Politics

Pakistani Christian Girl Burnt Alive After Rape By Muslim Employer

LAHORE -- A Christian girl working as housemaid was raped by son her Muslim employer and on her threats to report police was burnt by rapist and his sister in city of Sheikhupura in Punjab province of Pakistan. Kiran George was 80% burnt when Mohammad Ahmad Raza and his sister threw petrol on her and set her on fire to keep her mouth shut to report rape. Kiran George was brought to Mayo Hospital Lahore from Sheikhupura on March 9, 2010, where she recorded her statement to police that Mohammad Ahmed Raza raped her in his home during work. She died here in Mayo Hospital Lahore today and her dead body was taken back to her home in Jahangirabad colony in Sheipkupura.
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Christian Gunned Down in Iraq's Mosul

A Christian shopkeeper was gunned down on Wednesday in the main northern Iraqi city of Mosul, where eight members of the minority were killed in 10 days last month, a police officer said. "Unknown armed men driving an unmarked car killed Sabah Gurgis while he was on his way to work this morning," police Major Khalid Mahmud said. "One of the men opened fire on him before escaping." Gurgis, 54, owned a shop selling spectacles close to his home in the centre of Mosul, Mahmud said. Between February 14 and 23, eight Christians were killed in and around Mosul, sparking protests in Baghdad and the northern city involving hundreds of Christians, who accused the government and security forces of inaction.
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British Court: Christian's Stand Against Homosexuality 'Not Important'

The U.K. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by a Christian registrar forced by her employers to perform homosex "marriage" ceremonies, saying the case does not raise issues of "general public importance." Lillian Ladele said she is "disappointed" and feels her religious rights have been "trampled by another set of rights," according to a report by the Christian Institute. She is now considering taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights. Ladele had been a registrar for 16 years for London's Islington City Council. But when she refused to perform a homosexual civil union due to her religious beliefs, her employers threatened her with dismissal and purportedly passed confidential employment details about her to a staff LGBT forum.
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Christian-Muslim Clash In Egypt Injures 24

At least 24 people were hurt in the fighting in Marsa Matrouh governorate, including women and children, security sources said. The dispute broke out after Coptic Christian villagers built a fence around land next to a church-run building, the state news agency MENA reported. Hussein Fekry, head of security at the governorate, said Muslim residents of the village objected to the fence which blocked a main road. "Security was able to control fires that erupted in three homes and two cars," state governor Ahmed Hussein told Egyptian television. The Marsa Matrouh governor asked the priest of El Shahedeen church to remove the fence MENA said. Relations between Egypt's Muslims and Christians, mainly Copts, are usually calm but can become strained and sometimes erupt into violence over issues such as inter-faith relationships and land.
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Muslim Teacher Sexually Abuses Christian Children

CAIRO -- A scandal was uncovered this week at an Upper Egyptian elementary girl's school, where a Muslim teacher has been sexually assaulting Christian Coptic children. Copts are enraged due to the impunity with which the State Security authorities have dealt with these crimes. The last incident took place on Tuesday 3/3/2010 in the Helwa Girl's Elementary School, when Arabic teacher Hany Taha, lured 11-years-old Hanan Adel Aziz to the school's lower ground floor and dragged her into the washroom. She was later rescued by another Muslim teacher when he heard her distressed screams. The village of Helwa lies in the district of Matai, 200 km south of Cairo, in the Minya Governorate.
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Killing of Christian Girls Shazia and Kiran During International Women's Day Are Sad Incidents

HOLLAND -- Mrs. Shareen Azeem, Chairman, Women wing of Worship Warriors Netherlands in an exclusive interview to Pakistan Christian Post showed her grieves and sadness on repeated incidents with Christian Women specially Shazia Bashir (Minor Girl) and Kiran George who burnt alive very recent past in Pakistan. Mrs. Shareen mentioned, its really heartbreaking that an innocent daughters of Eve are killed and murdered even daily and no one is there to fight for their rights practically. It has been observed that everyone is doing as their job as time being or to show up but no practical steps have been taken by the Police, Government, Judiciary, NGOs, Society to bring the murderers and accused not only to true justice but also to avoid such incidents in future.
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Israel Can No Longer Hide Its True Colours

