tagged w/ Bush Agenda
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http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/189/547/724/
Target: U.S. Congress
Sponsored by: United for a Fair Economy, UFE
"Let the Bush tax cuts that affect only the richest 2% of Americans expire on schedule at the end of the year. Congress needs to step up to the plate and make sure we don't continue one of the biggest economic injustices of the Bush era."
By the end of 2010, these tax cuts will cost our nation $2.5 trillion.
There is very little that so clearly demonstrates the callous venality of some members of Congress than the simultaneous demand to give Paris Hilton a tax cut while pushing benefit cuts to Social Security.
Tell Congress: Don't extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
There is simply no excuse for Congress to plead poverty when it comes to helping those in need while literally giving it away to those who don't need it.
Congress needs step up to the plate and make sure we don't continue one of the biggest economic injustices of the Bush era. Tell Congress: Don't extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
Make the wealthy pull their weight. Tell Congress to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in 2010.http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/189/547/724/
Target: U.S. Congress... more
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Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions
By John Perkins
In his first book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins told the story of his work as a highly paid consultant hired to strong-arm leaders into creating policy favorable to the US government and corporations, what he calls the "corporatocracy." John Perkins says he helped the US cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then taking over their economies.Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor... more
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Security officials and riot police engaged in violent clashes with demonstrators in Tehran today in what one reporter called an "unprecedented scene" in Iran in recent years.
NBC producer Ali Arouzi described the events on Saturday:
What started off as a small rally outside a pro-reformist newspaper swelled into a massive crowd of people chanting, "Death to the dictator, death to Ahmadinejad!"
Then, what started with a small amount of police pushing the crowd back turned into huge riot police in armored gear and motor bikes beating all the young students here with batons, knocking them back. The students responded by throwing stones, which the police then threw back. Now the police are coming off all the heart streets and main streets to try and disperse the crowd. But this is an unprecedented scene in Iran today.
Arouzi said that many of the demonstrators, afraid of reprisals, were wearing green scarves and surgical masks.
Asked if he believed the election results being reported by Iran's Interior Ministry, Arouzi sounded highly skeptical. "If you were in Tehran the last few days, you would think it impossible that Ahmadinejad won," he said. "Everybody we spoke to was a supporter of Mousavi."
He noted that Mousavi's supporters acknowledged that he was somewhat of a blank slate politically, but that the presidential election had become a referendum on Ahmadinejad.
Arouzi then described the protests in greater detail:
Initially, it was a peaceful demonstration. People were forming a human chain, saying they wanted their vote back... but the more the police came, the angrier the mob got. It became sort of a mob mentality here. Now the police have swelled in huge numbers. They are being very, very violent with the crowds.
Every young person I've spoken to here, I've asked them, 'do you think you coming out onto the streets is going to make a change?' They said, no, but we have to come out anyway if we want our voices to be heard, but they're sure this won't make a change.
Demonstrators have been injured. People have come up to us and they've shown us that their arms have been bruised, black eyes, broken noses, bloody heads. But they are fighting back as well. This is, I mean, I've been in Iran four years here and everything here has always been contained. Today we saw the demonstrators setting on the police. An hour ago, maybe 30, 40 demonstrators rushed the police, throwing stones at them. One of the policemen fell and they were kicking him in the head and some of his colleagues had to come and drag him away.Security officials and riot police engaged in violent clashes with demonstrators in... more
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Putting the squeeze on Israel's settlements
For over 40 years, US presidents have nodded and winked at Israeli settlement expansion. Not Barack Obama
Putting the squeeze on Israel's settlements
For over 40 years, US presidents have nodded and winked at Israeli settlement expansion. Not Barack Obama
Putting the squeeze on Israel's settlements
For over 40 years, US presidents have nodded and winked at Israeli settlement expansion. Not Barack Obama
Why do I get the impression that this is yet another example of the disappearing Palestinians? Why did Obama bother to have a meeting with Abbas if no one in the US media has any interest in anything he thinks? Admittedly, the Israelis have done their best to render Abbas impotent and politically irrelevant, which may explain part of the reason there was so little to report from this event.
