Islamic finance institutions plan to set up an Islamic bank in Bahrain, reaching a capital of $100bn within seven years, an official has said.

A ban on charging interest and investing in prohibited businesses such as trading in alcohol, pork, arms, pornography or gambling, are among features distinguishing it from traditional banking.

what to do with 5 million Palestinians with no land?

USA plans to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities on April 6 at 00:40 a.m., the Echo of Moscow Radio reports citing anonymous sources from the Russian military intelligence.

The images that the media won't show you..
Warning: Disturbing Images

No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch...

The Israeli military will soon launch a huge offensive in the Gaza Strip to crush Palestinian resistance groups, mainly Hamas, chief of staff Major General Gabi Ashkenazi said.

"We have no choice. We will have to do it," said Dr. Arieh Eldad, member of the opposition National Union Party.

He is convinced Iran will use nuclear weapons against Israel, should it ever acquire them. And he is equally convinced that economic pressure and diplomatic sanctions will fail to deter Iran from that path.

Taking One for the Team, When He Could Remember...

BILL O’REILLY, HOST: One of the biggest Bush haters in the media is Rosie O'Donnell, a fanatical leftist who has been given a daily platform by the American Broadcasting Company.

Ms. O'Donnell is now actively supporting Iran against her own country and Britain. On her Web site Ms. O'Donnell posted this quote about the British hostages.

"False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The British did it on purpose. They went into Iranian waters as the U.S. military build up on the Iranian border. We will be in Iran before summer as planned." Unquote.

The latest NEWSWEEK poll shows that 91 percent of American adults surveyed believe in God—and nearly half reject the theory of evolution.

...from the new documentary "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers"

Russia has fully restored its espionage capabilities against the United States.

The head of Russia's upper house of parliament, speaking immediately after being reelected to that post, declared Friday that the constitution should be revised to allow President Vladimir V. Putin to serve a third consecutive term.

Commenting for the first time on the issue, Bush told a press conference at Camp David: 'Iran must give back the hostages. They're innocent, they did nothing wrong.' He also declared support for Tony Blair's efforts to find a diplomatic resolution.

"Instead of apologizing over trespassing by British forces, the world arrogant powers issue statements and deliver speeches."

"The British occupier forces did trespass our waters. Our border guards detained them with skill and bravery. But arrogant powers, because of their arrogant and selfish spirit, are claiming otherwise."

King Abdullah's harsh — and unexpected — attack on the U.S. military presence in Iraq could be a Saudi attempt to signal to Washington its anger over the situation in Iraq and build credibility among fellow Arabs.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in interviews published today that Israel would not allow a single Palestinian refugee to return to what is now Israel and that Israel bore no responsibility for the refugees, whose plight resulted from an attack by Arab nations on the fledgling state.

One of the 15 British service members held captive in Iran appeared Friday on state television and said he apologized "deeply" for entering Iranian waters, and the country released a third letter supposedly from the one woman in the crew saying she has been "sacrificed" by Britain.

The following is the full text of a letter purportedly written by captured British sailor Faye Turney and addressed to the British people.

Recent poll reveals steep rise in racist views against Arabs in Israel; many participants feel hatred, fear when overhearing Arabic, 75 percent don’t approve of shared apartment buildings.
Over half of the Jewish population in Israel believes the marriage of a Jewish woman to an Arab man is equal to national treason.

Zbigniew Brzezinski --> The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.

For Hans Christof von Sponeck, the former assistant secretary-general of the UN, the United Nations, far from garding the respect for international law and the consolidation of peace, have themselves become a factor of injustice. Thus, the sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq caused a human disaster, whereas treaties such as the nuclear non-proliferation treaty are used to ensure the domination of certain powers and to threaten others. It is time to change the system completely.

Interview -->

Rosie, please don't stop!

On March 30, 2007, the Council of Canadians, the Canadian Labour Congress, the Council on American Islamic Relations Canada and the Parkland Institute will call on the Canadian government to change the course of Canada's relationship with the United States. The groups will outline how the recent Security and Prosperity Partnership has put civil liberties, the environment, energy and job security in jeopardy and will call on parties to make this an election issue.

The freeze will include diplomatic contacts, trade missions and the issuance of visas to Iranian government officials, the Foreign Office said.

...a ban that comes in at midnight tomorrow forbidding marines from having new large tattoos on parts of the arms and legs.

The movie, called Disengagement, the official Israeli term for the 2005 pullout, casts Binoche as a French woman who tries to find her estranged daughter in Gaza, just as the Israeli government was forcibly removing the settlers.

Iran has offered to let UK officials visit the 15 Royal Navy personnel who were captured in the Gulf on Friday.

...the stand-off would be resolved only if the UK stated that the sailors and marines had been in Iranian waters, which it denies.

"Condemned to premature death by hunger and thirst more than three billion people of the world," read the headline in Castro's article.

"The sinister idea of converting food into combustibles was definitively established as the economic line of the foreign policy of the United States."

Castro quotes extensively from a Washington-datelined story by The Associated Press reporting on the Monday meeting between Bush and U.S. automakers.

"I reiterate the sincerity of the Palestinian will in extending the hand of peace to the Israeli people ... We should not waste more chances in the history of this long and painful cause," Abbas told the closing ceremony in Riyadh.

Israel objects to key points, including a return to 1967 borders, the inclusion of Arab East Jerusalem in a Palestinian state and the potential return of Palestinian refugees to what is now Israel.

Everything happening in the Middle East, whether it's in Lebanon or Iraq, is a result of US and UK foreign policy.

...why should Iran capture British soldiers on Iraqi territory? What's the motivation? There is no motivation whatsoever. British soldiers were inside Iranian territory and they were captured.

Britain took its case to free its 15 sailors and marines held by Iran to the United Nations on Thursday, asking the Security Council to support a statement that would "deplore" Tehran's action and demand their immediate release.

Iran today rolled back on a pledge to soon free a British woman sailor, delaying her release because of Britain’s threat to freeze relations and refer the issue to the UN Security Council.

If MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies) has its way, the days of prescription psychedelics may not be too far away. For those who know the history of psychedelic research, this eventuality has been a long time coming. But others — who may only be familiar with the intense emotions and activities around the “War On Drugs” over the past several decades — may be surprised to learn how much progress MAPS has made.

