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| "...former Saddam Hussein generals turned members of the elite of the Iraqi resistance movement have abandoned their clandestine positions for a while to explain their version of events and talk about their plans. According to these Ba'ath officials, "the big battle" in Iraq is yet to take place." - from Asia Times |
| In general, many analysts believe that former Iraqi Army Baathists conduct the bulk of daily attacks while foreign Islamic militants carry out the more spectacular suicide car bombings. - from the Christian Science Monitor |
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| Most Americans now say that sending U.S. troops to Iraq was a mistake, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds. For the first time, a majority also says that the war there has made the nation less safe from terrorism. |
| His rented Impala paws the asphalt as the legendary investigative reporter
takes a slow left off 47th Street and heads into the sunlight of Indiana
Avenue.
Seymour Hersh has come home again, to the rough-cut precincts where he spent a good chunk of the 1950s working as a teenager in his father's dry cleaning shop. In those days, Hersh says, he delivered pressed clothes to houses of prostitution, and his father accepted steaks from stockyard workers who couldn't come up with cash. "This building didn't used to be here," Hersh says, peering through the Impala's sloped window at a sheet of fresh brick. The 67-year-old executes a three-point turn against traffic and stabs a finger at a spot in an alley. "That was home plate!" From these streets sprang a groundbreaking journalist who has revealed some of America's darkest official secrets. - from the Chicago Tribune (reg/req) |
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| Although the government announced that its decision to deploy 3,000 troops to Iraq is unlikely to be swayed by the beheading of a South Korean hostage, mounting public protests, however, could force it to cancel the deployment. - from IPS News |
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| Poll shows the nation is now evenly divided between the president and his Democratic challenger, John Kerry. - from the Washington Post |
| The United States may have to keep troops in Iraq for years to come
despite the "enormous progress" in bringing peace to that country, Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said today.
Mr. Wolfowitz's prediction, coupled with a high-ranking general's warning that "we should expect more violence, not less," in the near future, highlighted a sometimes contentious hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| President Bush plans to unveil next month a sweeping mental health initiative that recommends screening for every citizen and promotes the use of expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs favored by supporters of the administration. - from WorldNetDaily.com |
| The threat of a terrorist attack using nuclear weapons is "real and
imminent", the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog said today.
Mohammed al Baradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said it was a "race against time" to prevent terrorists from obtaining nuclear materials. - from the Evening Standard (London) |
| Troubled by last week's circulation scandals at Hollinger International's Chicago Sun-Times and the Tribune Co.'s Newsday and Hoy, Merrill Lynch's Lauren Rich Fine released a report today calling into question the reliability of circulation figures for the entire industry. "Our biggest fear," the report said, "is that these two announcements may not be isolated incidents." - from Editor & Publisher |
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| The Supreme Court ruled Monday that people do not have a constitutional
right to refuse to tell police their names.
The 5-4 decision frees the government to arrest and punish people who won't cooperate by revealing their identity. - from The AP |
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| Classified sections of the military's prisoner abuse report detail sexual assaults on women detainees. - from Time magazine |
| A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation
of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing
the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked"
war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands.
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, due out next month, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the Bush administration: that Bin Laden and al-Qaida are "on the run" and that the Iraq invasion has made America safer. - from the Guardian (UK) |
| Wary of individualism, Beijing cracks down on discos, the Internet, and hair dye. - from the Christian Science Monitor |
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| The Sept. 11 panel demonstrated the attacks were foreseen, and might have been prevented, had it not been for misjudgments, some within the White House. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| WARNING GRAPHIC PHOTOS - Al Qaeda Beheads U.S. Hostage - from The Drudge Report |
| The most revealing close-up pictures ever taken of a comet have scientists shaking their heads in astonishment. The rugged, diverse landscape of the comet Wild 2 is unlike anything they have ever seen or imagined: towering columns and spires rising above steep-walled craters and violent jets of gas and dust shooting skyward. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Figures published this afternoon showed an astonishing one third of all PCs connected to the internet are infected with hacking software. - from the Evening Standard (London) |
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| Astronomers have a new take on what they once considered lifeless outer
space. They now think of our galaxy as a vast reactor for biologically
significant organic chemistry.
Materials that could jump-start organic evolution have shown up in interstellar dust clouds and dusty planet-forming discs around many stars. These findings fuel an increasingly strong suspicion that the raw material of planet Earth was primed for life. - from the Christian Science Monitor |
| For the first time, a drug has relieved rheumatoid arthritis by knocking out a certain type of immune cell — an approach that could open the way for precisely targeted, "smart" treatments for the joint disease and other illnesses, too. - from The AP |
| Prominent Arab lawyers and academics yesterday cast doubt on the legality
of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s trial before an Iraqi tribunal,
saying such a step will “run counter” to the provisions of the Third Geneva
Convention.
“Under the article 13 of the Third Geneva Convention, the United States cannot hand over Saddam to another party that lacks neutrality and independence, a description seems to be applicable to the interim Iraqi government,” Ghassan Jundi, professor of international law at the University of Jordan, told Arab News. “Latest news about plans to deliver the former president to an Iraqi court apparently runs counter to this article, because the United States has already recognized Saddam as a prisoner of war,” he said. - from Arab News |
| In 1973, President Nixon gave nearly identical moon-rock fragments as "goodwill" gifts to 135 nations. Today nobody, including NASA, seems to know the exact whereabouts of most of those fingernail-sized samples. - from the Christian Science Monitor |
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| When the US earmarked billions of dollars for a new national missile
defense and broke ground in Alaska, Washington emphasized that it would
be "no threat to Russia."
Then, with the inevitability of a cold-war counterpunch, President Vladimir Putin saw fit to reassure Russians that America's shield could be defeated, with a silver bullet successfully tested in February. "No country in the world as yet has such arms," Putin declared of the new weapon, which amounts to a space cruise missile. It will be "capable of hitting targets continents away with hypersonic speed, high precision, and the ability of wide maneuver." Welcome back to the future of US-Russian rivalry. Analysts say that a combination of US military efforts - including missile defense, plans for new low-yield nuclear weapons, and expansion up to Russia's western doorstep - are chilling relations with Moscow and spurring a new, higher-tech arms race. - from the Christian Science Monitor |
| A group of 26 retired U.S. diplomats and military officers said Wednesday
that President Bush should be voted out of office in November for damaging
U.S. national security interests and America's standing in the international
community.