Linda S. Heard / Online Journal
International opinion is finally waking up to the more unpleasant realities of the Jewish state. The change in people’s perceptions may be subtle but it is happening. Its carefully orchestrated ‘poor little Israel’ narrative no longer holds water. Inconvenient truths keep getting in the way. For instance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is known to have no interest in pursuing an equitable two-state solution that involves relinquishing occupied territory for peace. But like a succession of Israeli leaders before him, he had attempted, albeit halfheartedly, to put on a show for the sake of Washington while blaming the Palestinian National Authority for placing obstacles in the way.
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Canada Moves Ahead With Random Roadside Breath Testing

National Post
The Harper government appears ready to move ahead with imposing random roadside breath testing, which a new federal discussion paper says has produced "remarkable results" in catching drunk drivers in other countries. The proposal has encountered skepticism, however, with civil liberties proponents warning that the new legislation could give police the power to detain drivers without reasonable grounds or suspicion. "The reality is that it creates a bit of a police-state mentality in which an innocent person can be subjected to a whole host of testings," said Edward Prutschi, a Toronto criminal lawyer.
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'Stench of Evil' Pope to meet with Queen Elizabeth II

The taxpayers of the United Kingdom are about to pay the princely sum of £20 million to accommodate the Roman Catholic pontiff whose church has been rocked by proven rape and violent physical abuse scandals for years. On September 16th, Queen Elizabeth II will welcome Pope Benedict XVI into Holyrood in Edinburgh. The Pope is also expected to visit Lambeth, Westminster, Glasgow and possibly Coventry, where he is expected to beatify the 19th century convert, John Henry Newman.
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Marine Corps General: Homosexual Troops Weaken Militaries

By William H. McMichael
The Dutch military's failure to intervene during a 1995 massacre in Bosnia suggests that allowing gays to serve openly — as the Dutch military does — hurts military readiness, a retired Marine Corps general said Thursday. Gen. John “Jack” Sheehan, who commanded Atlantic-based NATO forces in the 1990s, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that European militaries — many of whom allow open service by gays — were weakened in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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U.S. Officials Say Okinawa Base Needed To Defend Japan

WASHINGTON -- The United States has said that it needs to maintain a base on the Japanese island of Okinawa to defend the region, as the new government in Tokyo considers scrapping a previous plan. Senior US officials told Congress that while they respected the decisions of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's six-month-old government, they hoped to go ahead with a plan to move the Futenma air base within Okinawa. Michael Schiffer, a senior Pentagon official, told a congressional panel that troops in Okinawa were the only ground forces "between Hawaii and India" which the United States could quickly deploy.
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New FBI Files Alleging AIPAC Theft of Government Property and Israeli Espionage Released

WASHINGTON -- Declassified files detailing an FBI investigation targeting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee are now available on the Internet. AIPAC was investigated after it acquired and circulated classified government information provided in strict confidence by US industry and worker groups opposed to AIPAC sponsored economic legislation. The 50 pages now available as portable document files (PDF) include: FBI reports of Israelis circulating classified documents in the US Congress, "compromising" the authority of the U.S. President. US Trade Representative concerns that AIPAC was tactically "divulging" classified information supplied by US industries opposed to AIPAC lobbying initiatives.
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U.S. Commander Claims Bringing Bin Laden To Justice Remains Goal

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Wednesday that the military would "certainly" try to capture Osama bin Laden alive and "bring him to justice" -- contradicting remarks by a top Obama administration official. Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress on Tuesday that bin Laden would never go on trial in the United States because the chances of him being caught alive were "infinitesimal." He predicted flatly that bin Laden would either be killed by U.S. forces or by al-Qaeda operatives determined to prevent him from falling into enemy hands. On Wednesday, asked if the forces under his command had given up on trying to capture bin Laden alive, McChrystal said they had not.
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Suspicion Over Murdoch's Pan-Arab Foray in Egypt