"They were thoughtful, nice people and they explained to us why we had been arrested. There was no aggression, no hurt, no harm. They were very compassionate," Turney said.

Private businesses such as rental and mortgage companies and car dealers are checking the names of customers against a list of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers made publicly available by the Treasury Department, sometimes denying services to ordinary people whose names are similar to those on the list.

Twelve ships, 100 aircraft and 12,000 sailors are taking part in the war games designed to get the attention of Iran.

An odd, six-sided, honeycomb-shaped feature circling the entire north pole of Saturn has captured the interest of scientists with NASA's Cassini mission.

Retired U.S. Navy medic Charlie Anderson twice thought about committing suicide: once when he feared he would be sent back to Iraq in 2004 and again last year when a friend and fellow veteran killed himself.

Former Air Traffic Controller Robin Hordon speaks out
on 9/11, NORAD and what should have happened on 9/11.

The White House insisted Wednesday that King Abdullah was wrong to say the US military presence in Iraq is an "illegitimate foreign occupation."

"The United States is in Iraq at the request of the Iraqis and under a United Nations mandate. Any suggestion to the contrary is wrong."

An embankment around one of the seven holding basins collapsed, sending a wall of sewage crashing into the neighbouring village of Umm Naser.

The wave killed two women in their 70s, two toddlers and a teenage girl and injured 35 others, hospital officials said. More than 200 homes were destroyed, health officials said.

"This is a human tragedy," said Public Works Minister Sameeh al-Abed.

"The military judge has not published a schedule for future proceedings," spokeswoman for the military commissions, Major Beth Kubala, said.

Arab leaders gather in the Saudi capital of Riyadh today, swearing they will never amend their five-year-old land-for-peace offer to Israel.

But while the communiqué that the Arab League will issue at the end of their two-day meeting is expected to be written in unyielding language, many believe that the 22-nation group is nonetheless getting ready to bargain quietly.

Bush, rejecting a compromise with Congress over a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, said today, "It makes no sense for politicians in Washington, D.C., to be dictating arbitrary timelines for our military commanders in a war zone 6,000 miles away."

Iran said a female British sailor seized with 14 other crew members would be released Wednesday or Thursday.

Iranian state TV showed video Wednesday of 15 British sailors and marines who were seized last week.

Britain called the broadcast "completely unacceptable"

The law extends a person's right to stand their ground beyond the home to vehicles and workplaces, allowing the reasonable use of deadly force, the governor's office said.

Lethal force will be allowed if an intruder is:

- Committing certain violent crimes, such as murder or sexual assault, or is attempting to commit such crimes

- Unlawfully trying to enter a protected place

- Unlawfully trying to remove a person from a protected place.

The law also provides civil immunity for a person who lawfully slays an intruder or attacker in such situations.

Scans of original drawings of the North Tower of the World Trade Center have been published online by a coalition of independent 9/11 researchers and journalists.

"The only theory that is supported by the evidence is controlled demolition with explosives," Gage says. "You could never get a collapse event of that speed through 80 floors of intact steel structure. The laws of physics simply don't allow it."

Bill Maher took on those who question our patriotism but are the ones who really act un-American and unpatriotic.

US Vice President Dick Cheney has assured political allies that an early withdrawal of US forces from Iraq would not be allowed, despite efforts by Congress to impose a deadline on US combat operations there.

"The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran," the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.

No way World Trade Center Towers were brought down simply from planes, jet fuel and fire.

Iran said Monday it was questioning 15 British sailors and marines to determine if their alleged entry into Iranian waters was ``intentional or unintentional'' before deciding what to do with them - the first sign it could be seeking a way out of the standoff.

Soldiers on crutches and canes were sent to a main desert camp used for Iraq training. Military experts say the Army was pumping up manpower statistics to show a brigade was battle ready.

The Department of Defense's "Augmented Cognition" video is supposed to represent a plausible scenario for a human-computer interface.

A fancy high-tech drivers license complete with biometric data, RFID chip and more data then you could imagine all linked to a single database.

This whole farce about the need for passports to enter the US is just a smokescreen for implementing a North American ID card under the cleverly named Security and Prosperity Partnership. Is it a coincidence that the US government is forcing the exact same high-tech single database RFID chipped drivers licenses onto their citizens under the Real ID Act?

Thousands of British soldiers have gone absent without leave since 2003 because the Army is unwilling to accept the gravity of mental problems caused by their tours in Iraq.

The Ministry of Defence estimates there have been 10,000 Awol incidents since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and 1,100 servicemen are currently "on the run" from the Army.

"I hope the Iranian government understands how fundamental an issue this is for us," the prime minister said at a European summit in Berlin. "They should not be under any doubt at all about how seriously we regard this act, which was unjustified and wrong."

Many of the world's climate zones will vanish entirely by 2100, or be replaced by new, previously unseen ones, if global warming continues as expected, a study released Monday said.

Rising temperatures will force existing climate zones toward higher latitudes and higher elevations, squeezing out climates at the colder extremes, and leaving room for unfamiliar climes around the equator, the study predicted.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' liaison with the White House will refuse to answer questions at upcoming Senate hearings about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, citing her Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer says.

There are fresh calls here for the British government to issue a clear and unequivocal apology for the enslavement of millions of Africans, perpetrating the black holocaust and the racist ideology and legacy that followed.

...also the bishops are being pressured by a Pan-African Congress to pay reparations for the church's involvement in the slave trade

Chinese leader Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday pledged to expand economic cooperation between the two former rivals which has lagged behind thriving military and security ties.

Iran's refusal to free 15 British sailors and Marines seized in contested Persian Gulf waters is the country's way of telling the world that it cannot be pushed around — even with new international sanctions over its nuclear programme.

"This is a very serious situation," Blair said.

US authorities are holding at least five Iranians, identified as part of an elite Revolutionary Guard unit, who were arrested in January in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil on suspicion of funnelling weapons to Iraqi factions.

U.S. military authorities have filed terrorism charges against Australian David Hicks who is being held at a military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. From Miami, VOA's Brian Wagner reports Hicks is the first detainee to be tried as an alleged enemy combatant under a revised set of procedures.

A Pentagon investigation into the combat death of Cpl. Pat Tillman in Afghanistan has concluded that he was shot accidentally by fellow soldiers but that investigations into the circumstances of his shooting were initially mishandled.

