North Korean Missile Test: Another Red Herring

The media flap over North Korea's test launches of missiles is another red herring tossed out by the Bush administration to distract the public from its disastrous policies, both foreign and economic. As I keep pointing out, the intercontinental missiles armed with...

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Independence Carries a Heavy Price

On Jun. 28, IPS reporter Alaa Hassan was ambushed and shot six times as he drove to work in Baghdad, bringing to 75 the number of reporters who have been killed while working in the country since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The figure quoted by the...

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50,000 Dead, But Who’s Counting?

UNITED NATIONS - After famously telling reporters that they "don't do body counts," Pentagon officials now say that they have in fact been keeping a record of civilian casualties in Iraq for one year. And while that number remains classified, independent...

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Growing Calls for US to Step Into Mideast Mess

Amid worsening violence between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli military in Gaza, calls are mounting here for the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to take a stronger role in ending the escalating conflict. Aside from calling for the unconditional...

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Kim’s Rockets Clear the Air

That free fireworks display Kim Jong-Il put on for our benefit on July Fourth may prove to have been the best day George Bush has had since Zarqawi went to his eternal reward. For years, Bush has been trying to persuade world opinion that Kim is a psycho who...

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Hegemonic Tyrant Courts Doom

Finding itself in Republican sights and with no Democratic power center to offer protection, National Public Radio is turning into an upscale version of Fox "News." Nevertheless, information still gets out if the listener is sufficiently attentive. On July...

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It’s Baaack!

Polls have consistently shown that, being the macho folks we apparently are, Americans don't care if the U.S. government listens in on our phone conversations, spies on our e-mails, and/or secretly black-bags our domiciles, frames some of us, and now, peeks over our...

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A Story Left Incomplete

Alaa Hassan never lived to see publication of the last story he had filed. It got caught for a while, as stories sometimes are, in that no-man's land between what a correspondent could reasonably get, and what an editor would really like. The two do not often converge...

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What Does North Korea Want?

As of this writing, North Korea continues to fire test missiles in a barrage of defiance aimed at the U.S. and its regional allies, belligerently declaring its right to do so and threatening anyone who stands in its way with unspecified "physical" harm....

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Requiem for Bush’s Unipolar Dream?

A week before the Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, U.S. President George W. Bush finds his power and authority – both at home and abroad – at their lowest ebb. With his approval ratings falling back into the cellar after a brief bounce...

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