At any rate, the same article did contain lots of interesting information – about the US approach to settlements. The Israelis are finding themselves like prey caught by a boa constrictor. Over time, there is less and less breathing room concerning settlements. Obama is shutting off every "out" that Israelis have been used to enjoying from previous administrations. For a peace advocate like myself, the process is a miracle to behold:
----------------Putting the squeeze on Israel's settlements
For over 40 years, US presidents... more
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White House takes swipe at British press over Daily Telegraph report
http://www.countercurrents.org/eley290509.htm
One can only react with horror. Contained in the stories and images of the torture of defenseless prisoners, some of them boys and women, is the true face of US imperialism, which finds no crime beneath its dignity in its effort to subjugate Iraq and Afghanistan.
White House takes swipe at British press over Daily Telegraph report
White House takes swipe at British press over Daily Telegraph report
Daniel Nasaw in Washington
guardian.co.uk,
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Gibbs twice more criticised the British press. "I think if you do an even moderate Google search, you're not going to find many of these newspapers and truth within, say, 25 words of each other," he said, adding, "I hate to lend any more credibility to nonfactual reports."
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The White House has taken a swipe at the British press in an effort to fend off questions about photographs that reportedly show US soldiers in Iraq raping and sexually abusing prisoners.
At the daily White House press briefing, spokesman Robert Gibbs was asked to comment on a report in yesterday's Telegraph that quoted a retired American general describing shocking details of photographs from US detention facilities in Iraq, which President Barack Obama has declined to release to the public.
"If I wanted to read a write-up today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League cup, I might open up a British newspaper," Gibbs said. "If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I'm not sure it would be the first stack of clips I picked up."
The Telegraph quoted retired Major General Antonio Taguba, who investigated abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, as saying that the unreleased photos "show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency" committed on prisoners in US custody.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Telegraph "completely mischaracterised the images", and said "none of the photos in question depict the images that are described in that article".
Gibbs twice more criticised the British press. "I think if you do an even moderate Google search, you're not going to find many of these newspapers and truth within, say, 25 words of each other," he said, adding, "I hate to lend any more credibility to nonfactual reports."White House takes swipe at British press over Daily Telegraph report... more
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Barack Obama – Mass Murderer
By Dan Spielberg
"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names"
~ Chinese Proverb
May 13, 2009 "Lew Rockwell" -- If you are a poor, hapless Afghan civilian whose family's bodies were ripped apart by U.S. bombs, does it really make a difference to you if the air "strikes" were ordered by the Moron from Texas, George W Bush, or the Agent of Change, Barack Obama? I would think not. If you were a Pakistani civilian whose village had been bombed by the U.S. would your heart be comforted by the fact that the mad bombers have a new, young, hip "Commander-in-Chief" who makes funny jokes to all the stenographers known as "The Washington Press Corps"? I sincerely doubt that as well.
Barack Obama sold himself to the country as someone who would bring massive "change" to the policies of the U.S. government, but of course when it comes to the favorite activity of that cancerous organism, warring against wholly innocent civilian populations in foreign countries, there will be no change. In fact, even the pleas of the President of the supposedly free and democratic country of Afghanistan are meaningless in the face of the U.S. government's desire to enforce its will on as much of the Earth as possible. I wonder if Americans would feel like they lived in a "free democracy" if the U.S. was occupied by a foreign military power that regularly killed our people and refused to stop? A power that calls refraining from murder as fighting with "one hand tied behind our back" as White House "National Security" Advisor James Jones recently did? I am pretty sure they emphatically would NOT.
This morning's news brings more information to us of "Barry's" latest slaughter, with at least 8 people in Pakistan dead, none of whom ever hurt a single innocent American. If they had hurt any U.S. soldiers in the region, that, of course, is wholly a result of the imperialists in Washington invading the region in the first place. To kill someone for defending themselves against aggression is the definition of tyrannical is it not? Or is the U.S. Government so holy, so infallible and morally upright that any who defy it are to be disposed of, like so much human garbage? Is a country that claims to be Christian really ready to accept the blasphemous idea that the U.S. Government is above any laws, even those of the God that the majority of Americans claim to believe in?