"You and your smarmy pundits -- and the smarmy pundits you have in your pocket -- can take your war and shove it," Penn said. "Let's unite not only in stopping this war, but in holding this administration accountable."

Each day, thousands of pieces of intelligence information from around the world -- field reports, captured documents, news from foreign allies and sometimes idle gossip -- arrive in a computer-filled office in McLean, where analysts feed them into the nation's central list of terrorists and terrorism suspects.

Called TIDE, for Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, the list is a storehouse for data about individuals that the intelligence community believes might harm the United States.

A new study published today in the Lancet places alcohol and tobacco in the upper half of the league table. These socially accepted drugs were judged more harmful than cannabis, and substantially more dangerous than the Class A drugs LSD, 4-methylthioamphetamine and ecstasy.

The RIAA is insisting on deposing Tanya Andersen's 10-year-old daughter in Atlantic v. Andersen, in Oregon. The child was 7 years old at the time of the alleged infringement.

"...a disaster, an unmitigated disaster,' Makiya said. 'I was just so upset, even on the verge of tears. It was the antithesis of everything I had been working for. Just like everything about the war, it was an opportunity wasted.' He catalogued the errors - including his own - that led to the present bloodbath. It is all a remarkable change of tone for the man who was once a friend of Ahmed Chalabi, has been praised in public by Vice President Dick Cheney and is highly regarded by anti-Saddam Iraqi democrats.

With his go-it-alone approach on Iraq, President Bush is flouting Congress and the public, so angering lawmakers that some consider impeachment an option over his war policy, a senator from Bush’s own party said Sunday.

Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday accused the Democrat-led House of not supporting troops in Iraq and of sending a message to terrorists that America will retreat in the face danger.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said today that the seizure of 15 British naval personnel by Iranian forces last week was "unjustified and wrong" and took place in Iraqi waters.

Iran will not stop its atomic work for "one second" despite a new UN sanctions resolution and will "adjust" its ties with those behind the measure, Iran's president said on his website.

“If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences.”

For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.

A powerful, deadly earthquake struck Japan early today, killing a 52-year-old woman and injuring 80 others as it shook buildings and triggered a small tsunami that hit the coast.

The magnitude-7.1 quake struck at 9.42am local time.

the question of whether Zimbabwe is a victim of colonialism and imperialism will and should continue to occupy the minds of Zimbabweans and Africans in general as they try to map out a strategy to lift the sinking titanic whose captain is still to be convinced of his culpability in helping kill the hope that ignited the struggle for emancipation.

Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.

The saucer-shaped object is said to have touched down in the south of France and then zoomed off. It left behind scorch marks.

This is just one of the cases from France's secret "X-Files" — some 100,000 documents on supposed UFOs and sightings of other unexplained phenomena that the French space agency is publishing on the Internet.

France is the first country to put its entire weird sightings archive online, said Jacques Patenet, who heads the space agency's UFO cell — the Group for Study and Information on Nonidentified Aerospace Phenomena.

"It was enormous, it just felt 'other worldly', in your gut you could just tell it was 'other worldly'"

Supreme court ban on liberal party wipes out opposition to Putin.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in a November meeting, according to documents released Friday that contradict earlier claims that he was not closely involved in the dismissals.

A sharply divided House of Representatives delivered a stinging rebuke to President Bush on Friday, voting to order him to bring combat troops home from Iraq by the fall of next year.

Just over an hour later, an angry Mr. Bush accused Democrats of staging nothing more than an "act of political theater".

"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not."

Iranian forces seized 15 British servicemen on Friday in the mouth of the waterway that separates Iran and Iraq, triggering a diplomatic crisis at a time of heightened tensions over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

The failed session was the latest blow to the six-nation negotiations and could imperil a fragile disarmament process. Delegates are scrambling to meet a series of tight deadlines on shutting down the north's main nuclear reactor and delivering energy aid in return before an April 14 deadline.

VIDEO --> Stephen Colbert challenges the Democrats to impeach Bush now.

2007 National Defense Authorization Act overturns Posse Comitatus Act.

A United States Senate panel, following the House of Representatives' lead, has authorised subpoenas for White House political adviser Karl Rove and other top aides involved in the sacking of federal prosecutors.

Vice-Premier Shimon Peres told a panel investigating the government's handling of last year's war in Lebanon that Israel's decision to invade was a mistake and the military was unprepared, according to testimony made public.

A top European Union envoy met with a senior member of the new Palestinian government Wednesday, joining the U.S. in ending a year of ostracism and leaving Israel increasingly isolated in its demand for a total boycott of the Hamas-Fatah coalition.

A French court cleared a satirical weekly newspaper Thursday in a case brought by Muslims who were angered by its publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

A Senate committee approved a $122 billion measure Thursday financing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but also defying President Bush by calling on him to pull combat troops out of Iraq by next spring.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday confirmed his visit to New York to attend a session of the United Nations Security Council, the news network Khabar reported.

"Mr. Bush’s proposal was a formula for hiding the truth, and for protecting the president and his staff from a legitimate inquiry by Congress. Mr. Bush’s idea of openness involved sending White House officials to Congress to answer questions in private, without taking any oath, making a transcript or allowing any follow-up appearances. The people, in other words, would be kept in the dark."

The Justice Department's inspector general told a committee of angry House members yesterday that the FBI may have violated the law or government policies as many as 3,000 times since 2003 as agents secretly collected the telephone, bank and credit card records of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals residing here.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed there had been an explosion on HMS Tireless during an exercise under the Arctic icecap at 0420 GMT on Wednesday.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to end the Bush administration's ability to unilaterally fill U.S. attorney vacancies as a backlash to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' firing of eight federal prosecutors.

wtc 7

The arrival of mind-reading machines.

Very little of the detail appearing in the media about the recent unexplained disappearance of a top Iranian general, Brigadier General Ali Reza Asgari, including his age, can be taken at face value. But all the accounts point to the involvement of the US, Israeli and/or other Western intelligence agencies in the defection or abduction of Asgari, a former deputy defence minister, who is currently being interrogated or tortured to obtain Iranian defence secrets.

The leader of Germany's governing Social Democrats criticized U.S. plans to locate a missile defense system in eastern Europe, insisting in an interview published Monday that "we need no new missiles in Europe."

A year-old diplomatic boycott of the Palestinian government splintered Monday when Norway's deputy foreign minister met Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya in Gaza and Italy's foreign minister called Haniyya in a show of support.

