Tony Blair faced accusations last night that he is wasting nearly £7 billion of taxpayers' money on a failing war on terror after announcing massive sums of British aid to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In the last three days, the Prime Minister and Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, have trumpeted special funding to the three countries totalling £844 million.
This is in addition to the estimated £5 billion cost to British taxpa... (more)
CHINA—In the past week, several large-scale protests have erupted in China. From November 8-16, there were at least six incidents of group protests with tens of thousands of people.
The reasons for the protests include land seizures without payment, compulsory removal of dogs, and medical malpractice. News agencies such as AP, Reuters, AFP, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, and the Guardian have all conducted interviews or in-depth reports on these ... (more)
A federal district judge on Friday rejected the Bush administration's request to halt a lawsuit that alleges AT&T unlawfully cooperated with a broad and unconstitutional government surveillance program.
U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker said the lawsuit could continue while a portion of it was being appealed, despite the U.S. Justice Department's arguments that further hearings and other proceedings would consequently endanger national security. ... (more)
True freedom is protecting Americans by letting the NSA monitor their email and phone calls by the millions without a warrant, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales explained to Air Force Academy cadets in a speech last week.
It's a mistake to regard such Gestapo tactics as compromising freedom, he told the young officers in training. "This [antagonistic] view is shortsighted. Its definition of freedom - one utterly divorced from civic responsibility - is s... (more)
PALM BEACH, Fla. – President Bush believes America should be more of an idea than an actual place, a Republican congressman told WND in an exclusive interview.
"People have to understand what we're talking about here. The president of the United States is an internationalist," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. "He is going to do what he can to create a place where the idea of America is just that – it's an idea. It's not an actual place defined by borders. I mean this is... (more)
Tony Blair's plans to let police hold suspected terrorists for up to 90 days without charge suffered a setback at the weekend when the Government's senior law officer said he had seen no evidence that the change was necessary.
Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, said that he would prefer to let prosecutors make greater use of telephone-tapping evidence and to let the police question suspects after they had been charged.
The Italian government has replaced its military intelligence chief amid an inquiry into his role in an alleged CIA abduction of an Egyptian, reports say.
The head of the country's civilian intelligence agency was also sacked, although he is not being investigated.
Nicolo Pollari is among several Italian agents facing an inquiry into the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric by the US agency in 2003.
He has denied any wrongdoing, but has yet to com... (more)
Tony Blair on Monday stepped up pressure on the UK’s Nato allies to send more troops and bolster support for Afghanistan ahead of a key summit in Riga, Latvia, at the end of this month.
Speaking in Kabul after meeting President Hamid Karzai, the UK prime minister compared the current situation facing the alliance in Afghanistan with the hesitancy shown by some Nato countries at the beginning of the Balkan crisis in the 1990s.
Tom Noe, convicted last week on 29 charges for stealing from Ohio’s $50 million rare-coin fund, was sentenced to 18 years in state prison and ordered to pay fines and restitution by Judge Thomas Osowik this morning in Lucas County Courthouse.
The sentence will begin after Noe completes a 27-month federal sentence imposed in September for illegal laundering more than $45,000 to President Bush’s campaign, Judge Osowik ruled.
It has been four years since that country's secret nuclear program was brought to light, and the path of diplomacy and sanctions has led nowhere.
First, we agreed to our allies' requests that we offer Tehran a string of concessions, which it spurned. Then, Britain, France and Germany wanted to impose a batch of extremely weak sanctions. For instance, Iranians known to be involved in nuclear activities would have been ba... (more)
In a twenty first century update, the new James Bond Movie, Casino Royale, directly references 9/11 and highlights the fact that massive manipulation of airline stocks prior to the attacks account for a leading motive behind the event.
The movie, based on the original 1953 novel, has been updated with a terrorism plotline in which the bad guy, Le Chiffre, is a banker to the world's terrorists and in order to stop him, and bring down the terrorist ne... (more)
A month before the November elections, Vice-President Dick Cheney was sitting in on a national-security discussion at the Executive Office Building. The talk took a political turn: what if the Democrats won both the Senate and the House? How would that affect policy toward Iran, which is believed to be on the verge of becoming a nuclear power? At that point, according to someone familiar with the discussion, Cheney began reminiscing about his job as a lineman, in the early nineteen-sixties, for ... (more)
The Israelis have called off a planned air attack on a house in Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza after hundreds of Palestinians formed a human shield.
Mohammedweil Baroud said he was warned by Israeli forces to leave his home. He instead ran to a mosque and summoned neighbours to help defend the house.
Mr Baroud is a commander in the Popular Resistance Committees militant group.
The Israeli army often orders people out of homes ahead of attacks, saying i... (more)
Jabaliya Refugee Camp last night stood up against Israel: "Kill us all, or kill none of us". Israel backed off. This is a BBC report, live during the night from Saturday to Sunday.
IN A desperate attempt to stop the barrage of rockets fired by Hamas at Israeli villages, Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, has ordered his security chiefs to target the Islamic movement’s political leadership.
According to Israeli security sources, a decision to assassinate leading Hamas politicians was taken by Olmert and his defence minister, Amir Peretz. Early yesterday Israeli missiles struck Hamas targets in Gaza, including a charity run by the group.
... (more)
A man who worked in Iraq for a Herndon-based security company is accused in a lawsuit of firing twice into Iraqi civilian vehicles last summer without provocation, possibly killing at least one person.
Two co-workers who witnessed the shootings say in the suit that there has been no investigation, even though they reported the incidents.
All three men worked for Triple Canopy, a corporation formed in 2003 by former military men to provide security in the Middle East... (more)
One of four US soldiers accused of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl showed little remorse, and even smiled during a confession to charges he conspired to kill her and her family.
Even before the hearing at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to announce a plea agreement, Spc James Barker, 23, slapped hands with other soldiers and grinned as he smoked a cigarette in the rain. A bailiff scolded him.
And when he described for the judge the assault in his own words, he gave vivid d... (more)
Israeli military and intelligence operatives are active in Kurdish areas of Iran, Syria and Iraq, providing training for commando units and running covert operations that could further destabilise the entire region, according to a report in the New Yorker magazine.
The article was written by Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who exposed the abuse scandal in Abu Ghraib. It is sourced primarily to unnamed former and current intelligence officials in Israel, the Unit... (more)
“Hegemony is as old as Mankind…” -Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor
The term “New Middle East” was introduced to the world in June 2006 in Tel Aviv by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the “Greater Middle East.”
A Russian security service defector is in a critical condition at a London hospital after being poisoned in a plot worthy of a Cold War novel by John le Carré.
Alexander Litvinenko, a former lieutenant-colonel with Russia's FSB security service and a staunch critic of Vladimir Putin's regime, fled to Britain in 2000, saying he feared for his life. Yesterday, the Metropolitan Police said he was in a "serious but stable" condition after tests confi... (more)
INSPECTOR Idiot of the Met police was on duty in Whitehall for Queen's Speech day. He ordered two constables to search Peter Murray, 48, an award winning male nurse, for shouting "boo" at Tony Blair's limousine.
They also took his name, abusing their powers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. It is now an offence to be rude about the Prime Minister in public. Tshirts with the slogan "B******s to Blair" can land you in jail.
THE Army’s high command was accused last night of officially sanctioning the hooding and mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention.
The claims were made by a witness in the court martial of seven soldiers charged in relation to the abuse and ill-treatment of nine Iraqis in Basra in 2003.
Major Antony Royce, called as a witness by the judge in the case, told the court that he was instructed by those higher up the chain of ... (more)