The Chinese proverb that opens this piece is true in all times and places, so let's call Mr. Obama by his real names: Wall Street Stooge, Zionist lickspittle, National Socialist, liar and above all, mass murderBarack Obama – Mass Murderer
By Dan Spielberg
"The beginning of... more
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[Editor's note: Ambassador Henry Morgenthau had been the President of the liberal Free Synagogue of New York for over a decade when he split with Rabbi Stephen Wise in 1919 over the issue of Zionism. This is an excerpt from an article he published in the journal World's Work in 1921, as quoted in the New York Times (italics added). Morgenthau was also an officer of the B'nai B'rith Jewish Masonic Lodge, which helps explain his viewpoint and choice of terminology.]
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A Stupendous Fallacy
Zionism is the most stupendous fallacy in Jewish history. I assert that it is wrong in principle and impossible of realization; that it is unsound in its economics, fantastical in its politics, and sterile in its spiritual ideals. Where it is not pathetically visionary, it is a cruel playing with the hopes of a people blindly seeking their way out of age-long miseries. These are bold and sweeping assertions, but I shall undertake to make them good.
The very fervor of my feeling for the oppressed of every race and every land, especially for the Jews, those of my own blood and faith, to whom I am bound by every tender tie, impels me to fight with all the greater force against this scheme, which my intelligence tells me can only lead them deeper into the mire of the past, while it professes to be leading them to the heights.
Zionism is a surrender, not a solution. It is a retrogression into the blackest error, and not progress toward the light. I will go further and say that it is a betrayal; it is an Eastern European proposal, fathered in this country by American Jews, which, if it were to succeed, would cost the Jews of America most [of all] that they have gained of liberty, equality and fraternity...[Editor's note: Ambassador Henry Morgenthau had been the President of the liberal... more
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Tortured To Death?
Tortured To Death?
US Interrogators Have Killed Dozens
By John Byrne
May 07, 2009 "Raw Story" -- -United States interrogators killed nearly four dozen detainees during or after their interrogations, according a report published by a human rights researcher based on a Human Rights First report and followup investigations.
In all, 98 detainees have died while in US hands. Thirty-four homicides have been identified, with at least eight detainees — and as many as 12 — having been tortured to death, according to a 2006 Human Rights First report that underwrites the researcher’s posting. The causes of 48 more deaths remain uncertain.
The researcher, John Sifton, worked for five years for Human Rights Watch. In a posting Tuesday, he documents myriad cases of detainees who died at the hands of their US interrogators. Some of the instances he cites are graphic.
Most of those taken captive were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. They include at least one Afghani soldier, Jamal Naseer, who was mistakenly arrested in 2004. “Those arrested with Naseer later said that during interrogations U.S. personnel punched and kicked them, hung them upside down, and hit them with sticks or cables,” Sifton writes. “Some said they were doused with cold water and forced to lie in the snow. Nasser collapsed about two weeks after the arrest, complaining of stomach pain, probably an internal hemorrhage.”
Another Afghan killing occurred in 2002. Mohammad Sayari was killed by four U.S. servicemembers after being detained for allegedly “following their movements.” A Pentagon document obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2005 said that the Defense Department found a captain and three sergeants had “murdered” Sayari, but the section dealing with the department’s probe was redacted.Tortured To Death?
Tortured To Death?
US Interrogators Have Killed Dozens... more
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5 No-Nonsense Traveler's Tips for Tipping
By Doug Stallings
Fodor's Editor
The first time I traveled to Europe, I fretted about how tipping worked (of course I didn't bother to consult a guidebook or do any research first). And I'm always surprised at how much people worry about tipping practices, especially when they travel abroad. In a way, it's amusing since Americans are generally considered to be the most generous tippers in the world (and of Americans, New Yorkers are generally considered to be the most generous).
The first (and most important) piece of advice that I can give anyone about tipping is that you absolutely have to do your homework. So many people just set off on a trip without learning anything about the place. Why would you not want to know what people expect in terms of tipping? Just remember to do your homework and it will all become less stressful.