Bush pleaded for more patience Monday, saying success is possible but "will take months, not days or weeks."

...are you aware your deeds won't be forgiven, Bush?

The operation, code-named Juniper Cobra, is taking place in the Negev desert in southern Israel with thousands of American and Israeli troops.

Both sides described the timing as routine, denying a direct connection to the Iran threat.

President George W. Bush said he opposes the plan to withdraw troops from Iraq that is advancing in U.S. Congress, and reiterated he will veto the legislation if it reaches his desk.

Separated by thousands of kilometres but connected by their opposition to the war in Iraq, demonstrators in Canada and around the world raised their voices in protest.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday said he will not work with the new Palestinian government, but promised to maintain limited contacts with President Mahmoud Abbas.
...serious peace talks could not take place following Abbas' alliance with the Hamas militant group.

The annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee this week in Washington saw record attendance: more than 6,000 people, coming from every state in the country and exceeding last year's crowd of around 5,000. Many of them were American Jews, of course, but the evangelical Christian community also made a strong showing. For those feeling apocalyptic about the turmoil in the Middle East, pastor John Hagee was there to greet them. Of the many prominent speakers at the conference, Hagee got one of the most enthusiastic receptions.

The closing gala dinner on Monday night was attended by a who's who of Washington's A-list. At that event, AIPAC's executive members -- accompanied by music that was fit for a Hollywood superhero movie -- read what they excitedly referred to as "the roll call" of those in attendance. It took 13 minutes and included the bulk of Congress, as well as high-ranking officials from the White House, the State Department and the National Security Council. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert -- addressing the crowd via teleconference from Jerusalem -- waded into America's debate over Iraq in a manner that the Israeli leadership has avoided until now. He openly urged AIPAC delegates to push Congress to support the Bush administration's current strategy in Iraq.

If Israel removed its racist laws and symbols and became a non-racist democratic state, Jews would cease to be a majority and would be like Diaspora Jews, a minority in a non-Jewish state. These concerns are stated clearly by Israeli leaders individually and collectively. Shimon Peres, for example, the dove of official Israel, has been worried for some time about the Palestinian demographic "danger", as the Green Line, which separates Israel from the West Bank, is beginning to "disappear ... which may lead to the linking of the futures of West Bank Palestinians with Israeli Arabs". He hoped that the arrival of 100,000 Jews in Israel would postpone this demographic "danger" for 10 more years, as ultimately, he stressed, "demography will defeat geography".

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government...

The paper argued that US Middle East policy is not in America’s national interest and is driven primarily by the "Israel Lobby", a loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to skew US foreign policy toward a hardliner Israeli Likudnik direction.

The year since the publication of Walt and Mearsheimer's paper has seen the Israeli government continue its punitive punishment, illegal settlements, urbicide, ghettoisation, apartheid and occupation under a myth of 'disengagement', all so far underpinned with assured US support for its long-time policies of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Carefully presented and supported criminal indictment of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Richard Myers, and Condoleeza Rice for ... all » murder in the events of 9-11, presenting all the best evidence in a concise but powerful manner. It includes Larry Silverstein's admission that the explosives were used; and Norman Mineta's identification of Dick Cheney as the person who gave the order not to scramble jets, or fire any weapons in defense of the Pentagon.

A U.S. Marine charged with murdering 18 unarmed civilians in Haditha, Iraq, said in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" he regretted the deaths but would make the same decisions today.

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh announced he had discovered a cure for the disease that has wreaked havoc across Africa.

Gambian Health Minister Tamsim Mbowe, a trained physician with multiple medical degrees, defended the so-called herbal cure.

"I can swear, 100 percent, that this herbal medication is working. It has the potency to treat and cure patients infected with the HIV-virus," he told CNN.

Ousman Sow, 54, said he's been HIV-positive since 1996 and had been taking anti-retrovirals for the past fours years until he volunteered for this program.

Four weeks later, he said he's gained 30 pounds and feels like a new person.

"I am cured at this moment," he said.

The Pentagon is sending a powerful message to the American people with its treatment of accused terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed: "See how effective we are in getting confessions out of people. See how effective we are in getting people executed, unlike those juries of your peers in federal court, who oftentimes acquit accused terrorists, such as in federal district court in Detroit, or let them live, such as in the federal district court trial of Zacharias Moussouai, who, like Mohammed, was accused of being a 9/11 co-conspirator."

A critical investigation of the militarization of popular culture.

Antarctica and Greenland hold enough ice to raise global sea levels by 70m.

Canadian 'Fifth Estate' a must watch...

This 18th of March, 2007 it will be the 4th anniversary of Iraq’s brutal occupation by American forces and also the 4th birthday of 'free Iraq'.

This 4th anniversary of Iraq’s occupation, we will derive a very simple lesson from America’s Iraq jaunt that if a country wants to avoid a U.S. led invasion, they had better arm themselves to the gills and with nuclear weapons too if possible. Quite plainly, it is a matter of life and death for such countries.

...unless the global citizenry wakes up, all the treaties and assurances in the world will not stop this brazen display of capitalism in decay.

The death of a British lance corporal whose armored vehicle was mistakenly incinerated by a U.S. warplane in Iraq in 2003 was "criminal" and "entirely avoidable," a coroner ruled.

"The attack on the convoy amounted to an assault," he added. "It was unlawful, because there was no lawful reason for it, and in that respect it was criminal."

Contradicting the findings of a U.S. inquiry, which concluded that the incident was a "tragic accident"

Suicide bombers driving trucks laden with chlorine launched three attacks in Iraq that exposed hundreds to a potentially deadly gas attack, the US military said yesterday.
Major-General William Caldwell, has called the new tactics a 'crude attempt to raise the terror level'.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday swore in the new Hamas-Fatah coalition government, hours after the Palestinian parliament overwhelming approved the government, clearing a final formal hurdle before taking on the challenge of persuading a skeptical world to end a crippling year-long boycott of the Palestinian government.

The Nation --> the rise of Blackwater USA, the world's most powerful mercenary army.

So why is it today that no one draws the connection between the Soviet purge trials and the confession of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed?
Mohammed said that he had been tortured by his American captors. No one contradicted his assertion. Then he went on, with a straight and sincere face, to take responsibility for a long list of crimes recently perpetrated.

Scientists studying pictures from Nasa's Odyssey spacecraft have spotted what they think may be seven caves on the surface of Mars.