``Today we see that structure crumbling under an administration blinded by ideology and a callous indifference to the world around it,'' said Phyllis Oakley, former assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research. ``Never before have so many of us felt the need for a major change in the direction of our foreign policy.'' - from The AP via the NYT (reg/req) ... List of signatories from the BBC |
| Sept. 11 plot mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed originally envisioned
an attack involving 10 hijacked planes with himself as the pilot of one
in which all male passengers would be killed and he would deliver an anti-American
harangue upon landing.
The assertion was among new details about the plot revealed Wednesday in a report by the staff of the independent commission investigating the attacks. - from The AP |
| The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks found "no credible evidence" of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda in attacks against the U.S. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Although their hopes for transforming Iraq into a pro-U.S. base in the heart of the Arab world have been badly set back, neo-imperial hawks in the Bush administration are proceeding as fast as possible to reinvent U.S. forces worldwide as ''globocop'', capable of pre-empting any possible threat to its interests at a moment's notice. - from IPS News |
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| Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday the central bank
is standing ready to deal with potential threats to the economy including
the ``fortunately low but still deeply disturbing possibility'' of a new
terrorist attack.
The comments, which came at Greenspan's confirmation hearing for a fifth term as Fed chairman, followed a recent warning by Attorney General John Ashcroft that the terrorist network al-Qaida was ``90 percent'' ready to attack the United States. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
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| The war in Iraq has changed the implications of enlisting and significantly altered the world of recruiting. - from the NYT (reg/req) ... from HPM's archive - "Conscientious objectors in a volunteer army" |
| Exactly 50 years ago today, the phrase "one nation under God," was added to the pledge of allegiance. Coincidentally, the United States Supreme Court today upheld the inclusion of the phrase. - from The AP |
| Saddam Hussein must either be released from custody by June 30 or charged if the US and the new Iraqi government are to conform to international law, the International Committee of the Red Cross said last night. - from the Guardian (UK) |
| The U.S. runs a global system of injustice, purposely mounted in the legal and moral dark. - from Mother Jones |
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| Much of the industrialized world is shifting its economic foot from stepping on the accelerator to tapping on the brakes...As world economy surges, Britain, China, and New Zealand have already raised rates. - from the Christian Science Monitor |
| The military lawyers assigned to defend the detainees at Guantánamo Bay were not expected to put up much of a fight. But then Charles Swift always had an anti-authoritarian streak. - from the NYT magazine (reg/req) |
| University College London experts have shown how the brain subconsciously remembers details around past dangers. - from the BBC |
| Now, it's the Democrats' turn. After a week-long flood of commentary on the most popular Republican president of modern times, the country is about to be immersed in another tide of reminiscence and argument about the most successful Democratic president within the memory of most voters...The release of Clinton's memoirs, "My Life," on June 22 will put a spotlight on a presidency that in policies and style was wholly different from Reagan's. - from the Washington Post |
| As the number of airline passengers starts to soar with the temperature, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is finally taking a significant step toward speeding the security process for at least some flyers. Aviation sources tell Time that this week the TSA will announce the launch of a three-month trial of its Registered Traveler program, which will start at five airports, beginning in Minneapolis—St. Paul and then in other cities, including Los Angeles and Houston. A sort of fast track for frequent flyers, the program aims to let approved passengers use less crowded lanes to the security checkpoints and possibly avoid such routine security measures as removing their shoes and coats. To gain that privilege, passengers must submit to an extensive background check, including searches of commercial and government databases. After being approved and paying a small annual fee (yet to be determined), they would be issued a card—containing a biometric identifier (a fingerprint, for example) and personal data—that shows they're entitled to the special security treatment. - from Time |
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| So many people have complained about disappointing fuel economy of gas-electric hybrid cars that the federal government is telling automakers to consider putting more realistic mileage labels on their cars or do a better job warning buyers that they won't get the advertised mileage. - from USA Today |
| So let me say this for the record: Some of us watch these proceedings with the sober respect you'd have for any loss of life, but also with dry eyes. The media have sold us a fraudulent version of history. Everybody loved Ronald Reagan, it says. Beg pardon, but ''everybody'' did not. - from The Miami Herald (reg/req) |
| They're annoying, those little cellphones, on trains, in restaurants,
in packed waiting rooms.
But what was once a simple annoyance is now a growing problem in prisons and jails across America. Cellphones are becoming the newest form of coveted contraband, allowing inmates to communicate freely with the outside world and, at times, conduct illicit activity from behind bars. While the problem is not yet widespread, it's growing larger, keeping pace with a high-tech, wireless world. - from the Christian Science Monitor |
| Lawyers for Iraqis tortured while in U.S. custody have sued two private security companies for allegedly abusing prisoners to extract information from them with the goal of winning more contracts from the U.S. government. - from IPS News |
| "It was reported today that at a White House staff meeting last week there was a heated discussion about the health of Vice President Cheney and his angina problem. President Bush interrupted and stated emphatically that men do not have anginas. The president was especially perplexed when a staffer said that Cheney has acute angina." [Note: we're hoping this is a joke, and post it as such] |
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| Attempts by President George Bush to exploit the diplomatic triumph of the United Nations resolution on Iraq were last night running into stiff opposition at the G8 summit, as France joined Arab countries in deriding the White House plans for a greater Middle East initiative. - from the Guardian (UK) |
| As many a dog owner will attest, our furry friends are listening. Now,
for the doubters, there is scientific proof they understand much of what
they hear.
German researchers have found a border collie named Rico who understands more than 200 words and can learn new ones as quickly as many children. Patti Strand, an American Kennel Club board member, called the report "good news for those of us who talk to our dogs." - from The AP |
| Aren’t we mature enough as a democracy to memorialize our leaders with clear eyes? While the nation mourns one of its most popular presidents, it must be truthful in assessing his leadership. The very resolve being celebrated on op-ed pages across the country also led Reagan to ignore and sometimes sanction the brutality being committed in the name of fighting the "evil empire." - from TomPaine.com |
| President Bush yesterday was bluntly told by European and Arab allies alike that a serious new push for a Palestinian-Israeli peace solution was vital if his vision of a stable Iraq at the heart of a reformed Middle East were to have any chance of success. - from the Independent (UK) |
| GM is investing billions in China, Ferrari is confidently expecting to double last year's sales, and the country is living hand-to-mouth satisfying its insatiable demand for oil. An oil supply crisis would deflate more than just the Chinese auto sector's bubble of joy, and China's hard landing would hurt the rest of Asia too. - from the Asia Times |
| Misguided U.S. training of Iraqi police contributed to the country's
instability and has delayed getting enough qualified Iraqis on the streets
to ease the burden on American forces, the head of armed forces training
said Wednesday.