Five Simple Rules to Help You Be a Better Tipper
1. The magic number is 15. One simple number that will get you far almost anywhere in the world: 15, as in 15%. In almost any situation, if there's no service charge, a tip of 15% will work. It might also be considered exceedingly generous, so check on the norm in your destination. True, in major cities in the U.S. that number is edging up, so 18% is considered the baseline in New York for a reasonable tip, but almost anywhere in the world you won't be spat upon or called dirty words if you tip simply 15% (assuming there's no service charge).
2. The other magic number is 1. That's $1, or rather the equivalent to $1 in the country where you are traveling. This is the amount you give when someone does something for you. So if you are in India, 50 rupees will work for a bellman; in Europe, 1 euro will work; in Britain, it's a pound (remember that everything in Britain costs 1.5 times as much as in the U.S.); in Thailand, it's 50 baht; in Egypt, it's about 5 Egyptian pounds Round up where necessary and where it helps you find a suitable coin or bill for the task.5 No-Nonsense Traveler's Tips for Tipping
By Doug Stallings
Fodor's... more
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the Spanish National Court’s decision to continue investigating suspected Israeli war criminals is welcomed
The victims and their legal team have placed their trust in the criminal justice system, believing that this is the only mechanism whereby accountability can be pursued and Israel’s impunity combated. Judge Fernando Andreu’s judgment indicates that, even in the face of considerable political pressure – including statements made by the Spanish Foreign Minister Moratinos – this trust in the rule of law is justified. This decision confirms the credibility and independence of the Spanish Courts.
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On 22 July 2002, at approximately 11:55 pm, an Israeli Air Force F16 fighter jet dropped a 985 kilogramme bomb on a three-storey apartment building. The attack was intended to kill Salah Shehade, the suspected leader of the Izzidin al-Qassam Brigade, Hamas’ military wing. The apartment building was located within the densely populated Al Daraj district, a residential neighbourhood in Gaza City. At the time of the attack, Shehade was on the upper floor of the building. As a result of the blast impact, eight other adjoining and nearby apartment buildings were completely destroyed, nine were partially destroyed, and another 21 sustained considerable damage. Excluding Shehade and his guard, a total of 14 civilians were killed, including eight children. Approximately 150 civilians were injured.
Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) officials have acknowledged that they decided to drop the bomb on Shehadeh’s house knowing his wife was with him, intentionally killing her as well.the Spanish National Court’s decision to continue investigating suspected... more
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Israel ...Did You say You did not committ War crimes in Gaza?
Israel ...Did You say You did not committ War crimes in Gaza?
Israel ...Did You say You did not committ War crimes in Gaza?
Photo courtesy of National Lawyers Guild
Muhammed Shurrab holds photos of his murdered sons
A Vermont attorney who visited the Gaza Strip in February to investigate allegations of Israeli war crimes, including two Middlebury College-connected shooting deaths, rejected Israel’s recent exoneration of its conduct, saying the investigation was “lacking in credibility.”
In February, James Marc Leas of South Burlington traveled to Gaza as part of an eight-member legal delegation from the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) to investigate why Israel’s invasion had such a devastating impact on the civilian population.
On November 4, Israel invaded the Palestinian-controlled territory, which it claimed was necessary to halt Hamas rocket attacks on nearby Israeli towns and settlements. During the 22-day offensive, dubbed “Operation Cast Lead,” more than 1400 Palestinians were killed, including at least 288 children. More than 5300 were wounded. Two-thirds of the Palestinian casualties were noncombatants. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, died; another 518 Israelis were wounded.
Among the Palestinian civilians gunned down were two brothers of Amer Shurrab, a 2008 graduate of Middlebury College. Senator Patrick Leahy condemned the killings and called on the Israeli government to investigate.
According to a January 28 statement issued by Sen. Leahy, Shurrab’s father, Muhammed, and two brothers, Kassab, 28, and Ibrahim, 18, were driving home from their family farm on January 16 during a three-hour humanitarian ceasefire. The reprieve was to allow civilians to restock food, water and other provisions.
There was no indication that Shurrab’s family was traveling on a road considered unsafe to civilians. Nevertheless, members of the Israeli Defense Forces opened fire on the family’s vehicle in an unprovoked attack, wounding all three occupants.