Valerie Plame, the CIA operative whose outing led to the conviction of a top Bush administration official, told Congress on Friday she believes her identity was disclosed for "purely political reasons."

Pakistan will not provide military bases to the United States if it launches attacks on Iran, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri said. He said an attack on Iran will leave a negative impact on the politics and economics of not only Pakistan but the entire region.

An anti-Zionist rabbi who attended a conference in Iran that questioned the Holocaust said Wednesday he was beaten while in Poland by Jews furious at him for his actions.

Moishe Arye Friedman, who lives in Vienna, Austria, was attacked last Friday in Lezajsk, a small town in southeastern Poland. His attackers included Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, a member of the Israeli humanitarian group ZAKA, and two others, Friedman said in a telephone interview.

Hungarian police used water cannon and tear gas to repel about 1000 skinheads and extremists in Budapest yesterday as anti-government protests marred celebrations of the country's 1848 revolution.

The Senate on Thursday rejected a Democratic resolution to withdraw most American combat troops from Iraq in 2008.
Republican leaders said they counted the day as a victory.

Sami Al-Arian has spent the past four years in jail despite a jury's failure over a year ago to return a single guilty verdict on any of the 17 charges brought against him.

"Congress took an important step toward restoring openness and transparency in government," House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said.

During a speech on the House floor on Thursday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) declared that "impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran."

"This House cannot avoid its constitutionally authorized responsibility to restrain the abuse of Executive power," Kucinich said on the floor today. "The Administration has been preparing for an aggressive war against Iran. There is no solid, direct evidence that Iran has the intention of attacking the United States or its allies."

...published in the journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Technology showed rats fed for 90 days on Monsanto's MON863 maize showed "signs of toxicity" in the liver and kidneys.

A spacecraft orbiting Mars has scanned immense deposits of water ice at its south pole so plentiful they would blanket the planet in 36 feet of water if they were liquid, scientists said Thursday.

Russia consolidated its grip as the EU's main energy supplier by agreeing a deal to build a major oil pipeline across Bulgaria and Greece.

Russia already provides Europe with a third of its oil and 40% of its natural gas.

Iran's United Nations Mission sent a letter to the Security Council president Thursday officially requesting permission for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak during its discussion on a resolution that would impose new sanctions on Tehran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment, a council diplomat said.

Israel quickly rejected the new leadership, saying it failed to recognize the Jewish state.

...the sanctions, which will be presented to the UN Security Council for a vote next week, include a ban on Iranian arms exports; restrictions on the movement of Iranian officials believed to be connected to the country's weapons programme; and the first stage of a block on international investment in Tehran.

...the document forbids states and international financial institutions from entering into "new commitments for grants, financial assistance, and concessional loans, to the Islamic Republic of Iran, except for humanitarian and developmental purposes".

"Enemies are using the UN Security Council as a tool to prevent the Iranian nation from achieving development and progress," said Mr Ahmadinejad.

...the transcript of the March 10 military tribunal hearing has no details of any of the alleged plots.

Mohammad himself claims to have been tortured in his CIA interrogations, but the hearing transcript that was released edited out any further comment from him in that regard.

Tom Parker, a former British counter-terrorism officer, says "what kind of treatment Khalid Sheikh Mohammad received could have affected his testimony."

Last week, the Department of Justice Inspector General's office released a damning report documenting the FBI abusing its powers under the PATRIOT Act and violating the law to collect Americans' telephone, Internet, financial, credit, and other personal records about Americans without judicial approval.

It appears that not everyone at the DOJ got the memo -->

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki accused Israel and the United States yesterday of posing the main threats to the security of the Middle East, prompting the US and Israeli delegations to walk out during the speech.

A somewhat cryptic credit in small type on the (revamped!) table of contents describes the image this way: "Photograph by David Hume Kennerly. Tear by Tim O'Brien." Nowhere does it specifically state that the cover is a photo illustration—in other words, that it's Photoshopped.

New censorship techniques include the periodic barring of complete applications, such as China’s block on Wikipedia or Pakistan’s ban on Google’s blogging service, and the use of more advanced technologies such as “keyword filtering”, which is used to track down material by identifying sensitive words.

Top House Democrats retreated from an attempt to limit President Bush's authority for taking military action against Iran as the leadership concentrated on a looming confrontation with the White House over the Iraq war.

...a railway beneath the Strait of Gibraltar carrying freight, passengers and cars.

"No works in the world compare to this one" said Swiss engineer Giovanni Lombardi.

Work is expected to start in 2008.

"I give good news to the Palestinian people at home and in Diaspora that we have finished everything related to the national unity government, especially the interior ministry portfolio," Haneya told reporters in Gaza.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Confessed To Sept. 11 Attacks And Others, According To Military Transcript

...a gallery intended to show views of other side of Iran, different with what you may have seen in the media.

Pope Benedict XVI strongly reasserted Tuesday the church's opposition to abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage, saying that Catholic politicians were "especially" obligated to defend the church's stance in their public duties.

A US federal judge blamed Sudan for the first time yesterday for the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in 2000 that killed 17 seamen. The judge, Robert Doumar, said there was "substantial evidence" to support the claim.

George Bush wrapped up a tour of Latin America tonight with little to show for his six-day swing through the region.

The US president was due to head home with no substantive deals or immediate evidence that the public relations offensive had salvaged Washington's reputation in the five countries he visited.

The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents.

Excerpts from e-mails regarding the firings of eight federal prosecutors, signed off upon by the White House legislative, political and communications offices -->

The hit American movie "300" has angered Iranians who say the Greeks-vs-Persians action flick insults their ancient culture and provokes animosity against Iran.

United States tries to "humiliate" Iran in order to reverse historical reality and "compensate for its wrongdoings in order to provoke American soldiers and warmongers" against Iran.

"The film depicts Iranians as demons, without culture, feeling or humanity, who think of nothing except attacking other nations and killing people."

Sibel promises that Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Dennis Hastert, and Marc Grossman (and others) will be thrown in jail, for treason, if we can persuade Henry Waxman to hold hearings into her case.

Interview -->

Nearly a third of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who received care from Veterans Affairs between 2001 and 2005 were diagnosed with mental health or psychosocial ills, a study published Monday has concluded.

Anybody who objects to their personal details going on the new "Big Brother" ID cards database will be banned from having a passport.