"It hasn't gone well. We've had almost one year of no progress," said Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who departs Iraq next week after spending a year assembling and training the country's 200,000 army, police and civil defense troops. - from The AP |
| Military interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, have been given access to the medical records of individual
prisoners, a breach of patient confidentiality that ethicists describe
as a violation of international medical standards designed to protect captives
from inhumane treatment.
The files, which contain individual medical histories and other personal information about prisoners, have been made available to interrogators despite continued objections from the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Post. After discovering the practice in mid-2003, the Red Cross refused to send medical monitoring teams to the facility for more than six months, sources said. - from the Washington Post |
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| "Iraq copyright law was extended from life +25 (or 50 years total,
whichever is greater) to life +50 in 2004 by the US administrator Paul
Bremer after the occupation of Iraq. It is unclear, however, whether these
changes will still be in effect after Iraq regains self-rule."
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| Donald Duck is celebrating his 70th birthday. Donald was first seen on June 9, 1934 in an animated cartoon called the Wise Little Hen. BBC |
| Despite the recent trend toward global warming, scientists have long wondered whether the earth was nearing another ice age — an end to the 12,000-year temperate spell in which modern civilizations arose. Some have said such a transition is overdue, given that each of Earth's three previous temperate intervals lasted only about 10,000 years. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Global climate patterns stretching back 740,000 years have been confirmed
by a three-kilometre-long ice core drilled from the Antarctic, Nature reports.
Analysis of the ice proves our planet has had eight ice ages during that period, punctuated by rather brief warm spells - one of which we enjoy today. If past patterns are followed in the future, we can expect our "mild snap" to last another 15,000 years. - from the BBC |
| Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw work for different networks but agree one thing — coverage of Ronald Reagan's death has been excessive, they say. - from the NY Post |
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| A team of administration lawyers concluded in a March 2003 legal memorandum
that President Bush was not bound by either an international treaty prohibiting
torture or by a federal antitorture law because he had the authority as
commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation's
security.
The memo, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also said that any executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Ronald Reagan is often praised for his role in helping to end the Cold
War after the advent of the reforming Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in
the mid-1980s.
In an interview for the BBC, Mr. Gorbachev talks of his respect for Mr. Reagan, his former negotiating partner, who he describes as one of the great US presidents. |
| (Reagan's) ability to mingle truth with fantasy was frightening. At different times, Reagan — who infamously said that "facts are stupid things" — falsely claimed to have ended poverty in Los Angeles; implied he was personally involved in the liberation of Europe's concentration camps; argued that trees cause most pollution; said that the Hollywood blacklist, to which he contributed names, never existed; described as "freedom fighters" the Contra thugs and the religious fundamentalists in Afghanistan who would later become Al Qaeda; and claimed that fighting a "limited" nuclear war was not an insane idea. - from the LA Times (reg/req) |
| The sugar industry is fighting findings that link its product to obesity. And U.S. officials are echoing the companies' line. - from Mother Jones |
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| The uplifting tone with which journalists are eulogizing Ronald Reagan
is obscuring a central fact of his presidency: He had a very contentious
relationship with the press.
Most reporters liked the Gipper personally -- it was hard not to -- but often depicted him as detached, out of touch, a stubborn ideologue. Sam Donaldson, Helen Thomas and company would do battle in those prime-time East Room news conferences that Reagan relished, and he would deflect their toughest questions with an aw-shucks grin and a shake of the head. Major newspapers would run stories on all the facts he had mangled, a practice that faded as it became clear that most Americans weren't terribly concerned. The media dubbed him the Teflon president, and it was not meant as a compliment. - from the Washington Post (reg/req) |
| The death of Ronald Reagan has become yet another reminder that news organizations often turn sentimental at the death of a former leader, no matter what legacy he or she leaves behind...Maybe it's to be expected that the press, when covering a leader's death, will take a kinder, gentler approach. But in the interests of fair, accurate journalism -- something that has become a leading issue in the media today -- no former leader should be above a frank, complete, and balanced assessment. - from Editor & Publisher |
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| John Mackey wants to change not only the way America eats but also the way American companies do business. Is there a greater good to the Whole Foods way? - from the NYT's magazine (reg/req) (Full disclosure - we shop there & also own stock) |
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| And this time the lyrics are not just antiwar. From hip-hop to punk to rock, artists are wailing against President Bush. - from the Christian Science Monitor |
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| Online porn sites get about three times more visits than the top Web search engines, including market leader Google, a research firm said Thursday. - from Reuters |
| The United States will reduce its stockpile of nuclear weapons by nearly half over the next eight years, the Energy Department said Thursday...The United States had 10,000 nuclear weapons in all categories, and the announcement made Thursday will cut that to 6,100... - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Arthur W. Wilson sits in his study, breathing oxygen through a nose
clip and pausing frequently for the coughs that rack his body.
"I'm not suicidal," he said. "I'm sane." - from the NYT (reg/req) |
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| In the latest sign of the growing strains on thinly stretched
U.S. armed forces, the Army has issued orders to block tens of thousands
of soldiers heading to Iraq and Afghanistan from leaving the military or
transferring to other units, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
So-called stop-loss orders can add weeks or months to the tours of soldiers otherwise eligible to leave the Army. In rare cases, the policy could extend soldiers' time in the Army by as long as 18 months past the end of their voluntary enlistments. The move is further evidence of the difficulty the Pentagon has in fielding enough troops to fight al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan and the stubborn insurgency in Iraq. The rules will affect deployments for the foreseeable future. - from USA Today |
| A new report says Al Qaida's insurgency campaign against Saudi Arabia has increased the price of crude oil by up to $10 a barrel and poses a continuing threat to the Western economy. - from the World Tribune |
| The LA murder rate is going up and the police chief has requested more
officers. But California is broke and cannot afford to recruit.