CAIRO -- The tie-up between Arab entertainment giant Rotana and pro-Israel media mogul Rupert Murdoch is viewed in Egypt not only with suspicion but as signalling the decline of Arab film and art heritage. In a country where film and television attract some of the largest audiences across the Arab world, the tycoon's foray into the Middle East is widely seen in cultural circles as a ruse to benefit Israel. Murdoch's News Corp last month acquired a 9.09-percent holding in the Rotana Group of Saudi royal and business tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, with an 18-month option to double the stake.
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Boeing Completes Design of Shipboard Superlaser

The U.S. military is bankrolling all kinds of projects to harness the power of directed energy, from laser-equipped aircraft that can shoot down ballistic missiles to smaller beam weapons mounted on Humvees that could zap mortars or artillery shells. The Navy is no exception: It wants a shipboard laser that is powerful enough to destroy anti-ship missiles. Defense giant Boeing now says it has completed the preliminary design of one such weapon, the Free Electron Laser, or FEL. In a news release today, the company said it had presented its FEL design, which will operate by forcing a stream of high-energy electrons through a series of magnetic fields, creating a weapons-grade blast of laser light.
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Officials Warned 9/11 Panel 'Not to Cross Line'

Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according to a document recently obtained by the homosexual ACLU. The notification came in a letter dated January 6, 2004, addressed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George J. Tenet. The ACLU described it as a fax sent by David Addington, then-counsel to former vice president Dick Cheney. In the message, the officials denied the bipartisan commission's request to question terrorist detainees, informing its two senior-most members that doing so would "cross" a "line" and obstruct the administration's ability to protect the nation.
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Israel Can No Longer Hide Its True Colours

Linda S. Heard / Online Journal
International opinion is finally waking up to the more unpleasant realities of the Jewish state. The change in people’s perceptions may be subtle but it is happening. Its carefully orchestrated ‘poor little Israel’ narrative no longer holds water. Inconvenient truths keep getting in the way. For instance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is known to have no interest in pursuing an equitable two-state solution that involves relinquishing occupied territory for peace. But like a succession of Israeli leaders before him, he had attempted, albeit halfheartedly, to put on a show for the sake of Washington while blaming the Palestinian National Authority for placing obstacles in the way.
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Moussa: Israeli Nukes, Disturbing & Threatening

After a European Union's top diplomat made remarks against Iran's nuclear program, Secretary General of the Arab League Amr Moussa has denounced Israel's possession of its vast nuclear arsenal. "I wish to mention that Israeli nuclear activities are very disturbing and threatening to us," Moussa said in response to statements made by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton on the alleged threats posed by Iran's nuclear activities.
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Report: U.S. Shipping Arms Ahead of Strike On Iran

Scottish newspaper says US transferred ammunition containers with 'bunker-buster' bombs to Diego Garcia in Indian Ocean. Expert: They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran. Hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean ahead of a possible attack on Iran, The Herald reported Wednesday. The Scottish newspaper said the American government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures, The Herald reported.
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Special Forces Now Report To McChrystal

Most of the U.S. Special Operations forces in Afghanistan now are under direct control of Gen. Stanley McCrystal, the top U.S. commander in that country said. McChrystal said the decision to bring most of the special operations troops under his control was made in response to high civilian casualties and reports the Special Forces troops were operating as cowboys, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Afghan officials, human rights workers and some field commanders of conventional U.S. forces have criticized Special Ops troops, saying they have been responsible for large number of casualties among Afghan civilians and strike out on their own, the Times said. Previously, Special Operations forces followed a separate chain of command.
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Afghan Poppy Harvest Next Challenge for U.S. Marines

