Habeas corpus -- it's your most fundamental legal right, your right to go to a court and get an order requiring the government to prove that it is holding you in prison with proper legal authority to do so. Without that right, one necessarily lives in a dictatorship. President Bush on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, signed a bill repealing that law, meaning that the administration need not comply or show compliance with law any more with regard to who goes to prison or Gitmo.
President George W Bush met his top generals to discuss the deteriorating situation in Iraq as it was reported that America is considering punishing Baghdad if it fails to meet deadlines to stop the violence.
The new policy would mark a dramatic shift from the previous position that progress could only be determined by the "situation on the ground".
Instead benchmarks would be set covering progress in the Iraqi military, police and economy that if missed would resul... (more)
The British government has announced that it wishes to send nationwide a previously localized program of mandatory fingerprint scanners at the entrance of every pub and club in major UK cities. Under such rules If you want to have a drink in the trendiest places in the UK you will have to be fingerprinted.
On Sunday President Bush told George Stephanopoulos that the strategy in Iraq has "never been "stay the course."" Well, I guess he was just joking the past few years..
8217;ve Never Been Stay The Course’ During an interview today on ABC’s This Week, President Bush tried to distance himself from what has been his core strategy in Iraq for the last three years. George Stephanopoulos asked about James Baker’s plan to develop a strategy for Iraq that is “between ’stay the course’ and ‘cut and run.’”
Bush responded, ‘We’ve never been stay the course, George!’ Watch it:... (more)
The disintegration of Iraq's health service is leaving its civilians defenceless in the continuing violence that is rocking the country, Iraqi doctors warn today.
As many as half of the civilian deaths, calculated at 655,000 since the 2003 invasion, might have been avoided if proper medical care had been provided to the victims, they say.
In separate appeals, the doctors beg for help to stem the soaring death rate and ease the suffering of injured fami... (more)
AN underground resistance movement in North Korea, capable of smuggling out videos of executions and staging violent acts of defiance, has emerged as the Kim Jong-il dictatorship faces international sanctions for testing a nuclear bomb.
The latest evidence of North Koreans willing to risk their lives to tell their story is a video showing the execution by firing squad of a woman convicted of murder committed in the course of stealing food last July.
Neo-Con government mouthpieces and others are claiming that the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which heralded the official end of the "great experiment" of the American democratic republic, does not affect U.S. citizens, only illegal aliens and foreign terrorists. Recent history of how terror legislation was used to target American citizens clearly indicates the legislation will be used domestically.
A coordinated effort to downplay the implications of the fact that the... (more)
"Thou shalt not steal" is a rule as old as human society itself. It must have been, else no complex human society would have proved viable.
We are all taught very early to respect what belongs to others: "Don't take your sister's toy away from her," your mother admonished, punishing you if you persisted in your toddler's larceny. By the time you were three years old, you understood the difference between mine and thine. If you... (more)
An important story that broke over the weekend and may not have been widely picked up was that another former US Intelligence insider has turned whistleblower and concedes that the 9/11 attacks represented a "Neoconservative Neo-Nazi Coup D'etat".
In the past week, top Bush administration officials have been suggesting that insurgents in Iraq are increasing attacks in order to influence the U.S. midterm elections. Some highlights —
It stinks of desperation: as the midterm elections close in, the RNC has released a fire and brimstone ad, depicting an all too familiar cast of characters—the dead Osama, the banal doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, and a congregation of ninja-clad terrorists training in comical jujutsu. “These are the stakes,” the ad balefully concludes. “Vote Nov. 7.”
According to the Boston Globe, the “ad, which... (more)
Amsterdam, The Netherlands (AHN) -- A Dutch mayor has supported the idea of sending prostitutes to accompany troops on mission abroad. The mayor said, "The army must consider ways its soldiers can let off steam."
Reuters quotes Annemarie Jorritsma, mayor of the town of Almere in central Netherlands, telling the national TV, "There was once the suggestion that a few prostitutes should accompany troops on missions. I think that is something we should talk about."
The cartoon awfulness of the Bush crime syndicate's foreign policy is enough to make Americans nostalgic for almost anything that came before. And as Bill Clinton parades around the country and the world associating himself with "good" causes, it's enough to evoke yearnings in many people on the left who should know better. So here's a little reminder of what Clinton's foreign policy was composed of. Hold on to it in case Lady Macbeth runs in 2008 and tries to capitalize on lover boy's recor... (more)
Men who use mobile phones could be risking their fertility, warn researchers.
A new study shows a worrying link between poor sperm and the number of hours a day that a man uses his mobile phone.
Those who made calls on a mobile phone for more than four hours a day had the worst sperm counts and the poorest quality sperm, according to results released yest at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual meeting in New Orleans.
I sometimes hear that Elvis Presley isn't really dead, a notion supported by the alleged sightings of "The King" at various shopping malls around the United States.
I've heard the same thing about Tupac Shakur, the rap star who died in a hail of gunfire in Las Vegas 10 years ago. No one claims to have seen Tupac at a shopping mall. But the amount of music and the two feature movies released after his reported death make me think he's not really dead either.
On ABC’s This Week, President Bush said, “I have not read one book about me. … You know, I just — I feel uncomfortable reading about myself.” Bush said it is “weird to be reading books about yourself when you’re still trying to be the President,” and said that authors who comment on his administration before he’s out of office are “myopic.”
LONDON - The Mossad is furious at a popular British espionage drama series, or so says the 'Sunday Express. The British daily reported Sunday that senior Mossad agents were so angry with the way their organization was depicted in the BBC production 'Spooks' that they decided to take the matter to the British secret service.
High-ranking Mossad agents reportedly flew to London to see the last episode, which aired on BBC3 last week.
BEIJING, Oct. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- More than 1.9 million U.S. dollars in cash was burned on May 24 when a British military transport aircraft caught fire after landing in southern Afghanistan, according to The Daily Mail on Sunday.
The money, packed into two four-wheel-drive vehicles being carried on the British Hercules C-130 plane, was reportedly intended to "buy off" local warlords against the Taliban.
The British Ministry of Defence on Friday night confi... (more)
Senior Bush administration officials wanted North Korea to test a nuclear weapon because it would prove their point that the regime must be overthrown.
This astonishing revelation was buried in the middle of a Washington Post story published yesterday. Glenn Kessler reports from Moscow as he accompanies Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:
It was 1940, the Nazis were in the ascendant, the Blitz at its deadliest, and Britain's last hope was to bring a reluctant United States into the war. So it was that the largest covert operation in UK history was launched.
"British Security Coordination". The phrase is bland, almost defiantly ordinary, depicting perhaps some sub-committee of a minor department in a lowly Whitehall ministry. In fact BSC, as it was generally known, represented one of the largest covert operations in... (more)
Eight more doctors from the Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot and the Hartzfeld Geriatric Hospital in Gedera are suspected of involvement in experiments on human beings, Chief Superintendent Meir Cohen, told the Knesset Labor and Welfare Committee on Monday.
Cohen is the head of internal investigations in the Public Security office.
Some of the suspected doctors were interrogated by local police, but none were arrested.
A FAR-RIGHT politician dubbed "the most dangerous politician in the history of Israel" because of his anti-Arab and authoritarian views last night looked set to join the Israeli government.
Prime minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet voted 12 to 11, with one abstention, to approve Avigdor Lieberman's controversial plan to strip powers from parliament and concentrate them in the hands of the prime minister - a decision which was seen as paving the way for his entry into the ruling coaliti... (more)