Civil rights lawyer Connie Rice warns that with too few officers to "police humanely", parts of the city may as well be in Falluja. - from the BBC |
| In the Rust Belt of northern Ohio, the American Dream is no more, replaced by decaying cities where former steelworkers toil in Wal-Marts in a struggle to support their families. While economists worry about "creating value" for stockholders, jobs flow overseas to low-wage countries, and blue-collar anger seethes ahead of November's presidential elections. - from Asia Times |
| To an astonishing degree, the sexes are going their opposite ways in Japan. Young women are revolting against the traditional role of obedient housewife, opting instead to live at home and shop and socialize with girlfriends. Startled men are retreating into solitary ways. Check-ins at the country's famed 'love hotels' are even falling. As birthrates slip, a social crisis looms. - from USA Today |
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| For me, finding a photo booth is like discovering a chocolate egg long after Easter has ended. They're often stashed away in the forgotten corners of America, in the dusty backroom of bars or lost in aging arcades. - Robert Elder writes in the Chicago Tribune (reg/req) |
| Michael Moore's incendiary documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," which had
been looking for an American distributor, has found not one but three distribution
entities eager to share in the movie's theatrical release.
The film is set to launch theatrically June 25 through a complicated distribution apparatus that will see Bob and Harvey Weinstein's newly formed Fellowship Adventure Group (FAG) join forces with Lions Gate Films and IFC Films. - from the Hollywood Reporter |
| The Saudi government is dissolving a large Riyadh-based Muslim charity, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, along with other Saudi charities and it's folding their financial assets into a national commission subject to strict financial oversight, Saudi embassy officials said Wednesday. - from the AP |
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| As Memorial Day approaches, veterans from World War II are dying at the rate of about 1,200 a day, and veterans' cemeteries are running out of room to bury them. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
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| The list of diseases linked to smoking just got longer.
Surgeon General Richard Carmona released his first official assessment of smoking Thursday. The surgeon general's report concluded that smoking causes a number of diseases not previously attributed to smoking. (Related site: Surgeon General) They include: acute myeloid leukemia and cancers of the cervix, kidney, pancreas and stomach; abdominal aortic aneurysm, cataracts, periodontitis and pneumonia. The report said current evidence is not conclusive enough to say smoking causes colorectal cancer, liver cancer, prostate cancer or erectile disfunction. The evidence suggests smoking may not cause breast cancer in women overall but that some women may increase their risk of getting breast cancer by smoking, depending on genetics, the report said. Diseases previously linked to smoking include cancer of the bladder, esophagus, larynx, lung, mouth, throat. Smoking also has been linked to chronic lung disease, chronic heart and cardiovascular disease as well as reproductive problems. About 440,000 Americans die of smoking-related diseases each year. The report said more than 12 million people have died from smoking-related diseases in the 40 years since the first surgeon general's report on smoking and health was released in 1964. That first report linked smoking to lung and larynx cancer and chronic bronchitis. Subsequent reports, like the one released Thursday, have expanded the list of diseases linked to smoking. The report says treating smoking-related diseases costs the nation $75 billion annually. The loss of productivity from smoking is estimated to be $82 billion annually. On average, the surgeon general says, smokers die 13 to 14 years before nonsmokers. The number of people who smoke has dropped from about 42% in 1965 to about 22% in 2002, the last year for which such data is available, according to the surgeon general. AP |
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| The National Archives released 20,000 pages of Henry A. Kissinger's recorded conversations when he was the national security adviser. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Despite ongoing financial woes, Air America Radio appears to have garnered a significant audience during its first month on the air, particularly among the younger listeners sought by advertisers. - from the Chicago Tribune (reg/req) |
| The Bush administration said on Wednesday that it had credible intelligence
suggesting that Al Qaeda is planning to attack the United States in the
next several months, a period in which events like an international summit
meeting and the two political conventions could offer tempting targets.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said at a news conference that intelligence reports and public statements by people associated with Al Qaeda suggested that the terrorist group was "almost ready to attack the United States" and harbored a "specific intention to hit the United States hard." But some intelligence officials, terrorism experts - and to some extent even Mr. Ashcroft's own F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III - offered a more tempered assessment, saying, "For the next few weeks we have reason to believe there is a heightened threat to the U.S. interests around the world.'' And some opponents of President Bush, including police and firefighter union leaders aligned with Senator John Kerry, the expected Democratic presidential candidate, said the timing of the announcement appeared intended in part to distract attention from Mr. Bush's sagging poll numbers and problems in Iraq. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
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| Army summary of deaths and mistreatment involving prisoners in American
custody in Iraq and Afghanistan shows a widespread pattern of abuse involving
more military units than previously known.
The cases from Iraq date back to April 15, 2003, a few days after Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in a Baghdad square, and they extend up to last month, when a prisoner detained by Navy commandos died in a suspected case of homicide blamed on "blunt force trauma to the torso and positional asphyxia." - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Iraq could be heading for a far worse situation in weeks ahead, the
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) warns in its annual
report published Tuesday.
The IISS, one of the world's leading institutions for strategic relations, paints a bleak picture for Iraq and for the United States in Iraq. - from IPS News |
| The US-led "war on terror" has fueled a wave of human rights abuses worldwide, Amnesty International says. - from the BBC |
| Officials say operatives may be in the United States preparing to mount a large-scale terrorist attack. - from the Washington Post (reg/req) |
| More on the possible attack from The AP - "...terrorists may possess and use a chemical, biological or radiological weapon that could cause much more damage and casualties than a conventional bomb." |
| Women who take aspirin regularly have a lower risk of developing the most common type of breast cancer than those who do not, researchers are reporting. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Two influential radio voices who championed genuine democracy and criticized Beijing's rule in Hong Kong have been harassed, threatened, attacked and finally silenced. Albert Cheng and Raymond Wong have signed off the air and left the territory in the interests of their safety, and quite possibly their lives. - from Asia Times |
| Israeli researchers have pushed back the date at which humans harnessed fire by half a million years. - from the Independent (UK) |
| "Over the last year this newspaper has shone the bright light of hindsight
on decisions that led the United States into Iraq. We have examined the
failings of American and allied intelligence, especially on the issue of
Iraq's weapons and possible Iraqi connections to international terrorists.
We have studied the allegations of official gullibility and hype. It is
past time we turned the same light on ourselves.
In doing so — reviewing hundreds of articles written during the prelude to war and into the early stages of the occupation — we found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of. In most cases, what we reported was an accurate reflection of the state of our knowledge at the time, much of it painstakingly extracted from intelligence agencies that were themselves dependent on sketchy information. And where those articles included incomplete information or pointed in a wrong direction, they were later overtaken by more and stronger information. That is how news coverage normally unfolds. But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge."NYT (reg/req) |
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| Teenage rape victims fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo
are being sexually exploited by the United Nations peace-keeping troops
sent to the stop their suffering.