The United Nation's Human Rights Council is expected to place Israel under permanent investigation for its "violations" of international law in the territories - until such time as it withdraws to the pre-1967 border - according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

The Bush administration wants to eliminate federal support for geothermal power just as many U.S. states are looking to cut greenhouse gas emissions and raise renewable power output.

More than 1 million pages of historical government documents — a stack taller than the U.S. Capitol — have been removed from public view since the September 2001 terror attacks, according to records obtained by The Associated Press. Some of the papers are more than a century old.

Singer Harry Belafonte elaborates on his reference to Condi Rice as a 'house slave' and explains why Bush is more of a tyrant than Castro.

The lives of Palestinians are devalued at the expense of Israelis. Palestinian children have little or no access to play areas, because of Israeli building restrictions and continued confiscation of land. While settlements atop hills in Palestine use water for swimming pools, gardens, and open spaces, Palestinians must pay four times as much to Israel for water.

Sewage from these settlements often runs directly onto Palestinian farmland.

Palestinian children in refugee camps face raids, where soldiers come in the middle of the night, break into their houses, and sometimes make an arrest or simply break things and leave.

Is it only observers outside the conventional mainstream who have noticed that by its murderous assault on Lebanon and simultaneously on Gaza, Israel finally exposed, for even the most deluded to see, the total bankruptcy of its very founding idea?

Can it be that the deluded are still deluded? Can it truly still be that Israel's bankruptcy is evident only to those who already knew it, those who already recognized Zionism as illegitimate for the racist principle that underlies it?

Gen. Clark told Amy Goodman that shortly after 9/11 he was shown a Pentagon "memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and, finishing off, Iran."

War propaganda glorifies military indoctrination as the highest form of patriotism while simultaneously demonizing the enemies of the state.

Cheney's speeches need a warning label: "**WARNING** The Vice President of the United States gives speeches peppered with violent vocabulary that may give you and your children nightmares for days."

The Los Angeles Police Department has a message for skid row residents: The 4th Amendment doesn't apply here. That's the constitutional protection from arbitrary searches, and L.A. police officers have been violating it since late last year by detaining, handcuffing and going through people's pockets and possessions on the slimmest pretenses.

It has been almost five years now since former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds first contacted the Senate Judiciary Committee to reveal the shocking tale of Turkish bribery of high-level U.S. officials. In that time span, Edmonds has been misled by members of Congress on several occasions: Numerous promises have been made to the whistleblower by the Senate Judiciary Committee that her allegations would be exposed in public hearings. Those promises have rung hollow.

"The president of Islamic Republic of
Iran intends to attend a U.N Security Council meeting to be held on Iran's nuclear case in order to defend the rights of the Iranian nation in exploiting peaceful nuclear energy".

Video -->

Oil services giant Halliburton Co. will soon shift its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Mideast financial powerhouse of Dubai, chief executive Dave Lesar announced Sunday.

"The administration has been almost pathological in trying to find ways to keep these people from ever seeing a real judge or a real lawyer," John Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, told the Associated Press, "and the reasons are obvious."

It's too bad I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is likely to be the only Bush-Cheney confidant prosecuted for an aversion to the truth. There are plenty of unindicted liars walking the halls of the Bush White House.

Former chief U-N weapons inspector Hans Blix says the Americans were "witch hunters" in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, looking for anything that backed up the case for war.

The Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) which advises the U.S. Bush administration is calling for the "erasure" of Canada by 2010. Quebec as it exists today, in relation to its civil code, and other francophone cultural protections, is also to be "transformed" by 2010 under Anglo-American control. The Stephen Harper government reportedly further confirmed the terms of this "erasure" in Cancun, Mexico, under secondary provisions of the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" (SPP).

Scholar says treason abounds in Canada and the U.S. over North American Union.

His submission to a commission of inquiry, leaked yesterday, contradicted the impression at the time that Israel was provoked into a battle for which it was ill-prepared.

Criticism from inquiry may force resignation.

"Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security". - Benjamin Franklin

'The little imperial gentleman from the north must be across the river by now. Let's send him a big shout: Gringo go home,' Chavez told thousands of people gathered at a football stadium on Friday night, prompting roars of 'Gringo go home'.

Photo-report

"They have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer" Winston Churchill wrote in 1937.

Haniya, who led the previous Hamas-dominated cabinet, said that the government would be put forward for a vote of confidence on March 17 in the Palestinian Legislative Council.

...the leaders agreed to cut the gas emissions by at least 20 percent from 1990 levels in the next 13 years. They set binding targets for renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and hydro power, to supply 20 percent of the union's power needs and for biofuels to be used in 10 percent of the bloc's road vehicles by 2020.

Harper's --> It was discovered that Abdul Tawala Ibn Alishtari, an indicted terrorist financier, gave more than $15,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

"We should always keep an eye on what the Canadians are doing with their immigration controls and their visa policies," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

A US official suggested Thursday that the disappearance of Iranian general Ali Rez Asgari was voluntary and orchestrated by Israel, according to a Washington Post report published Thursday.

DOUG THOMPSON --> It doesn't matter who controls Congress. Congress is a dead institution, ruled by timid legislators who no longer exercise any real role in the governing of this nation.

It doesn't matter what the Supreme Court may or may not do. The President of the United States has declared himself a "war time President" and granted himself dictatorial rights that no one in Congress or the Court appears able to successfully challenge him.

Part 1 and 2

...the estimate came from 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate US Professor Stiglitz (Columbia) and Professor Linda Bilmes (Harvard).

Assuming that "all men are created equal", the commercial accrual valuation of $6.5 million for each dead US soldier can be applied to 3.4 million post-invasion Asian dead in the 21st century Bush War on Terror i.e. $6.5 million / head x 3.4 million = $22.1 million million = $22.1 trillion.

Of course 300 million Americans are already up for a bill of $2.5 trillion i.e. $8,333 / head (the accrual cost of the Bush War on Terror). This Bill will add a further $73,667 / head for a grand total of $82,000 for every man, woman and child in America.

...the most serious effort to establish a dialogue since the Islamic militant group Hamas won Palestinian elections over a year ago.

...banners likening Bush to Adolf Hitler and warning him to keep his "hands off" Venezuela, while decrying any U.S.-Brazilian biofuels pact as a plot by Washington to grab Brazilian resources.