Shurrab’s older brother, Kassab, leapt from the car in a panic and was shot 18 times. Shurrab’s father and other brother, Ibrahim, were also injured, but were prevented by Israeli soldiers from accessing medical attention, even though there was a hospital less than a mile away.
“Muhammed tried everything he could to save his son, Ibrahim, who was bleeding to death before his eyes,” Leahy said in his statement. The father called the Palestinian Red Crescent Societ..........Israel ...Did You say You did not committ War crimes in Gaza?
Israel ...Did... more
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US aid to Israel violates US laws
US aid to Israel, and the way in which this aid is used, frequently violates US law, policy and interests.
Under US policy, financial aid to Israel should not be spent by Israel in the Occupied Territories. But Israel spends US aid with impunity.
The US has a number of laws regulating foreign military aid and weapons’ exports. The 1961 Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) states that “No assistance [ought to be given] to countries that violate human rights”. But Israel systematically violates human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The 1976 US Arms Export Control Act (AECA) states that “Weapons purchased from the US should only be used for legitimate self-defense”. But since September 2000 the Israeli military has killed more than 3,354 Palestinian civilians (as of 8 August 2007).US aid to Israel violates US laws
US aid to Israel, and the way in which this aid... more
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China's President Hu Jintao has warned of the effects of the global financial crisis on his country.
Mr Hu gave his warning at a meeting of the Politburo and his words have been made public by the state media.
As growth slows, Mr Hu said that in the coming period China would starkly confront the effects of the international financial crisis.
And he warned that the economic situation was a test of the Communist Party's ability to govern.
Recent figures show that the government has cause to be worried.
Growth has slowed to 9% - and predictions say that it may drop to 7% or 8% next year.
These are dazzling figures for some economies, but there's a widespread belief - even a superstition - in China that growth needs to stay above 7% in order for social stability to be maintained.
China has already taken action.
This past week the central bank carried out the biggest cut in interest rates in more than a decade.China's President Hu Jintao has warned of the effects of the global financial... more
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HAVANA – Russia's president met with revolutionary icon Fidel Castro on Friday, discussing Guantanamo Bay and hopes for a multipolar world with Cuba's former leader during a tour of Latin America aimed at raising Moscow's presence in the region.
Dmitry Medvedev spent hours talking and sightseeing with President Raul Castro before meeting privately with his 82-year-old older brother.
Medvedev said he was happy with his visit when he left the island Friday evening on a flight from the beach resort of Varadero east of Havana, Cuba's Prensa Latina news agency reported.
"We have defined what we are going to do next, we have cleared up everything regarding credits, and in Russia we will await President Raul Castro's visit," Prensa Latina quoted the Russian president as saying. The news agency offered no details about what had been defined and cleared up.
In an essay released hours after the meeting with Russia's president, Fidel Castro wrote that he emphasized to Medvedev Cuba's demand for the return of "up to the last square meter" of land occupied by the U.S. military base at Guantanamo.
"No country could understand that policy better than Russia, constantly threatened by the same adversary of peace," Castro added, referring to U.S. plans to build a missile-defense system in Europe.
In the essay, which appeared in the government Web site Cubadebate, the older Castro said he and Medvedev also discussed the need for a "multipolar world."
Earlier Friday, Medvedev and Raul Castro laid a wreath at a monument to Soviet soldiers who died while serving in Cuba in the early 1960s, a symbol of Cuba's once-prominent part in the communist bloc and the history of its ties to Russia.
Russian officials deny that Medvedev's four-nation trip is meant to provoke the United States, but the chat with Fidel Castro capped meetings with Washington's staunchest opponents in the region.
Medvedev toured a visiting Russian warship on Thursday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and earlier met with Bolivia's Evo Morales and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, saying Russia might participate in a socialist trade bloc founded by Chavez and Cuba.
Medvedev also signed deals with Brazil and Peru, part of an effort to strengthen Russia's political, economic and military connections across a region long dominated by U.S. influence.