The Independent has found that mothers as young as 13 - the victims of multiple rape by militiamen - can only secure enough food to survive in the sprawling refugee camp by routinely sleeping with UN peace keepers. - from the Independent (UK) |
| More than half of all national journalists (51%) and almost as many local journalists (46%) believe that their profession is off the mark and headed down the wrong path, according to a comprehensive study released today by The Pew Research Center, The Project for Excellence in Journalism and The Committee of Concerned Journalists. The study surveyed 547 national and local journalists from print, online and broadcast media. - from Editor & Publisher |
| An urgent investigation has been launched in Washington into whether
Iran played a role in manipulating the US into the Iraq war by passing
on bogus intelligence through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress,
it emerged yesterday.
Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq. According to a US intelligence official, the CIA has hard evidence that Mr Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed US secrets to Tehran, and that Mr Habib has been a paid Iranian agent for several years, involved in passing intelligence in both directions. - from The Guardian (UK) |
| More than seven million of the world's nearly 12 million refugees have
been ”warehoused” in dangerous border areas or urban slums without regard
to their basic human rights for 10 or more years, according to the 2004
'World Refugee Survey' released Monday by the U.S. Committee for Refugees.
The report, which found a sharp rise in the number of internally displaced persons -- people who have been forced to flee their homes but are still living in their country of origin -- during 2003, argues that refugee ”warehousing” for such long periods of time is both legally indefensible and morally unacceptable. - from IPS News |
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| Retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, former U.S. commander in the Middle East, charges in a book to be published today that "everybody in the military knew" that the Bush administration's plan for Iraq consisted of only half the troops that were needed, and says that country is now "a powder keg" that could break apart into warring regions. - from the Washington Post |
| Thirty years ago, a Republican president, facing impeachment by the
House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate, was forced to resign
because of unprecedented crimes he and his aides committed against the
Constitution and people of the United States. Ultimately, Richard Nixon
left office voluntarily because courageous leaders of the Republican Party
put principle above party and acted with heroism in defense of the Constitution
and rule of law.
"What did the president know and when did he know it?" a Republican senator — Howard Baker of Tennessee — famously asked of Nixon 30 springtimes ago. Today, confronted by the graphic horrors of Abu Ghraib prison, by ginned-up intelligence to justify war, by 652 American deaths since presidential operatives declared "Mission Accomplished," Republican leaders have yet to suggest that George W. Bush be held responsible for the disaster in Iraq and that perhaps he, not just Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is ill-suited for his job. - by Carl Bernstein in USA Today |
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| British and American troops are to be granted immunity from prosecution in Iraq after the crucial 30 June handover, undermining claims that the new Iraqi government will have 'full sovereignty' over the state. - from The Observer (UK) |
| Ancient bodies collide with modern technology to produce a flabby, disease-ridden populace. - from Harvard Magazine |
| At the bottleneck of human smuggling here in the Sonoran Desert, illegal
immigrants are dying in record numbers as they try to cross from Mexico
into the United States in the wake of a new Bush administration amnesty
proposal that is being perceived by some migrants as a magnet to cross.
"The season of death," as Robert C. Bonner, the commissioner in charge of the Border Patrol, calls the hot months, has only just begun, and already 61 people have died in the Arizona border region since last Oct. 1, according to the Mexican Interior Ministry — triple the pace of the previous year. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| President fell off bike Saturday.. Kerry told reporters in front of cameras, 'Did the training wheels fall off?'... Reporters are debating whether to treat it is as on or off the record - from The Drudge Report |
| Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move - from The Village Voice |
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| The Pentagon is preparing for an influx of compensation claims stemming
from the charges of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Defense Department
officials said Friday.
So far, only two claims have been submitted related to allegations of prisoner abuse, one at Abu Ghraib and one at Camp Bucca, near Basra, one department official said. In those cases, both claimants said they had United States residency. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Notes on what has been done — and why — to prisoners, by Americans. - by Susan Sontag in the NYT's Sunday magazine |
| Things we learned en route to looking up other things: Washington D.C. May 12, 2004 - CIA interrogation manuals written in the 1960s and 1980s described "coercive techniques" such as those used to mistreat detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to the declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive. |
| The Army on Friday disciplined a military intelligence analyst who
told The Tribune about the mistreatment of a 16-year-old boy and other
abuses by interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Sgt. Samuel Provance, 30, said his battalion commander instructed him to turn in his top-secret clearance and was informed he would be reassigned. - from the Chicago Tribune (reg/req) |
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| The media in France, Italy and Germany have been routinely using the
word "torture" in the headings of their stories on the abuses in the Abu
Ghraib prison. And so have the British papers, not just the left-wing Guardian
("Torture at Abu Ghraib"), but the right-wing Express ("Outrage at U.S.
Torture of Prisoners") and Rupert Murdoch's Times ("Inside Baghdad's Torture
Jail").
But the American press has been more circumspect, sticking with vaguer terms such as "abuse" and "mistreatment." In that, they may have been taking a cue from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Asked about torture in the prison, he said, "What has been charged so far is abuse, which is different from torture. I'm not going to address the 'torture' word." - from Newsday |
| Previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq describe in raw detail abuse that goes well beyond what has been made public, adding allegations of prisoners being ridden like animals, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve their food from toilets. - from the Washington Post |
| Shortly before the physical abuses of Iraqis were photographed in Abu
Ghraib prison outside Baghdad last year, the top U.S. military official
in Iraq signed a classified memorandum explicitly calling for interrogators
to assume control over the "lighting, heating . . . food, clothing, and
shelter" of those being questioned there.
The Oct. 12, 2003, memorandum signed by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez called for intelligence officials at the prison to work more closely with the military police guarding the detainees to "manipulate an internee's emotions and weaknesses." - from the Washington Post |
| The location of a number of prisoners being held by the US, including high level al-Qaeda suspects, has become a cause of concern for aid agencies and human rights groups, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). - from the BBC |
| Scientists say they have found genetic variations that allow them to distinguish among 85 dog breeds and to identify an individual dog's breed with 99 percent accuracy. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| According to both a leading surgical authority and a noted forensic expert who spoke to Asia Times Online, the video depicting the decapitation of American businessman Nicholas Berg at the hands of Muslim radicals appears to have been staged. And Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who US officials claim did the killing, was himself in all likelihood killed long before the video was made. - from Asia Times |
| A tiny bundle of blankets is unwrapped; inside is the body of a baby,
its limbs smeared with dried blood. Then the mourners peel back the blanket
further to reveal a second dead baby.