The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the US, a justice department audit found today.

According to the highly critical 126-page report, FBI agents sometimes demanded the information without proper authorisation and at times improperly obtained telephone records in circumstances that were not emergencies.

...some of the strongest evidence to date that the Israeli army is still using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

The European Union plans to restart high-level contacts with Syria by sending foreign policy chief Javier Solana to Damascus for talks on Lebanon and Middle East peace, Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said on Friday.

"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday.

Noam Chomsky --> Washington's escalation of threats against Iran is driven by a determination to secure control of the region's energy resources...

"This includes: restoring habeas corpus, narrowing the definition of 'unlawful enemy combatant' as defined in the Military Commissions Act, prohibiting evidence obtained under coercion, and affirming the Geneva Conventions."

Hamas and Fatah both support Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' bid to extend the cease-fire with Israel from Gaza to the West Bank, but Islamic Jihad does not agree, Haaretz has learned.

Valerie Plame, the CIA operative exposed after her husband criticized President Bush's march to war, will testify next week before lawmakers probing how the White House dealt with her identity, the chairman of the panel said Thursday.

"The trip is to remind people that we care." said Bush.

The president and his advisers also hoped his visit would offset the growing influence of leftist leaders, such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

Thousands of students, environmentalists and other protesters, some waving communist flags, gathered in the business district of South America's largest city ahead of Bush's arrival.

Violent clashes were taking place between police and masked protesters in the financial centre of Sao Paulo, the president's first stop.

To what extent protests flare across the region will be a gauge of how many share the Venezuelan leader's view that the White House is occupied by "the devil".

China on Thursday issued its annual Human Rights Record of the United States for 2006, accusing the U.S. of significant abuses.

The decision to deprive Iran of the aid projects was by consensus and was expected.

On Friday Obama gave a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Chicago.

Obama offered not a single word of criticism of Israel, of its relentless settlement and wall construction, of the closures that make life unlivable for millions of Palestinians.

Connecticut lawmakers unveiled legislation Wednesday that would require MySpace.com and other social-networking sites to verify users' ages and obtain parental consent before minors can post profiles.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki confirmed on Wednesday that his country would participate in the conference on Iraq scheduled for Saturday in Baghdad.

Attorneys for convicted former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby began working on a request for a new trial today as the Bush White House tried to knock down speculation about a possible pardon in the CIA leak case.

Slate Magazine --> Who changed the Patriot Act to make it easier to replace U.S. attorneys without oversight, and how did it happen with nobody looking?

Only the Polish prime minister and top Polish intelligence brass were told of the plan, in which agents of the United States quietly shuttled detainees from other holding facilities around the globe for stopovers and short-term interrogation in Poland between late 2002 and 2004.

Prime Minister Tony Blair told Poland's then-Prime Minister Leszek Miller to keep the information secret, even from his own government.

On the four-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, people all over the world will demonstrate - yet again - their continued opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And as George W. Bush attempts to spread the war beyond Iraq, the anti-war movement will raise the slogan, "Don't attack Iran!".

The rice is a major step in so-called Frankenstein Foods, the first mingling of human-origin genes and those from plants. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture has already signalled it plans to allow commercial cultivation.

The British media fought off court-ordered censorship Tuesday to report allegations that the Labor government was advised to doctor its account of events surrounding the alleged trading of peerages for campaign loans.

A former Iranian deputy defence minister and Revolutionary Guard general has disappeared in Istanbul, amid reports that he has defected to the west and counter-claims from Tehran that he has been abducted.

Israel responded cautiously Wednesday to a Palestinian offer for a complete cease-fire if Jerusalem supports an end to the international aid boycott imposed on the Palestinians following Hamas' victory in the January 2006 parliamentary elections.

In the raid, about 30 military vehicles surrounded the three-storey building in a residential neighbourhood in southern Ramallah.

Nine civilians, including four children, were killed in Afghanistan when US planes dropped two 2,000lb bombs on their mud home. Their deaths came after at least eight civilians were killed by US Marines a day earlier.

Thousands of terrified Indonesians were searching for shelter today after an earthquake killed at least 70 people and damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings on Sumatra island.

The 6.3-magnitude quake was centered 30 miles northeast of Padang, in West Sumatra.

If Israel agrees to persuade the international community not to boycott the new Palestinian unity government, the Palestinians "will offer a promise from Hamas and Fatah of a total cease-fire with Israel, including a complete halt to Qassam [rocket] fire and suicide bombings," a senior Hamas official told Haaretz on Tuesday.

Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service.

China has blocked LiveJournal to prevent bloggers from giving political commentary.

the Mumbai-based Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) has forced Discovery to cancel plans to air the documentary The Lost Tomb Of Jesus. As has already been reported by Indiantelevision.com, the programme claims to show that scientific analysis of limestone ossuaries (bone boxes) and physical evidence found in a 2,000-year-old tomb in Talpiot, Jerusalem, provide credible new information that the tomb once may have held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.

The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) has obtained a copy of an official complaint filed by a veteran FBI Special Agent, Gilbert Graham, with the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ-OIG). SA Graham’s protected disclosures report the violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in conducting electronic surveillance of high-profile U.S. public officials.

The New York Police Department has been going fishing. Not content to nab criminals when they break the law on their own, the department has been planting unattended bags in subway stations to see who might take them, at which point waiting officers pounce.
...220 people were arrested last year in the sting, known as Operation Lucky Bag.

An American doctor and her daughter were being treated in a Moscow hospital Tuesday after being poisoned late last month with thallium, a highly toxic metal with a history of use in both pesticides and murder, Russian officials said.

Dick Cheney has been diagnosed with a blood clot in his left leg, leading to speculation he will be forced to resign as U.S. Vice-President.

A group of Egyptian People's Assembly members (lower house of parliament) on Tuesday urged Israel to take actions to punish those involved in the alleged killing of Egyptian prisoners of war during the 1967 war.

Iran offered Tuesday to clear up suspicions about its disputed nuclear activities if the Security Council ends its "interference," in an apparent attempt to head off new sanctions for its refusal to freeze uranium enrichment.

Israel, Iran and the United States are the countries with the most negative image in a globe-spanning survey of attitudes toward 12 major nations, including India. Canada and Japan came out best in the poll, released today.

Once the closest adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of lying and obstructing a leak investigation that shook the top levels of the Bush administration.