MARJAH, Afghanistan — U.S. Marine Sgt. Brad Vandehei stood on the edge of the small opium poppy field that serves as a central helicopter landing zone for the new military compound that's rising nearby. "Those are poppies, sir?" Vandehei, 25, of Green Bay, Wis., asked Maj. David Fennell as they gazed at the spiked young plants that should be ready for harvest next month. "Let's burn it down, sir." Fennell was scoping things out for another reason, however: That morning, the poppy farmer turned up with a dozen neighbors to complain about the Marines transforming his lucrative field into a rural helipad.
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US Might Bolster Force In Northern Iraq: General

The US military may set up an additional headquarters in northern Iraq even after Washington scales back its forces by a September deadline, a top US general said on Tuesday. The possible move reflects US concerns that Arab-Kurd tensions, provoked by disputes over land and oil rights, are the biggest threat to Iraq's long-term stability. General David Petraeus, head of Central Command, told lawmakers that putting a headquarters in the country's volatile north was "something that we are looking at."
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Petraeus Confirms Link Between Israel-Palestine and U.S. Security

In prepared testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning, Gen. David Petraeus delivered the message that, as we’ve been writing over the last few days, Mark Parry reported on Saturday. Here’s the money quote: "Insufficient progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace. The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations."
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Records Not So Open With Obama

WASHINGTON -- One year into its promise of greater government transparency, the Obama administration is more often citing exceptions to the nation's open records law to withhold federal records even as the number of requests for information declines, according to a review by The Associated Press of agency audits about the Freedom of Information Act. Among the most frequently cited reasons for keeping records secret: one that Obama specifically told agencies to stop using so frequently. The Freedom of Information Act exception, known as the "deliberative process" exemption, lets the government withhold records that describe its decision-making behind the scenes.
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Eric Holder: Bin Laden Won't Be Caught Alive

Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden "will never appear in an American courtroom," Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told lawmakers at a hearing Tuesday. "Let's deal with the reality here," Holder said in response to aggressive questioning by Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.). "The reality is we will be reading Miranda rights to a corpse." Members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science pressed the nation's top law enforcement official about the Justice Department response to the failed Christmas Day bombing plot and the aborted decision to try the alleged Sept. 11 masterminds in a civilian court in Lower Manhattan.
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Is Georgia Simulating War Or Provoking It?

On the evening of March 13 Georgia's Imedi television channel ran a 30-minute prime time “simulated” newscast about a Russian invasion of the South Caucasus nation complete with a report that the country’s mercurial (if not megalomaniacal) president – Mikheil Saakashvili – had been assassinated. The show was aired “by the Imedi TV’s weekly program Special Report, which started just a couple of minutes before 8pm – the time when Imedi TV runs its usual news bulletin Kronika.” (Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes are from Civil Georgia reports of March 14, 2010.)
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Tuesday 13 Iraqis Killed, 19 Wounded

At least 13 Iraqis were killed and 19 more were wounded in various attacks. The worst one took place just south of Baghdad. Meanwhile, former P.M. Ayad Allawi’s political bloc took the lead in the vote count. A candidate from P.M. Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law bloc said the prime minister has complained to the electoral commission about vote manipulation and asked for a recount. Fraud accusations have been lobbed before, mostly by the opposition Iraqiya bloc, but now Iraqiya has pulled slightly ahead in total vote count. State of Law still leads province-by-province, which is the more crucial count. Independent and international observers have found no evidence of widespread fraud.
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Army Drops Bayonet Training and Five-Mile Runs for Pantywaist 'Workouts'

FORT JACKSON, S.C. -- New soldiers are grunting through the kind of stretches and twists found in "ab blaster" classes at suburban gyms as the Army revamps its basic training regimen for the first time in three decades. Heeding the advice of Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans, commanders are dropping five-mile runs and bayonet drills in favor of zigzag sprints and exercises that hone core muscles. Battlefield sergeants say that's the kind of fitness needed to dodge across alleys, walk patrol with heavy packs and body armor or haul a buddy out of a burning vehicle. Trainers also want to toughen recruits who are often more familiar with Facebook than fistfights.
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U.S. War Criminals