Another blanket is opened; inside are the bodies of a mother and child. The child, six or seven years old, is lying against his or her mother, as if seeking comfort. But the child has no head. These are the images that American forces in Iraq had no answer to yesterday. They come from video footage of the burials of 41 men, women and children. The Iraqis say they died when American planes launched air strikes on a wedding party near the Syrian border on Wednesday. US forces insist that the attack was on a safe house used by foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria. They do not dispute that they killed about 40 people, but claim American forces were returning fire and the dead were all foreign fighters. For the video footage that shows dead women and children they have no explanation. - from the Independent (UK) |
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| With his reports in 1969 of a massacre by young American soldiers at My Lai, Seymour M. Hersh began his run as one of journalism's best-known investigative reporters. But in spite of his longevity, none of his subsequent reportorial efforts has had the impact of his first. Until now. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Military intelligence officers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq directed
military police to take clothes from prisoners, leave detainees naked in
their cells and make them wear women's underwear, part of a series of alleged
abuses that were openly discussed at the facility, according to a military
intelligence soldier who worked at the prison last fall.
Sgt. Samuel Provance said intelligence interrogators told military police to strip down prisoners and embarrass them as a way to help "break" them. The same interrogators and intelligence analysts would talk about the abuse with Provance and flippantly dismiss it because the Iraqis were considered "the enemy," he said. The first military intelligence soldier to speak openly about alleged abuse at Abu Ghraib, Provance said in a telephone interview from Germany yesterday that the highest-ranking military intelligence officers at the prison were involved and that the Army appears to be trying to deflect attention away from military intelligence's role. - from the Washington Post (reg/req) |
| The Universe could be a billion years older than was thought, according to Italian and German scientists. - from the BBC |
| Doctors claim to have uncovered new evidence that the tiny particles known as "nannobacteria" are indeed alive and may cause a range of human illnesses. - from the BBC |
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| There is perhaps no better way to appreciate how much has changed in
China than by examining the people themselves. Consider what today's Chinese
eat and drink. In a country where man-made famine killed 30 million people
as recently as the early 1960s, more than one-fifth of adults are now dangerously
overweight or obese. The proportion is expected to approach 40% in two
decades.
Washing down all that food, the average Chinese person now drinks more
than four times as much alcohol per year as in 1978, the beginning of China's
economic opening. Alcoholism — though still low by Western standards —
appears to be surging in more prosperous urban areas.
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| bservations of giant clouds of galaxies far out in space and time have
revealed new evidence that some mysterious force began to push the cosmos
apart six billion years ago, astronomers said yesterday.
The results constitute striking confirmation of one of the weirdest discoveries of modern science: that the expansion of the universe seems to be accelerating, the galaxies flying apart faster and faster with time, under the influence of some antigravitational force. The work, astronomers said, opens up a powerful new way of investigating the nature of this "dark energy" and its effect on the destiny of the cosmos. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Motorists honked in celebration in Ramadi as news spread of the assassination
of the president of the Iraqi Governing Council Ezzidin Salim Monday.
Many people clapped, and raised their fists. "The GC is nothing," one man shouted. "They are not the Governing Council. They are the Prostitution Council." Sfook, a storeowner in the city said: "They are not Iraqi! They weren't here suffering during Saddam's time like we were. They are only puppets of the Americans!" This has been the sentiment throughout the U.S. occupation, in Ramadi about 90 km west of Baghdad, and in many other places. "They only care for themselves," Abu Talat said in al-Adhamiya district of Baghdad last week. "And how can they represent Iraqis if none of us voted for them?" The assassination of Salim underscores both the instability of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and the anger most Iraqis feel towards the U.S.-appointed council. - from IPS News |
| Paul Savoy explains why the Administration's reasons for being in Iraq are more indefensible than ever, in The Nation. |
| As insurgents kill another member of the Iraqi Governing Council, George Bush and Tony Blair are under pressure both to send more troops and to present a clear plan for how they will get out of Iraq. - from The Economist |
| The coalition of Bush administration hawks that was empowered by the
Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon agreed on
three main strategic objectives.
The neo-conservatives and Christian Right wanted to decisively shift the balance of power in the Middle East in favour of Israel, so that it could effectively impose peace terms on the Palestinians and Syria and anyone else that resisted U.S. regional hegemony or Israel's legitimacy and territorial claims. The more-globally-oriented strategists -- sometimes called ''assertive nationalists'' or Machtpolitikers -- wanted to show ''rogue states'', particularly those with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), like North Korea -- that the United States could and, more importantly, would take pre-emptive military action to either change their regimes or crush them. They also wanted to demonstrate to any possible future rival powers that Washington could, and would, intervene militarily in the Persian Gulf region to deny them essential energy supplies as a way of reminding nations of the indispensability of friendly ties with the United States. All three objectives, it was swiftly agreed by the ascendant hawks, could be achieved by invading and then ''transforming'' Iraq into a pro-western, if not democratic, Arab state. - from IPS News |
| Army officials in Iraq responded late last year to a Red Cross report
of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison by trying to curtail the international agency's
spot inspections of the prison, a senior Army officer who served in Iraq
said Tuesday.
After the International Committee of the Red Cross observed abuses in one cellblock on two unannounced inspections in October and complained in writing on Nov. 6, the military responded that inspectors should make appointments before visiting the cellblock. That area was the site of the worst abuses. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Hard up Germans are opting for the ultimate in low maintenance pets in hard times - ants. The craze was highlighted at this month's Interzoo 2004, a Nuremberg trade fair devoted to the pet trade. - from Ananova |
| The Bush administration is struggling to counter growing sentiment -- among U.S. lawmakers, Iraqis and even some of its own officials -- that the occupation of Iraq is verging on failure, forcing a top Pentagon official yesterday to concede serious mistakes over the past year. - from the Washington Post (reg/req) |
| For 25 years the cardboard boxes, more than a dozen of them, sat in a corner of a London office, gathering dust while lawyers argued about whom they belonged to and scholars dreamed about what was inside. But the auction this Wednesday of their contents, once belonging to Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, has provoked another fight and a mystery almost worthy of Holmes himself. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
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| On June 8, people in the right places on Earth will be able to see Venus move across the face of the Sun in a kind of minieclipse that is visible twice every century or so. The last such occurrence, called a transit of Venus, was in 1882. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| U.S. forces beat three Iraqis working for Reuters and subjected them
to sexual and religious taunts and humiliation during their detention last
January in a military camp near Falluja, the three said Tuesday.
