a fight" with... (more)
A group of British soldiers yesterday described their frantic attempts to stop an attack on their convoy by "rogue" US warplanes that left one dead and four injured.
Oxfordshire coroner's court heard that two US A10 planes opened fire on a patrol in southern Iraq in March 2003, killing Lance Corporal of Horse Mattie Hull three days before his 26th birthday.
Yesterday his colleagues told the court that the "friendly fire" incident had happene... (more)
The French president, Jacques Chirac, has said a nuclear-armed Iran would not be "very dangerous", in controversial comments he retracted the next day.
In an interview conducted on Monday and published today, Mr Chirac contradicted official French policy by saying that even if Iran possessed an atomic weapon this would not be perilous, since it would never dare to use it.
"Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel?" he asked reporters fr... (more)
TEHRAN (Sept. 11, 2006) - A hardline Iranian newspaper on Monday described the September 11 attacks as a "black conspiracy inside the White House", publishing what it said was evidence the strikes could have been staged by US officials.
The paper, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, compiled a full page of reports from foreign press sources which it said cast serious doubts on the official version of events.
According to reports from China Times, the highest authority controlling all of the CCP's foreign propaganda, the International Communication Office of the Central Committee has set up a new internet communication department to manage internet communications. This organization's authority is higher than the Internet Bureau of the State Council Information Office, indicating that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has realized the rapidly increasing and widespread influence of... (more)
The biggest story out of Iraq so far this year may not be the surge, or the latest mass bombing, or the escalating sectarian violence; it might, instead, be a decision that further complicates all of the above. Over the next few weeks, a law to reform Iraq's oil industry — essentially the only source of income the country has aside from U.S. subsidies — is expected to move toward implementation, and the consequences could be enormous.
According to a new CNN report, a hearing in Milan, Italy today could determine whether a group of CIA agents are indicted for secretly kidnapping a terror suspect from the country and transferring him to Egypt for more aggressive interrogation.
"The kidnapping of Abu Omar was not only a totally illegal act that violated gravely Italian sovereignty, but it also was a damaging and counterproductive act in the fight against terrorism," said one ... (more)
President Bush is preparing to attack Iran's nuclear facilities before the end of April and the US Air Force's new bases in Bulgaria and Romania would be used as back-up in the onslaught, according to an official report from Sofia.
"American forces could be using their two USAF bases in Bulgaria and one at Romania's Black Sea coast to launch an attack on Iran in April," the Bulgarian news agency Novinite said.
The American build-up along the Black Sea, coupled with ... (more)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Israel's use of U.S.-made cluster bombs in last year's war in Lebanon may have violated agreements with the United States governing their use, the State Department said Monday.
"There may -- likely could have been some violations," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
The State Department has sent a report to Congress laying out the preliminary findings, he said.
Agreements under the Arms Export Control Act govern use of... (more)
Notice how the sadistic cruelty of using cluster bombs is not an issue, the only issue is if they "violated agreements".
JERUSALEM (AFX) - Israel intends to buy thousands of advanced 'smart' bombs from the United States which the Jewish state first used during the Lebanon war, the Jerusalem Post reported today.
According to the English-language Jerusalem Post, the Israeli army will purchase 100 mln usd worth of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) -- low-cost kits produced by Boeing (nyse: BA - news - people ) that turn free-fall bombs into guided 'smart' munitions.
A powerful speech highlighting the appalling situation in Iraq, and the pathetic handling of it by the British government: Ill-equipped troops, brutal treatment of civilians... (more)
Beirut - Israeli planes violated Lebanese airspace Saturday and dumped green balloons over the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanese security sources said.
Lebanese troops cordoned off the area around the coast of Tyre and prevented people from touching the 'suspicious balloons' after reports indicated that some people were poisoned when they did.
According to a hospital source in Nabatiyeh, similar green balloons were dropped over the market-town of Nabatiyeh, 54 ki... (more)
'We're selling pets. No one will target us,' merchants told a policeman before a bombing that killed 15 people and injured 51. Many of the patrons were children, at least one of whom died.
