News For September 28, 2010

UN Fact-Finding Mission Says
Israelis "Executed" US Citizen Furkan Dogan:

By Gareth Porter

Dogan had apparently been "lying on the deck in a conscious or semi-conscious, state for some time" before being shot in his face. Continue

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Sitting on the Evidence:
Obama Administration Silent on Israeli Murder of 19-Year-Old American

By Dave Lindorff and Linn Washington

Murder is murder, and terror is terror, you might think. But when terror is committed against an American citizen by the state of Israel the response from the US government is not protest, and it is surely not to demand justice, much less seek vengeance. It is silence. Continue

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Obama Edges To The Dark Side

By Mark LeVine

President Obama has essentially continued almost every major Bush security policy, either by default or design. State secrets, targeted killings, renditions and indefinite detention, opposing the right of habeas corpus, preventing victims of admitted torture from seeking judicial redress, expanding the Afghan war. Continue

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Americans Living in a Police State?

Interview With Paul Craig Roberts

The US government is establishing in the mind of the public that anyone who criticizes the War on Terror is aligned with terrorists. Continue

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Will They Raid My Home For Writing This?

By Mary Shaw

It's like McCarthyism all over again. Continue

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What if Everyone Had Medicare?

By Henry Abrons

Replacing our dysfunctional patchwork of private health insurers with a single, streamlined system of financing, would save about $400 billion annually in unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy. That's enough to cover all of those now uninsured and to provide every person in the United States with quality, comprehensive coverage. Continue

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Income Gap Widens:
Census Finds Record Gap Between Rich And Poor

By HOPE YEN

The U.S. also has the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations. Continue

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Unauthorized US attacks kill 9 in Pakistan: At least nine people have been killed and several others wounded in Pakistan in two separate non-UN-sanctioned cross border attacks by US troops.

Honest outrage or sick joke? Pakistan furious over Nato cross-border Taliban raids: Pakistan's foreign ministry condemned the incursions as a "clear violation and breach of the UN mandate under which Isaf operates", saying it had made a formal protest to Nato. "In the absence of immediate corrective measures, Pakistan will be constrained to consider response options," said Abdul Basit, the foreign ministry spokesman.

US general warns Pak of entering its land to stop terror: A top US military commander has warned the Pakistan army that America could launch ground operations in the tribal areas, if Islamabad refused to dismantle the militant network in North Waziristan. The New York Times (NYT) reports the warning by General David H Petraeus

Kayani a liar, don't trust him: former CIA official: Pakistan's powerful army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, long considered a close ally by America, is now thought by President Barack Obama's aides to be stonewalling Washington's call for decisive action against terrorists' safe havens in the country's turbulent tribal belt.

Obama, Bush, and the Judicious Use of Hellfire Missiles: Much has changed since the Bush administration left office. Two years ago, the CIA was worrying about legal issues surrounding the killing of Americans at an alleged terrorist training camp in Pakistan. Now the Obama administration has apparently put American citizens on a "targeted killing" list.

Pakistan government to fall?: . It's high noon in Pakistan and the showdown, due in the supreme court on October 13, is putting immense pressure on the government.

Suicide bomb kills 6 Afghans including vice-governor : A suicide bomber on a motorised rickshaw killed the deputy governor of Afghanistan's Ghazni province and five others on Tuesday, the area's police chief said, the latest assassination of a government official.

US soldier admits gruesome killing of Afghan civilians: One of five US soldiers charged with premeditated murder described his unit leader as ordering the gruesome death of unarmed Afghan civilians in a military interrogation video obtained by US media on Monday.

Karzai sets up body for peace talks: Afghan president announces 68-member 'high council for peace' for holding talks with Taliban and other armed groups.

Report: 2 US occupation force soldiers killed by third in Iraq: A newspaper is reporting that a Northern California soldier and an Army private from Connecticut were killed by a fellow service member in Iraq.

Con game: Settlement freeze? It was barely a slowdown: The official statistics supplied by the Central Bureau of Statistics describe the story behind the 10-month construction moratorium in the West Bank. The story can be called many things but "freeze" is certainly not one of them.

Abbas: Settlement construction will 'force' us to quit talks: "Of course we don't want to end negotiations, we want to continue. But if colonization continues we will be forced to end them," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Europe 1 radio.

Netanyahu disowns minister's speech: Lieberman told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement would take "decades", and dismissed current talks between the two sides as unrealistic.

Ethnic cleansing : Lieberman presents plans for population exchange at UN: Controversial scheme would see part of Israel's Arab population moved to a newly created Palestinian state, in return for evacuation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Israel commandos board Jewish Gaza-bound aid boat: Before boarding, the navy transmitted two warnings to the boat, which refused to turn back and sailed further into the blockade area, the IDF said.

UN panel: Israel suppressing footage of Gaza flotilla raid: Karl T. Hudson-Phillips, a former judge on the International Criminal Court, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that Israel appeared to be trying to control information and to maintain monopoly over information on what had happened.

CIA seeks to gag critics of terror hit list: THE Obama Administration is trying to use national security laws to pre-empt an embarrassing court case over its targeted assassinations of terror suspects.

Government Seeks Back Door Into All Our Communications: The Obama administration is drafting a law that would impose a new "mandate" that all communications services be "able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages" — including ordering "[d]evelopers of software that enables peer-to-peer communication [to] redesign their service to allow interception".

D.C. turns to GPS to monitor young criminals: The District's juvenile justice agency is piloting a program that puts global positioning system devices on the ankles of the young criminals it releases into the community.

World gripped by 'international currency war': Brazilian finance minister Guido Mantega speaks out against devaluations: Economists fear increasing currency volatility and instability

Ireland May Think the ‘Unthinkable’ on Anglo, Evolution Says: The government has consistently said it won’t let the nationalized lender default on 16.5 billion euros ($22 billion) of senior bonds as the bank’s securities plunged. Moody’s Investors Service yesterday lowered its rating on the senior unguaranteed debt of the Dublin-based bank.

Unclaimed corpses raise body counts at Greensboro hospital: A hospital in Greensboro has seen unclaimed bodies stack up because family members can’t afford to pay burial costs.