The Court-Martial of Ehren Watada BeginsA pre-trial hearing is scheduled to take place Thursday in Tacoma, Washington, in the court-martial of Ehren Watada, the 28-year-old Army lieutenant who is the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq on the basis that the war is illegal.
Watada's court appearance comes on the same day the new Democratic-controlled Congress returns to work and begins to investigate one of the lingering questions surrounding the nearly four-year-old war. It... (more)
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'Illegal' Execution Enrages ArabsBAGHDAD, Jan 2 (IPS) - The execution of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein carried out at the start of the Muslim festival Eid al-Adha has angered Iraqis and others across the Middle East.*
Saddam Hussein was hanged on what is held to be a day of mercy and feasting in the Islamic world. It is usually celebrated with the slaughter of a lamb, which represents the innocent blood of Ishmael, who was sacrificed by his father, the prophet Abraham, to honour God.
Judge R... (more)
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CNN apologizes for Obama gaffe in Bin Laden graphicA Monday night broadcast of CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer confused America's "number one enemy" with one of America's most popular senators, RAW STORY has learned. CNN apologized for the error, which came after a series of incidents in recent months in which Illinois Democrat Senator Barack Obama was subtly or directly linked with militant Islamic personalities who have been hostile to the United States.
During the Jan. 1 broadcas... (more)
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'Frankenstein farming' fearsCONSUMER groups have warned of "Frankenstein farming" after US food chiefs declared meat and milk from cloned animals safe to eat.
The US Food and Drug Administration concluded cloned animals were no different from conventional livestock and food from them will not need to be labelled as such.
But the UK Food Commission, Britain's independent food watchdog, condemned the proposal as "a giant step in the wrong direction".
If the FDA fully approves clon... (more)
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Health fears lead schools to dismantle wireless networksRadiation levels blamed for illnesses
Teacher became too sick to work
Parents and teachers are forcing some schools to dismantle wireless computer networks amid fears that they could damage children’s health. More schools are putting transmitters in classrooms to give pupils wireless access from laptops to the school computer network and the internet.
But many parents and some scientists fear that low l... (more)
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Australia has betrayed Hicks, says FraserFormer prime minister Malcolm Fraser says he never thought he would see the time Australia departed from providing justice to all citizens like it has with David Hicks.
Hicks has been detained by the US at its Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention centre since January 2002, a month after his capture among Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
The 31-year-old Adelaide man has recently refused visits from Australian consular officials.
Asked what he saw as different... (more)
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US 'licence to snoop' on British air travellersBritons flying to America could have their credit card and email accounts inspected by the United States authorities following a deal struck by Brussels and Washington.
By using a credit card to book a flight, passengers face having other transactions on the card inspected by the American authorities. Providing an email address to an airline could also lead to scrutiny of other messages sent or received on that account.
The extent of the demands were disclosed in "u... (more)
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Dollar Dethroned By Red Ink Will Congress allow President Bush to waste another year on his Iraq misadventure while serious problems overwhelm the United States?
During 2006 while the US government focused on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the US dollar declined sharply against many currencies. By December China’s central bank was expressing its concern that the massive US trade deficit could lead to a run on the dollar and to an international financial crisis.
Since WW II the US d... (more)
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Death of One Tyrant a Coverup of Crime by AnotherOnce again the barbarians have succeeded in professing human dignity while ignoring human life's sanctity. My thoughts are filled with disgust as the so called civilized world revels in the hanging of Saddam Hussein yesterday.
Don't mistake my total distaste of the execution of Hussein for any alliance or sympathy for the tyrant killer. I just tire of the "morally superior" position of this nation (U.S.) when it comes to the administration's posturing around the capture, trial and... (more)
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Saddam is Dead, Long Live Saddam Hussein If there is one constant in regard to the Iraq imbroglio, it is the fact that the neocons told big fat brazen lies to get the United States to invade and occupy the country and they continue to tell lies to keep us there.
It would seem that Bush and the neocons have told so many lies, engineered so many falsifications and illusions, that it is no longer considered news and many people take it for granted Bush and crew are pathological liars. Of course, this says something d... (more)
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Hang 'em High in Baghdad: the Object Lesson of Saddam's Execution It was like a scene from a Sergio Leone spaghetti western—Saddam Hussein, or somebody we are told is Saddam Hussein, was marched to the gallows and strung up, a victim of frontier justice, the frontier in this case being a country illegally and brutally invaded for the sake of Israel, as Philip Zelikow unabashedly tells us, not that the corporate media pays attention to such bothersome details.
In old B-movies, characters often declared the guilty to be “hung at... (more)
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Former Longtime Confidant Accuses Ariel Sharon of Assassinating Yasser ArafatLongtime and now recently deceased confidant to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Uri Dan, published a book in France that may have been his 2006 one titled Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait in which he accused the former prime minister of assassinating Palestinian Authority (PA) President Yasser Arafat by poisoning him. Dan claimed Sharon got approval from George Bush by phone early in 2004 to proceed with his plan after he told the US president he was no longer committed to "not" li... (more)
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Missouri: Police Roadblock Harassment Caught on TapeA teenager harassed by police in St. Louis, Missouri caught the incident on tape. Brett Darrow, 19, had his video camera rolling last month as he drove his 1997 Maxima, minding his own business. He approached a drunk driving roadblock where he was stopped, detained and threatened with arrest when he declined to enter a conversation with a police officer about his personal travel habits. Now Darrow is considering filing suit against St. Louis County Police.