"We visited states that no Russian leader, and no Soviet leader, ever visited," he told reporters. "his means one thing: that attention simply was not paid to these countries."
Medvedev's Latin America tour is in some ways a response to U.S. moves in eastern Europe, where Russia sees its own security threatened by U.S. plans to build a missile-defense system in former Soviet satellite states.
Medvedev said he and Raul Castro had discussed economic and "military-technical cooperation" — apparently arms sales — "as well as security and regional cooperation."
Raul Castro, 77, served as Cuba's defense minister for nearly five decades, working alongside Soviet military officials. A steadfast communist, he often visited the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union was Cuba's chief source of aid and trade until it disintegrated in 1991 and Cuba's relations with the Russian Federation soured — though Havana's streets still echo with the clatter of Russian-built trucks and cars.
contHAVANA – Russia's president met with revolutionary icon Fidel Castro on... more
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Karzai's comments came late Tuesday in a speech to a U.N. Security Council delegation visiting Kabul, the capital, this week. He accused the international community of failing "to fight the Taliban properly" since the U.S.-led war in the country began in 2001.
"This war has gone on for seven years. The Afghans don't understand anymore how come a little force like the Taliban can continue to exist, can continue to flourish, can continue to launch attacks with 40 countries in Afghanistan, with entire NATO force in Afghanistan, with the entire international community behind them," Karzai said. "Still we are not able to defeat the Taliban."
Karzai spoke days after U.S. President-elect Barack Obama promised to put greater emphasis on security in Afghanistan next year. The two men talked for the first time by phone last week.
Karzai, whose five-year term ends next year, has become increasingly critical of the international community. He has complained bitterly about mounting civilian casualties caused by U.S.-led airstrikes in Afghanistan and has called for a halt to NATO raids on Afghan villages. In recent weeks, he has become more forceful in his calls for negotiations with the Taliban, saying he would guarantee safe passage to Taliban leader Mohammad Omar if he agreed to talks with the government.
"If there is no deadline, we have the right to find another solution for peace and security, which is negotiations," Karzai said.
Karzai, who was elected in 2004 after serving as interim president following the fall of the Taliban in 2002, is facing stiff political competition ahead of the presidential election set for September. With insurgents and criminal groups in control of parts of the country, his political foes have seized on the failure to effectively counter the threat, with some calling for an earlier election.
According to the constitution, the presidential election must be held 30 to 60 days before the end of the incumbent's term. Karzai's term ends April 22. But the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan decided this year to delay the vote by six months because harsh winter weather and a lack of security would make it difficult to organize polls in remote provinces.Karzai's comments came late Tuesday in a speech to a U.N. Security Council... more
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The Iraqi parliament has voted to accept a deal on the future presence of US troops in the country.
The decision, praised by US President George Bush, means US troops will leave Iraqi streets by mid-2009 and will quit Iraq entirely by the end of 2011.
The agreement is the result of a year of negotiations with the US, with the Iraqis requesting several changes.
Some groups fiercely opposed the pact in parliament and at mass rallies, demanding that US troops leave earlier.
Iraq's Presidential Council must still ratify the deal but its approval is expected.
Iraq's government has hailed the parliamentary session as the prelude to the return of full sovereignty to the country.
After last-minute negotiations that had delayed the vote for a day, MPs passed it on one significant condition: that a referendum is held on the pact in the middle of next year.
If that fails to endorse the withdrawal plan, US troops may have to leave earlier, possibly by the middle of 2010, our correspondent says.The Iraqi parliament has voted to accept a deal on the future presence of US troops in... more
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The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has warned of a "severe" economic downturn in the UK in 2009.
The Paris-based body has predicted that economic output in the UK will fall by 1.1% next year, more than any other major G7 country.
The US economy is forecast to decline by 0.9% in 2009, and Germany by 0.8%.
Economic growth in the 30 countries of the OECD is forecast to fall by 0.4%, before growing by 1.5% in 2010.
As well as the UK, the OECD identifies Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Spain and Turkey as being the countries most affected by the economic slowdown.
"These economies are most directly affected by the financial crisis, which in some cases exposed other vulnerabilities, or by severe housing downturns," it says.