A 78-year-old environmental activist and great-grandmother was given a 10-month prison sentence in B.C. Supreme Court Monday for criminal contempt of court.

A dozen supporters staged a sit-in protest at the B.C. Supreme Court registry on Smythe Street in downtown Vancouver, and another 50 people protested outside.

White House staffers directed two men serving as bouncers at a 2005 Denver appearance by President Bush to eject three activists from the public event, the bouncers said under oath today.

Supermarket checkout staff are being trained by the security services in how to detect potential terrorists. MI5 has been secretly advising food retailers, including Asda and Tesco, on how to identify extremist shoppers.

A White House privacy board is giving its stamp of approval to two of the Bush administration's controversial surveillance programs _ electronic eavesdropping and financial tracking _ and says they do not violate citizens' civil liberties.

Pre-emptive military strikes on Iran could accelerate rather than hinder Tehran's production of atomic weapons, a report by a British global security think-tank said.

Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (ret.), a veteran of the Pentagon with firsthand experience of the administration's cherry-picking of intelligence, reveals why Bush thinks he can win a war with Iran, why few politicians are serious about withdrawal and why "when they call Iraq a success, they mean it."

The US government had urged the court to reject the appeal saying that for national security reasons it could not confirm or deny any of the allegations because they were related to the activities of the CIA.

Even if you try to look past the eight-metre-high chain-link fence, beyond the scores of uniformed guards patrolling the perimeter and away from the cameras, metal detectors and lasers, there isn't the slightest evidence of children inside the T. Don Hutto Family Detention Center.

No one is playing outside; there are no sounds of laughter.

But inside the thick, whitewashed walls of this former maximum-security prison in the heart of Texas are about 170 children — including a nine-year-old Canadian boy named Kevin.

China will boost military spending by 17.8 per cent in 2007, a spokesman for the national legislature said, the biggest jump in more than a decade.

American troops opened fire on a highway filled with civilian cars and bystanders today.

Gul and a video cameraman working for AP Television News were taking pictures of a vehicle inside which four people had been shot to death, when a US soldier demanded that Gul delete his photos.

...said the world would be a safer place if the assassination attempt succeeded.

"...if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn’t be dying needlessly tomorrow."

"I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact."

An expert on Russian intelligence was critically injured in a shooting in front of his suburban Washington home, authorities said.

...days after he accused the Russian government of involvement in the poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.

The list of 12 names, which includes several newcomers, was presented to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

The Fatah movement of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, which will join Hamas in a new coalition government, has not yet completed its selection of ministerial candidates.

Britain's attorney-general obtained an injunction Friday to prevent the BBC from broadcasting fresh allegations in the cash-for-honors investigation.

So far, four people have been arrested in connection with the inquiry: Tony Blair's top fundraiser, Lord Levy; Downing Street aide Ruth Turner; biotech boss Sir Christopher Evans and former headteacher Des Smith.

About 3,000 protesters took to the streets of Copenhagen on Saturday, two days after police raided and closed a building that had been occupied by squatters for more than two decades.

The red brick building, known as the Youth House, had served over the years as living quarters for anarchists, leftists and others, a community theatre for the labour movement, and a culture and conference centre.

Demonstrators hurled Molotov cocktails and stones at police who fired tear gas in early morning clashes. At least 200 activists were detained in the clashes and subsequent police raids, bringing the total to some 600 in three days of violence.

The king of Saudi Arabia King Abdullah met with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Saturday, and the two have agreed to work together to fight sectarian violence in the Middle East.

Ahmadinejad said in Tehran early Sunday the two leaders had vowed to combat 'enemy plots' designed to divide the Muslim community.

Diplomats from the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany failed on Saturday to settle all their differences over a second UN sanctions resolution against Iran but remain committed to passing one soon, the United States said.

Police clubbed protesters and dragged them into waiting buses on Saturday in response to a defiant demonstration against the Kremlin in the heart of President Vladimir Putin's hometown.

Several thousand members of liberal and leftist groups chanted "Shame!" as they marched down St. Petersburg's main avenue to protest what they said was Russia's roll back from democracy. The demonstration, called the March of Those Who Disagree, was a rare gathering of the country's often fractious opposition.

The unit, code–named Task Force Orange, specializes in infiltrating foreign countries, tailing people and intercepting communications. Operatives have dug up fiber-optic telephone lines overseas and attached a listening device for the National Security Agency.

The task force features veteran warriors, intelligence officers and technical wizards who use electronic devices in innovative ways. It maintains its own fleet of airplanes at a Washington-area airport.

The leaked Home Office plans show that the mass fingerprinting will start in 2010.

This long interview with Clark includes many amazing comments and statements.

The Bush administration selected a design Friday for a new generation of atomic warheads, taking a major step toward building the first new nuclear weapon since the end of the Cold War nearly two decades ago.

GQ --> Resolved, that Richard B. Cheney, vice president of the United States, should be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that these articles of impeachment be submitted to the American people

The House measure, introduced yesterday, would overturn President Bush's 2001 executive order adding layers of review before presidential papers are made public. Historians and archivists say the order has kept thousands of documents from public view.

Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey abruptly stepped down Friday as the Bush administration struggled to cope with the fallout from a scandal over substandard conditions for wounded Iraq soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

"Many Western governments that claim to be pioneers of democracy and standard bearers of human rights close their eyes over crimes committed by the Zionists and by remaining silent support the Zionists due to their hedonistic and materialistic tendencies," the Iranian leader said.

This extraordinary aggressiveness toward the US Constitution, international law, and the Islamic world is the work, not of a vast movement, but of a handful of ideologues – principally Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, John Bolton, Philip Zelikow, and Attorney General Gonzales. These are the main operatives who have controlled policy. They have been supported by their media shills at the Weekly Standard, National Review, Fox News, New York Times, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page and by "scholars" in assorted think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute.

A House Judiciary subcommittee approved today the first in what is expected to be an avalanche of subpoenas to Bush administration officials. They will likely explore corruption and mismanagement allegations on everything from pre-war Iraq intelligence to the mishandling of the response to Hurricane Katrina.

If you would ask any American citizen what the Federal Reserve is, he probably would tell you that it is a government agency that creates all of the money to run the United States. This, unfortunately, is the misconception most American have: that the Federal Reserve is a government agency, probably because the word "Federal" is used in its name. And this is exactly what the Bankers want: ignorance among the population!

An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.