The three first told Reuters of the ordeal after their release but only decided to make it public when the U.S. military said there was no evidence they had been abused, and following the exposure of similar mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. Two of the three said they had been forced to insert a finger into their anus and then lick it, and were forced to put shoes in their mouths, particularly humiliating in Arab culture. - from Reuters |
| As many as 17,000 people each year are brought to the United States by human traffickers who trap them in slavery-like conditions for forced sex, sweatshop labor and domestic servitude, the Justice Department reported Tuesday. - from the AP |
| "Carbonated drinks may raise the risk of esophageal cancer, a usually fatal disease, researchers reported on Monday." Reuters |
| Breathing soot from factories or highways may cause genetic damage that can be passed to offspring, scientists have found in an experiment on mice. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
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| The White House tried to halt the making and release of Michael Moore's
new film Fahrenheit 9/11, the film-maker alleged in Cannes on Sunday...Moore
has also revealed that he had three undercover film crews embedded with
US troops in Iraq.
"I was able to sneak three different freelance crews into Iraq," he said on Saturday. The soldiers had "expressed disillusionment that they had been lied to," said Moore. The film from Iraq was a "very important" part of the documentary, he added. "It is certainly something the Bush administration does not want people to see," said Moore. - from the BBC |
| There are a lot of smiles in Houston, Texas, the world oil capital, as the price of crude hits new records almost by the day. Expensive oil is good business. But Big Oil is not exactly fond of the situation in the Middle East. Iraq, for example, is terribly dangerous - ergo, bad for business. Big Oil is missing the good old days, when the Taliban visited Houston and had a ball. - from Asia Times |
| A federal advisory committee says Congress should pass laws to protect
the civil liberties of Americans when the government sifts through computer
records and data files for information about terrorists.
"The Department of Defense should safeguard the privacy of U.S. persons when using data mining to fight terrorism," the panel says in a report to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The report, expected to be issued in about two weeks, says privacy laws lag far behind advances in information and communications technology. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| American athletes have been warned not to wave the U.S. flag during
their medal celebrations at this summer's Olympic Games in Athens, for
fear of provoking crowd hostility and harming the country's already-battered
public image.
The spectacle of victorious athletes grabbing a national flag and parading it around the stadium is a familiar part of international sporting competition, but U.S. Olympic officials have ordered their 550-strong team to exercise restraint and avoid any jingoistic behavior. - from the LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH via The Washington Times |
| Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged in brutal
attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been stored and catalogued at
the camp, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.
The disclosures, made in an interview with Tarek Dergoul, the fifth British prisoner freed last March, who has been too traumatized to speak until now, prompted demands last night by senior politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to make the videos available immediately. They say that if the contents are as shocking as Dergoul claims, they will provide final proof that brutality against detainees has become an institutionalized feature of America's war on terror. - from The Observer (UK) |
| Walt Disney World has installed high-security, anti-terrorist barricades
similar to those protecting the White House and U.S. embassies, according
to a report.
Hydraulically powered, steel barricades block the service entrances of the resort's four theme parks. The barricades were apparently designed to stop a 20,000-pound truck bomb traveling 70 miles per hour. - from The AP |
| Geoffrey Wheatcroft, the author of "The Tragedy of Tony Blair," examines the British Prime Minister's dramatic downward spiral, in The Atlantic. |
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A senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld’s testimony and that of Stephen Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, “Some people think you can bullshit anyone.” |
| The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror. - Seymour Hersh writes in the New Yorker |
| "Assertions apparently being made in the latest New Yorker article on Abu Ghraib and the abuse of Iraqi detainees are outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture..." from the United States Department of Defense |
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The 7th International Congress on SLE and Related Conditions. |
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| But before we leave: When Will the First Major Newspaper Call for a Pullout in Iraq? The once unthinkable suddenly becomes thinkable - from Editor & Publisher |
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| President Bush told the Arab world Wednesday Americans are appalled by the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers. Late Wednesday night, new pictures surfaced. The Washington Post |
| Family members of an Army reservist photographed with naked Iraqi prisoners said Tuesday she was merely a "paper-pusher" who was in the "wrong place at the wrong time." - from The AP |
| "The International Criminal Court (ICC) is able to investigate and prosecute those individuals accused of crimes against humanity, genocide, and crimes of war...Only seven countries voted against it, including China, Israel, Iraq, and the United States...The tribunal came into force on July 1, 2002." Human Rights Watch |
| Americans are more dissatisfied with the nation's direction than at
any time in more than eight years and President Bush's job approval rating
has sunk into a tie for his worst-ever showing, according to a new Gallup
Poll.
The poll, released Thursday, indicates 62% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country. That is the highest dissatisfaction number since early January 1996 — shortly after the federal government shut down briefly when Congress failed to reach a budget agreement. Thirty-six percent of those surveyed were satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. - from USA Today |
| America's soaring federal budget deficits represent a major obstacle
to the country's long-term economic stability, Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan warned on Thursday.
