Earlier this month, Reuters revealed that a special division within the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been using intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a mass database of telephone records to secretly identify targets for drug enforcement actions. In the wake of these revelations, a former prosecutor tells IPS he believes he and his colleagues …
Continue reading “Spying Scandal Engulfs Other U.S. Agencies”
Overall, at least 54 people were killed and 77 were wounded across Iraq. With the possible exception of two suicide attacks in Ramadi, today’s violence appears to be uncoordinated. Also, the Iraqi government continued a very controversial program targeting militants in predominantly Sunni regions of Iraq.
Bradley Manning, the army private whose leaks of classified information and subsequent prosecution have been the subject of fierce international debate for over three years, was sentenced to 35 years in military prison Wednesday, but his legal team and supporters say they will fight the sentence. “It’s tragic,” Nathan Fuller of the Bradley Manning Support …
Continue reading “Manning Supporters Vow to Fight 35-Year Sentence”
As in El Salvador, Nicaragua, East Timor, Angola, Lebanon, and Gaza in previous years, the massive killing of civilians in Egypt is being done with U.S.-provided weapons by a U.S.-backed government. As a result, the Obama administration and Congress are morally culpable for the unfolding tragedy. While the apparent decision to suspend some military aid …
Continue reading “Washington and the Egyptian Tragedy”
If there should happen to be an al-Qaeda attack in Calhoun County Alabama, Sheriff Larry Amerson will presumably know what to do. That is because he and a number of colleagues in law enforcement have received paid trips to Israel to learn how to deal with the terrorist threat. The Washington-based Jewish Institute for National …
Continue reading “Homeland Security Made in Israel”
Although no major bombings took place, the usual background violence took at least 16 lives. At least 36 were also wounded. In northern Iraq a shrine and a pipeline were bombed in separate attacks, but no causalities were reported.
A true cynic would question the timing of Middle East-wide U.S. embassy closings and a barrage of drone attacks in Yemen when the Obama administration is defending its intrusive spying on Americans after exposure by an intelligence agency contractor. Although in May, President Obama told us that he would wind down the war against Al …
Continue reading “Obama Seems Unable To Limit the Counterproductive U.S. War on Terror”
The detention of Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, at Heathrow airport by British "security" thugs has unleashed a media storm, and a political one as well. It has also caused the editor of the Guardian, where Greenwald has been reporting on NSA leaker Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass government spying, to make some …
Continue reading “Rue Britannia”
Churches across Egypt are being attacked heavily following the brutal killing last week of supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. The Coptic Christians rights group Maspero Youth Union estimates that as many as 38 churches have been “completely” devastated by fires across nine governorates since Aug. 14. Many others have been looted or stormed. …
Continue reading “As Egypt Smoulders, Churches Burn”
At least 62 people were killed and 148 more were wounded. Meanwhile, controversial raids on predominantly Sunni region continued.