In the pre-Budget report, the chancellor accepted that the UK economy would decline by 0.75% to 1.25% next year, but said that the UK was "better placed" than other countries to cope with the downturn.
The OECD warns that any recovery in the US is likely to be "languid" as consumption is held back by the large losses in household wealth.
And it says that the risks are still on the downside, suggesting that economic conditions could worsen significantly.The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has warned of a... more
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AKHMAJI, Georgia – Russia's foreign minister has suggested that Georgia's U.S.-backed government staged a shooting incident near a motorcade carrying the presidents of Poland and Georgia in order to discredit Russia and South Ossetia.
The shooting late Sunday stoked anger months after Georgia and Russia fought a brief war over the separatist region of South Ossetia. The August conflict worsened Moscow's relations with the West.
It also left South Ossetia entirely under the control of separatist forces and Russian troops. Before the war, Georgian forces held parts of South Ossetia.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has blamed Russian troops for the gunfire that broke out as he and Polish President Lech Kaczynski were traveling near a roadblock at the edge of South Ossetia.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has blamed Russian troops for the gunfire that broke out as he and Polish President Lech Kaczynski were traveling near a roadblock at the edge of South Ossetia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there was no gunfire from Russian or South Ossetian positions, and he suggested Georgia engineered the incident to discredit Russia and South Ossetia, Russian news agencies reported.
"This is a provocation, clearly," Interfax quoted Lavrov as saying late Sunday in Peru, where he was accompanying President Dmitry Medvedev. "It's not the first time something like this has happened: They organize everything themselves and then blame the Russian or Ossetian side."
Russia and Georgia have accused each other of starting the August war, which began with a Georgian artillery barrage on the South Ossetian capital.
Georgia says the assault was prompted by Russia sending a massive troop contingent into South Ossetia. But Russia denies that and in turn accuses Georgia of a brutal action targeting civilians.
"Georgia's authorities thought it possible to resolve this country's territorial integrity problem by using Stalin's principle that is well known in our country: 'no man, no problem'," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday.
cont...AKHMAJI, Georgia – Russia's foreign minister has suggested that... more
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CHICAGO – Citing an "economic crisis of historic proportions," President-elect Barack Obama urged Congress to pass a costly, job-creating stimulus bill as quickly as possible, a rare pre-inaugural call to action delivered as the outgoing Bush administration approved fresh billions to bail out one of the nation's largest banks.
Stock prices surged — the biggest two-day percentage gain for the Dow Jones industrials in 21 years — as investors took heart Monday from the actions and words of the incoming and departing chief executives.
"If we do not act swiftly and boldly, most experts now believe that we could lose millions of jobs next year," said Obama, 57 days shy of taking office in the shadow of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
He blended criticism of Detroit's beleaguered Big Three automakers — General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC — with a pledge of support for government aid to help them survive. "We can't allow the auto industry to ... vanish," he said, although he added that a blank check for an industry resistant to change was not the solution to its long-term decline.
CONT....CHICAGO – Citing an "economic crisis of historic proportions,"... more
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Under the Constitution, the president's power to issue pardons is absolute and cannot be overruled.
WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush has granted pardons to 14 individuals and commuted the prison sentences of two others convicted of misdeeds ranging from drug offenses to tax evasion, from wildlife violations to bank embezzlement, The Associated Press learned Monday.
The new round of White House pardons are Bush's first since March and come less than two months before he will end his presidency. The crimes committed by those on the list also include offenses involving hazardous waste, food stamps, and the theft of government property.
Bush has been stingy during his time in office about handing out such reprieves.
Including these actions, he has granted a total of 171 and eight commutations. That's less than half as many as Presidents Clinton or Reagan issued during their time in office. Both were two-term presidents.
On the latest pardon list were:
_Leslie Owen Collier of Charleston, Mo. She was convicted for unauthorized use of a pesticide and violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
_Milton Kirk Cordes of Rapid City, S.D. Cordes was convicted of conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act, which prohibits importation into the country of wildlife taken in violation of conservation laws.
the list cont....with some higher crimesUnder the Constitution, the president's power to issue pardons is absolute and... more
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