"I'm scared to drive for... (more)
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Scarlett, author of the Iraq war dossier, is knighted John Scarlett, who took responsibility for the error-ridden dossier that justified the war in Iraq, is knighted in today's New Year's Honours list. The award will enrage peace campaigners, who have accused the veteran spymaster of saving Tony Blair's skin over the flawed case for the invasion.
The news came as a British soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Basra yesterday, the 127th to die since the invasion in 2003.
Sir John, the head of MI6, played a key role... (more)
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Iraq dossier author's honour 'looks dodgy' The knighthood awarded to the man behind the Government's "sexed-up" dossier on Iraq has been condemned as "disgraceful" and "shameless".
Politicians and peace campaigners have hit out at the decision to honour the head of MI6, John Scarlett, who was in charge of the 2002 dossier that claimed Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and could deploy them within 45 minutes.
The dossier was used by the Government to bolster the case for war, but the notorious 4... (more)
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'NY Times' Only Major Paper to Show Dead Saddam on Front PageNEW YORK It's a rare day when the august New York Times tops the New York Post -- and every other major paper in the U.S. -- in grisly or sensationalistic front page coverage, but it did so on Sunday. An E&P survey of front pages from around the country reveals that the Times was the only major paper to include a picture of executed Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, on its front page, after his hanging.
It was even above the fold.
The picture, showing Saddam on the fl... (more)
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Poll for Military Papers Finds Troops' Support for War PlungingNEW YORK It's often written or said in the media that, despite public opposition to the Iraq war here at home, military personnel strongly back President Bush's handling of the conflict. But a poll for the Military Times newspapers, released Friday, shows that more troops disapprove of the president’s handling of the war than approve of it.
It came on the day that at least four more Americans died in the war, pushing the monthly total to 107, the high point for the year -- a... (more)
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Police charged with murdering duo on bridge after Katrina Seven police officers have been charged with murder and attempted murder for a shooting on a New Orleans bridge six days after Hurricane Katrina that killed two people and wounded four others.
The incident on the Danziger Bridge in the eastern part of the city on September 4, 2005, has come to represent the lawlessness that descended on the city in the aftermath of the storm.
At the time New Orleans sweltered under a blistering heat, corpses littered the streets an... (more)
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Big Surprise: Cheney Eulogizes Ford for Pardoning Nixon I wasn’t going to comment on the passing of Gerald Ford, probably the most forgettable president of recent times. But then Dick Cheney had to open his mouth and praise Ford for pardoning Nixon.
“It was this man, Gerald R. Ford, who led our republic safely though a crisis that could have turned to catastrophe,” said Cheney, speaking in the Capitol Rotunda where Ford’s body is on display. “Gerald Ford was almost alone in understanding that there ... (more)
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Saddam's Death Leaves Unanswered QuestionsSAN FRANCISCO, California (IPS) – Iraqi-Americans reacted with sadness to the execution of Saddam Hussein Saturday, calling the former Iraqi president's death by hanging early this morning Baghdad time a missed opportunity for justice.
An Iraqi tribunal set up by the U.S. government had convicted Hussein of murder in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from the Iraqi town of Dujail, where assassins had tried to kill Hussein in 1982.
The crime, while severe, is ... (more)
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Saddam and the cellphonesClearly, the location of Saddam Hussein's execution was one of the most secure settings for an execution ever constructed. So, why are we finding on the move about this planet a bunch of viral, unrestricted and uncensored videos of what is probably the most controversial execution ever carried out?
Newsweek provided an interesting interview with Ali Al Massedy, the "official videographer" tasked with producing the official record of the execution. He usually does this job for ... (more)
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Amnesty International deplores Saddam's execution London- Human rights organization Amnesty International said Sunday in London that it "deplores" the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. ""We oppose the death penalty in all cases as a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, but it is especially abhorrent when this most extreme penalty is imposed after an unfair trial," Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa programme, said in a statement.<... (more)
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How Washington and London helped to create the monster they went to war to destroyWhen they hanged him, he was America's vanquished foe, likened to Hitler and Stalin for the murderous evil of his ways. What is forgotten is that once, for more than a decade, Saddam Hussein was staunchly supported by the US.
Indeed, it was Washington that supplied him with many of the weapons of mass destruction the dictator used against his foes - weapons that one day would serve as a pretext for the US-led invasion that toppled him.
The dealings between the US an... (more)
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He takes his secrets to the grave. Our complicity dies with himWe've shut him up. The moment Saddam's hooded executioner pulled the lever of the trapdoor in Baghdad yesterday morning, Washington's secrets were safe. The shameless, outrageous, covert military support which the United States - and Britain - gave to Saddam for more than a decade remains the one terrible story which our presidents and prime ministers do not want the world to remember. And now Saddam, who knew the full extent of that Western support - given to him while he was perpetrating some ... (more)
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