Gary Solis / The Washington Post:
In our current armed conflicts, there are two U.S. drone offensives. One is conducted by our armed forces, the other by the CIA. Every day, CIA agents and CIA contractors arm and pilot armed unmanned drones over combat zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including Pakistani tribal areas, to search out and kill Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. In terms of international armed conflict, those CIA agents are, unlike their military counterparts but like the fighters they target, unlawful combatants. No less than their insurgent targets, they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war.
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Pentagon Spy Network Hired to 'Track and Kill'

A Pentagon official has been accused of hiring a secret network of private contractors to spy on militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan so they could be hunted and killed. The employee is said to have paid firms using former members of the special forces and CIA under the cover of an innocuous government scheme to gather tribal and cultural information. Their reports were then passed to military and intelligence units so they could kill militants and target insurgent camps, officials told The New York Times. It was not clear if Michael D Furlong, the Pentagon official at the centre of the accusations, had approval for the scheme but officials said they had become alarmed he was running an off-the-books spy agency.
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Bunker-Busters Headed to Diego Garcia: Iran Attack?

Hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran. The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures. Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.
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Rasmussen In Poland: Expeditionary NATO, Missile Shield and Nuclear Weapons

The civilian chief of the world's only, and history's first self-proclaimed global, military bloc is having a busy month. North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen delivered an address in Washington, DC on February 23 on the military alliance’s new 21st century Strategic Concept along with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her predecessor twice-removed Madeleine Albright and National Security Adviser James Jones, the last-named a former Marine Corps general and NATO Supreme Allied Commander.
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Afghan Govt Says NATO Killed 12 Civilians

KABUL -- The Afghan government on Sunday accused coalition troops of killing twelve civilians during recent operations in the country, a claim which NATO was not immediately able to confirm. President Hamid Karzai’s deputy spokesperson Hamed Elmi said the casualties, which included women and children, occurred during two separate airstrikes in the country’s Kandahar and Kunar provinces. He said the incidents happened earlier this week, but was not able to say on which day or days. President Karzai was informed of the casualties during a security meeting on Sunday, in which he “strongly condemned” the alleged incident. Karzai called for compensation for the families of the victims.
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Relatives of Civilians Slain in NATO Night Raid Threaten Revenge Attacks

The survivors of a NATO night raid against a house party in Afghanistan’s Paktia Province remain up in arms about the slaying of several of their family members, and say that they have rejected US “compensation” payments of $2,000 per person killed. “I don’t want money, I want justice,” noted Haji Sharabuddin, the head of the family. US forces killed five people, including three women, in the raid. One of the men killed was also a key member of local security forces. The killings have sparked more questions than most of the night raid civilian deaths in Afghanistan, primarily because NATO issued an initial statement claiming they killed “several insurgents” in a firefight and made a “gruesome discovery” of the slain women.
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Survivors of Family Killed in Afghanistan Raid Threaten Suicide Attacks

A family whose members were killed in a botched night raid in eastern Afghanistan have rejected “blood money” from the Government and vowed to carry out suicide attacks unless the perpetrators are brought to justice. Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a policeman and his brother were shot dead on February 12 by unidentified gunmen. Eight men were arrested in the raid on the village of Khataba in Paktia province. They have all been released. No one has claimed responsibility for the killings. A US official in Kabul refused to identify the force involved, citing “utmost national and strategic security interests”.
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Paper: Defense Official Ran Private Spy Operation

A US official identified as Michael Furlong organized a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the purpose of finding and killing suspected Islamic militants, The New York Times reported Monday. Citing unnamed military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States, the newspaper said Furlong, who works for the Defense Department, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former CIA and Special Forces members. These people gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected Islamic militants and the location of insurgent camps, the report said.
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Drones Make US Unlawful Combatants