BAGHDAD — The police officer warned them to spread out. Now was not the time to cluster around one another so closely. But he didn't press too hard before he moved along. In this time of war and misery, police officer Sabah Shayal admitted, it heartened him to see so many people gathering ... (more)
An Iranian nuclear official has rejected a statement by a Tehran MP who said Iran had begun installing 3,000 new atomic centrifuges for uranium enrichment.
Hossein Simorgh, the head of public affairs at Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, said on Saturday that no such new devices had been fitted at its Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of parliament's foreign affairs and national security committee, had earlier been quoted as saying Iran... (more)
LONDON, January 28 (IranMania) - Iran has condemned the order by US President George W Bush allowing US military to capture or kill Iranian agents operating inside neighbouring Iraq, terming it a 'terrorist act'.
'I really hope that this report is wrong as such an order is a clear terrorist act and against all internationally acknowledged norms,' the head of the parliament's foreign policy and security commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi told Fars news agency Saturday.
Russia said yesterday it was not willing to hand over to Britain the businessman suspected by Scotland Yard of poisoning the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko.
Russian prosecutors said there was virtually no prospect they would agree to any future British request for Andrei Lugovoi to be extradited to the UK to stand trial.
Senior Whitehall officials have told the Guardian that a Scotland Yard file on Mr Litvinenko's murder, which is abo... (more)
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A senior official of Israel's central Holocaust memorial on Saturday assailed Jewish settlers who harass Palestinians in a tinderbox West Bank city, saying the abuse recalled the anti-Semitism of 1930s Europe.
The attack by Yosef Lapid, chairman of Yad Vashem's advisory council, was prompted by Israeli television footage showing a Hebron settler woman hissing "whore" at a Palestinian neighbour and settler children lobbing rocks at Arab homes.
Baghdad is paralysed by fear. Iraqi drivers are terrified of running into impromptu checkpoints where heavily armed men in civilian clothes may drag them out of their cars and kill them for being the wrong religion. Some districts exchange mortar fire every night. This is mayhem beyond the comprehension of George Bush and Tony Blair.
Black smoke was rising over the city centre yesterday as American and Iraqi army troops tried to fight their way into the insurgent district of Haifa... (more)
United States Representative Virgil H. Goode, Jr.
(R-VA-5th District)
1-24-7
Expressing the sense of Congress that the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway System or enter into a North... (Introduced in House)
HCON 40 IH
110th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 40
Expressing the sense of Congress that the United S... (more)
A key ex-Pentagon adviser and close associate of Vice President Cheney hinted that US Marines might be used in an Iran strike in an a Wednesday night appearance in New York.
Perle, appointed chairman of the Defense Policy Board by President Bush in 2001 and assistant secretary of defense for international security policy in the Reagan Administration, participated in a raucous discussion in New York on Wednesday where he faced boos and hisses from the audience. They were gathere... (more)
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday criticized U.S. plans for space-based weapons, saying they were the reason behind a recent Chinese anti-satellite weapons test, the Associated Press news agency reports.
Asked about the Chinese test at a news conference in New Delhi after a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Putin avoided directly criticizing the Chinese, saying only that Russia was against putting any weapons in space. ... (more)
MOSCOW. Jan 24 (Interfax) - The Federation Council has passed a bill prohibiting persons that hold dual citizenship from serving as Russian government ministers, which were earlier passed in the State Duma, at a meeting on Wednesday.
Under the bill, which amends the law on the Russian government, deputy prime ministers and ministers must not possess dual citizenship. Only a Russian citizen, who "does not have the citizenship of another state, as well as a residence permit or any o... (more)
Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela has boosted daily dollar sales by as much as 90 percent this year to keep up with a surge in demand for imports from local manufacturers, said Manuel Barroso, whose office controls foreign exchange sales in the country.
Venezuela increased approvals for dollar sales to as high as $210 million a day, up from a daily average of $164 million in December and from a daily average of $110 million last year, Barroso said, according to the state-run newswi... (more)
One of America's most influential neocons says President Bush is prepared to use military force against Iran if he believes it will acquire nuclear weapons.
This past Sunday, Richard Perle, speaking in Israel at the Herzliya Conference, said he had no doubt of President Bush's intentions.
"President George Bush will order an attack on Iran if it becomes clear to him that Iran is set to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities while he is still in office," Haaretz report... (more)