Greenspan told a banking conference that the federal budget deficit was a bigger worry to him than America's soaring trade deficit or the high level of household debt because those two problems can be corrected by market forces. "Our fiscal prospects are, in my judgment, a significant obstacle to long-term stability because the budget deficit is not readily subject to correction by market forces that stabilize other imbalances," he said in remarks to a banking conference. Greenspan noted that the federal deficit, estimated to climb above $500 billion this year, will amount to 4.25% of the total economy after being in surplus just a few years ago. He said one of the biggest concerns was that the deficits now were occurring right before the first wave of baby boomers will begin retiring. - from The AP |
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| The US vows to punish abusers of prisoners, as it admits 25 deaths in custody, including two murders. - from the BBC |
| Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday that Britain is involved in discussions with the United States about sending more troops to Iraq. - from The AP |
| When in 1970 'Life' magazine published photos taken by Senator Tom Harkin, then a lowly congressional aide, of the infamous ''tiger cages'' in which suspected Viet Cong men, women and even children were kept secretly -- and crippled -- by the U.S.-run South Vietnamese prison system, it was another nail in the coffin of a conflict on which most of the U.S. public had already soured. - from IPS News |
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Arkansas: Kerry 45, Bush 45 [Rasmussen]. Arizona: Bush 41, Kerry 38 [KAET-TV]. California: Kerry 51, Bush 40 [Rasmussen]. Connecticut: Kerry 51, Bush 33 [UConn]. Colorado: Bush 49, Kerry 44 [Rasmussen]. Florida: Bush 46, Kerry 45, Nader 3 [American Research Group]. Iowa: Kerry 47, Bush 46, Nader 3 [American Research Group]. Michigan: Kerry 47, Bush 43, Other/Undecided 9 [Survey USA]. New York: Kerry 51, Bush 32, Nader 1 [Marist]. Oregon: Kerry 43, Bush 43, Nader 8 [Rasmussen]. Pennsylvania: Bush 42, Kerry 42, Nader 5 [Pew Charitable Trust]. West Virginia: Bush46, Kerry 41 [Rasmussen]. Wisconsin: Kerry 45, Bush 41, Nader 8 [Rasmussen]. http://politizine.blogspot.com/ |
| Today’s Journalists Are More Isolated than Ever from the Lives of Poor and Working-Class Americans. So What? - from Columbia Journalism Review |
| A US Department of Defense report unearthed by Asia Times Online reveals a growing shift in conflict planning towards how the US will fight instead of whom. Nuclear weapons are key in this. A long-term US initiative for a massive expansion in defense industries is also envisioned. And so is "the possible preemptive use of nuclear weapons against nations or groups not armed with their own." (This is the 2nd of 2 parts...part 1, "US neo-cons and war," is here) |
| How soldiers at a remote US Army base in Afghanistan cope with danger and boredom. - from the Christian Science Monitor |
| Complete text of Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba - from MSNBC News |
| Detroit was recently ranked as the nation's most obese city by Men's
Fitness magazine. Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that the Motor City's
chief product is also losing the battle of the bulge.
The average new car or light-duty truck sold in the 2003 model year tipped the scales at 4,021 pounds, breaking the two-ton barrier for the first time since the mid-1970's, according to a report released by the Environmental Protection Agency last week. The fattening of the nation's automobiles is a principal reason that average fuel economy has stopped improving and the nation's consumption of crude oil has been swelling: all else being equal, moving more weight takes more energy. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| Four years into an embattled Bush administration, Colin Powell is hard at work at something he's never had to worry about before: salvaging his legacy. - from GQ magazine |
| The Walt Disney Company is blocking its Miramax division from distributing
a new documentary by Michael
Moore that harshly criticizes President Bush, executives at both Disney
and Miramax said Tuesday.
The executives said that Disney had forbidden Miramax to distribute the film, "Fahrenheit 911," which links Mr. Bush and prominent Saudis — including the family of Osama bin Laden — and criticizes Mr. Bush's actions before and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| The Bush administration will ask Congress for an additional $25 billion for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a House Republican aide said Wednesday, a change from the White House's earlier plans to not request such money until after the November elections. - from The AP |
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| CBS News was prepared as early as mid-April to report details of abuse
of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American troops, but held off on the
broadcast for two weeks at the request of Gen. Richard Myers, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The delay, which was disclosed by correspondent Dan Rather at the end of Wednesday's broadcast of "60 Minutes II," raised the question of whether CBS News was cooperating with the government in managing the timing of a highly embarrassing story. - from the Chicago Tribune (reg/req) |
| The Bush administration is struggling to develop a damage-control strategy to counter the mounting global backlash against the United States after revelations that U.S. military and intelligence personnel abused Iraqi prisoners, according to U.S. officials. - from the Washington Post |
| Scientists believe they may have found the reason why humans suffer from jet lag. They believe we have two timekeeping centers in our brains - one sticks to the clock, the other is influenced by cues such as sunrise and nightfall. Researchers, writing in Current Biology, believe jet lag results when these centers don't marry up. - from the BBC |
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| Former diplomats criticize White House support for Israel's Ariel Sharon, saying it loses Washington friends. - from the BBC |
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| Foreign advances in basic science now often rival or even exceed America's, according to federal and private experts. - from the NYT (reg/req) |
| American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go? by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker |
| Documents from an April 2 military court hearing in Iraq for Sergeant
Frederick provide new details about the abuse. The documents show that
Specialist Matthew Carl Wisdom, of the 372nd Military Police Company at
Abu Ghraib, appeared in the hearing and described some of the acts of abuse
he saw.
"I went down to Tier 1 (the cellblock where much of the abuse is said to have occurred) and when I looked down the corridor, I saw two naked detainees, one masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open," he is quoted as saying. "I thought I should just get out of there. I didn't think it was right, as it seemed like the wrong thing to do. I saw Staff Sergeant Frederick walking towards me, and he said, `Look what these animals do when you leave them alone for two seconds.' " - from the NYT (reg/req) |
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| It has taken nearly three years, but the 9/11 commission and the Supreme Court hearings on enemy combatants have given us our first serious public discussion about how to balance civil liberties and national security in a war on terror. Even so, we have not begun to ask the really hard questions. The hardest one is, Could we actually lose the war on terror? - from the NYT's Magazine (reg/req) |
| Doubts have been raised over the authenticity of photos apparently showing UK soldiers torturing an Iraqi captive. - from the BBC |
| Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by
the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked, the Government's
chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, said last week.
He said the Earth was entering the "first hot period" for 60 million years, when there was no ice on the planet and "the rest of the globe could not sustain human life". The warning - one of the starkest delivered by a top scientist - comes as ministers decide next week whether to weaken measures to cut the pollution that causes climate change, even though Tony Blair last week described the situation as "very, very critical indeed." - from The Independent |
| The Cassini-Huygens mission continues to return tremendous images of Saturn. The double spacecraft is now just two months away from arriving at the ringed planet to begin a four-year expedition of the gas giant and its many moons. - from the BBC |
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| "An Army Reserve general whose soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners said Army military intelligence officers may have encouraged the abuse." NYT(reg/req) |
| An Iraq war veteran expressed disappointment with President Bush on
Saturday, saying the nation's leaders refuse to acknowledge the seriousness
of continuing violence in Iraq.
"I don't expect our leaders to be free of mistakes. I expect our leaders to own up to them," said Army National Guard 1st Lt. Paul Rieckhoff, who was a platoon leader in Iraq. - from The AP |