In our current armed conflicts, there are two U.S. drone offensives. One is conducted by our armed forces, the other by the CIA. Every day, CIA agents and CIA contractors arm and pilot armed unmanned drones over combat zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including Pakistani tribal areas, to search out and kill Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. In terms of international armed conflict, those CIA agents are, unlike their military counterparts but like the fighters they target, unlawful combatants. No less than their insurgent targets, they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war. Even if they are sitting in Langley, the CIA pilots are civilians violating the requirement of distinction, a core concept of armed conflict, as they directly participate in hostilities.
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Drones Are Lynchpin of Obama's War on Terror

CIA drones are killing terrorists -- and civilians -- in Pakistan almost every day. The unmanned aircraft are becoming the weapon of choice in the fight against al-Qaida and its allies. But the political, military and moral consequences are incalculable. SPIEGEL ONLINE has investigated Barack Obama's remote-controlled campaign against terrorism. What is the cost of rendering a terrorist harmless once and for all by killing him? During the course of 14 months, the CIA used unmanned and heavily armed small aircraft known as drones to stage 15 strikes against the presumed locations of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. On Aug. 5, 2009, on the 16th try, the drones finally managed to kill Baitullah Mehsud.
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71 Killed, 188 Wounded in Pakistan Bombings

24 hours of high profile bombings in Pakistan have left at least 71 people killed and another 188 wounded across the nation. The bulk of the casualties came in a pair of bombing attacks against an army convoy in the city of Lahore on Friday. The Lahore blasts killed at least 57 people and wounded another 136. 12 of the slain were said to be Pakistani soldiers and the rest were bystanders. With Lahore residents already alarmed by these attacks, another series of smaller explosions happened in the business district. Though the later explosions caused no casualties, they have put the city into a virtual panic.
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Feds Reward Companies That Defy Terrorism Sanctions

In a troubling story that defies logic, companies that violate U.S. sanctions by doing business with a terrorist Middle Eastern nation have been rewarded with tens of billions of dollars in government contracts despite their repeated offenses. The federal government has awarded more than $107 billion in contracts to firms that also enrich themselves by doing business with Iran, according to an in-depth newspaper article that quotes corporate records filed with the Securities Exchange Commission and congressional reports. Many of the companies have also made substantial investments that helped Iran develop its oil and gas reserves, the report says.
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Super Stealth Plane Breaks Through Cost Barrierby By $46 BILLION

The Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing today on the future of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and things are not looking pretty for the next-generation stealth aircraft. It’s likely the Air Force will have to declare the program has soared past a key cost-containment barrier, in addition to being more than two years behind schedule. The Air Force will have to declare a Nunn-McCurdy breach, which could force a serious restructuring of the program, according to a Reuters story quoting Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter. A new Government Accountability Office report, issued today, puts it in simple numbers. “Total estimated acquisition costs have increased $46 billion and development extended 2 ½ years, compared to the program baseline approved in 2007,” the report states.
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Ga. Law To Crack Down On Illegal Workers A Joke

A Georgia law passed with great fanfare four years ago to crack down on companies that hire illegal immigrants has yet to be enforced because prosecutors can’t bring charges against violators. The legislature enacted the measure (Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Ace) after officials discovered that a new $63 million courthouse in Cobb County—notorious for being tough on illegal immigration—was practically built by illegal workers. Tax and labor laws were violated left and right with public dollars and lawmakers boldly took action.
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Los Angeles County Spends $600 MILLION On Welfare For Illegals

For the second consecutive year taxpayers in a single U.S. county will dish out more than half a billion dollars just to cover the welfare and food-stamp costs of illegal immigrants. Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, may be in the midst of a dire financial crisis but somehow there are plenty of funds for illegal aliens. In January alone, anchor babies born to the county’s illegal immigrants collected more than $50 million in welfare benefits. At that rate the cash-strapped county will pay around $600 million this year to provide illegal aliens’ offspring with food stamps and other welfare perks.
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House Impeaches Bribed Federal Judge

A crooked Louisiana federal judge who took bribes from lawyers to pay off gambling debts has become the 15th in the nation’s history to be impeached by the House of Representatives for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Removing a federal judge from his or her lifetime position is a tough feat that requires overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing yet this case was a virtual slam dunk. For years U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Portreous took money and valuable gifts from attorneys with cases before him and he hid assets, filed for bankruptcy under a bogus name and defied a bankruptcy court’s order relating to credit.
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Alabama Mayor Gets 15 Years In Jail

The once-powerful Alabama politician who blamed his recent corruption conviction on racism and vindictive prosecutors will spend 15 years in jail for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. A heavyweight in the local Democrat Party, disgraced Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford was convicted by a federal jury last fall of 60 corruption charges, including bribery, conspiracy, fraud and money laundering. The influential lawmaker orchestrated a massive pay-to-play scheme in which he traded hefty bribes for coveted public contracts and county sewer bond deals worth millions of dollars.
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Muslims Kill Hundreds of Christians Near Jos, Nigeria

LAGOS, Nigeria -- An uneasy calm prevailed in Plateau state, Nigeria today following the killing of hundreds of Christians early yesterday morning in three farming villages near Jos by ethnic Fulani Muslims. The mostly ethnic Berom victims included many women and children killed with machetes by rampaging Fulani herdsmen. About 75 houses were also burned. State Information Commissioner Gregory Yenlong confirmed that about 500 persons were killed in the attacks, which took place mainly in Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Rastat villages.
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Nigeria Charges 49 With Murder Over Christian Villages Massacres

About 200 people have been arrested and 49 charged with murder after massacres at three Christian villages at the weekend, police in Nigeria said yesterday. The announcement came as more details emerged of the violent outburst in the central Plateau state whose capital, Jos, lies at the faultline between the country’s Muslim north and Christian south. Up to 500 people were killed — estimates of the number of victims differ — and scores more have fled their homes since the attacks by Muslim gangs on the villages of Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Ratsat.
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Muslims Kill Christian Aid Workers in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Suspected Islamic militants armed with guns and grenades stormed the offices of a Christian relief and development organization in northwest Pakistan today, killing six aid workers and wounding seven others. The gunmen besieged the offices of international humanitarian organization World Vision near Oghi, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Islamabad in Mansehra district of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Police and World Vision’s regional spokesman said the Pakistani staff members, including two women, were killed after up to 15 gunmen arrived in pick-up trucks and began firing.
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U.S. Directs Large-Scale Offensive In Somalia

Over 43 people have been killed in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in the past two days in fighting between Shabab (al-Shabaab) insurgent forces, who on March 10 advanced to within one mile of the nation’s presidential palace, and troops of the U.S.-backed Transitional Federal Government. The fighting has just begun. The last ambassador of the United States to Somalia (1994-1995), Daniel H. Simpson, penned a column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on March 10 in which which he posed the question “why, apart from the only lightly documented charge of Islamic extremism among the Shabab, is the United States reengaging in Somalia at this time?”
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Christians Refuse to Allow Officials to Close Church in Indonesia

BEKASI, Indonesia -- Efforts by local officials in this city in West Java to close a church met with stiff resistance this month, as a defiant lawyer and weeping women refused to allow it. Women of the Huria Christian Protestant Batak Church (HKBP) cried in protest as officials from the Bekasi Building Department on March 1 placed a brown signboard of closure on the church building in Pondok Timur, Bekasi, 12 miles (19 kilometers) from Jakarta.
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Microchipping all dogs now mandatory in UK (are people next?)

All dogs are to be compulsorily microchipped so that their owners can be more easily traced under a crackdown on dangerous dogs to be unveiled today. The package will include extending the dangerous dogs law to cover attacks by dogs on private property to protect postmen, and making third-party insurance compulsory so that victims can be financially compensated. The measures will be set out by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, who will point to rising public concern that "status dogs" are being used by some irresponsible owners to intimidate communities or as a weapon by gangs.
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Sneaky Terror Cameras Used In War Against UK Motorist

Councils routinely use Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology to clamp down on parking offences, they claim. The device scans 3,000 vehicles an hour and cross-checks in seconds with police, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and insurance databases. This allows parking tickets to be issued by computer. Minister for Security and Counter-Terrorism Lord West said the technology is for fighting serious crime. In a parliamentary written answer, he told how it is “used by police forces for intelligence-led policing and investigative purposes”.
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Iraqi Christians Protest Over Killings

Hundreds of Iraqi Christians have taken part in protests calling for government action after a "spate" [sic] of killings. At least eight Christians have been killed in the past two weeks in the volatile northern city of Mosul. The killings prompted an appeal by Pope Benedict on Sunday for Iraqi authorities to protect vulnerable religious minorities. The UN says more than 680 Christian families have fled Mosul since the recent attacks. Sunday's protests took place in the town of Hamdaniyah, 35km (22 miles) east of Mosul, and also in the capital, Baghdad.
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Decade Of The Drone: America's Aerial Assassins

By Rick Rozoff / Stop NATO
2010 is the last year of the new century and millennium and is the tenth consecutive year of the United States’ war in Afghanistan and in the 15-nation area of responsibility subsumed under Operation Enduring Freedom. In early March American military deaths in the Greater Afghan War theater – Afghanistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Djibouti, Eritrea, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Yemen – surpassed the 1,000 mark. This year is also the tenth year of the first ground and the first Asian war fought by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which wages wars from and not to protect the nations of the northern Atlantic Ocean.
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Two Israeli Soldiers Charged In Gaza War Case

Two Israeli soldiers have been charged with using a Palestinian child as "human shield" during Israel's last winter assault on the Gaza Strip. The two soldiers, whose names were not released, are facing charges for forcing a nine-year-old boy to open several bags suspected of containing explosives while searching a building in Gaza. The Israeli army pressed the charges on Thursday. The boy's case came to light after it was forwarded to the Israeli military by the United Nations.
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French Bread Spiked With LSD In CIA Experiment

In 1951, a quiet, picturesque village in southern France was suddenly and mysteriously struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations. At least five people died, dozens were interned in asylums and hundreds afflicted. For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with a psychedelic mould. Now, however, an American investigative journalist has uncovered evidence suggesting the CIA peppered local food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of a mind control experiment at the height of the Cold War. The mystery of Le Pain Maudit (Cursed Bread) still haunts the inhabitants of Pont-Saint-Esprit, in the Gard, southeast France. On August 16, 1951, the inhabitants were suddenly racked with frightful hallucinations of terrifying beasts and fire.
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Ground Zero Workers Reach Deal Over Health Claims

NY Times
A settlement of up to $657.5 million has been reached in the cases of thousands of rescue and cleanup workers at ground zero who sued the city over damage to their health, according to city officials and lawyers for the plaintiffs. They said that the settlement would compensate about 10,000 plaintiffs according to the severity of their illnesses and the level of their exposure to contaminants at the World Trade Center site. Lawyers from both sides met on Thursday to discuss the terms of the settlement with Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
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Feds: TSA Worker Tried to Sabotage Terror Database

A former Transportation Security Administration contractor is being charged in Colorado for allegedly injecting malicious code into a government network used for screening airport security workers and others. The malicious code, a logic bomb installed last October, was designed to cause damage and disrupt data on servers on an undisclosed date but was caught by other workers before it delivered its payload. Douglas James Duchak, 46, had worked as a data analyst at the TSA’s Colorado Springs Operations Center, or CSOC, since 2004. The CSOC is used to vet people who have “access to sensitive information and secure areas of the nation’s transportation network,” according to the indictment.
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