Allegations about Britain's role in the torture of its own citizens in Pakistan are not new. They have been made persuasively by our own investigative reporting. What is new in the report published yesterday by Human Rights Watch is the corroboration it obtained from the torturers themselves. Ali Dayan Hasan, HRW's senior south Asia researcher, found sources in Inter-Services Intelligence, the military-controlled spy agency in Pakistan, and the Intelligence Bureau, a civilian-controlled one, to admit they tortured five British citizens at the behest, and with the full knowledge, of British intelligence.
Pentagon preparing to send 34,000 troops to Afghanistan, official says
CNN November 24, 2009
Pentagon planners expect orders to send about 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan, a defense official told CNN, a day after the president's final meeting to decide the next moves in Afghanistan. The military has planning under way to send three U.S. Army brigades, totaling about 15,000 troops; a Marine brigade, about 8,000 troops; a headquarters element, about 7,000 troops; and between 4,000 and 5,000 support troops — a total of approximately 34,000 troops, according to a defense official with direct knowledge of Pentagon operations. CNN reported last month that this was the preferred option within the Pentagon.
Full Story Online
Cynthia McKinney Letter to the President
Please bring our troops home now.
A peace demonstration is being organized for December 12, 2009 in Washington, D.C. The Emergency Anti-Escalation Rally, also known as the End US Wars Rally, is scheduled for 11am at Lafayette Park at the White House. I wholly endorse this rally and encourage all who can to participate in Washington, DC or to help a local peace organization committed to ending U.S. wars on that date.
Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat- There are around 47 million Muslims in Russia, which means that Muslims make up around one third of Russia's overall population. This figure is expected to rise to 50 percent by 2050 due to the high birth rate among the Muslim community, the decrease in the non-Muslim Russian population which is decreasing at a rate of 1 million people per year, as well as the immigrations of Muslims from central Asia into the Russian Federation. The Islamic presence in Russia is centered in the Caucasus, Siberia, and Moscow.
LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan will face a “demographic disaster” if it does not address the needs of its young generation, the largest in the country’s history, whose views reflect a deep disillusionment with government and democracy, according to a report released here on Saturday.
According to a panel of experts at a recent conference sponsored by the Center for a New American Security, terrorism and crime have now merged, to such an extent that all terrorist movements – all of them — have become partly criminal organizations to fund their operations, expand their reach – and incidentally make the people on top extremely rich, while lower-level zealots continue to be recruited for suicide missions.
A Doctor Walks into the ER. The Punchline? A $5,000 Bill
He needed 29 stitches to patch up a two-inch cut, and was in and out of the ER in two hours. The nearly $5,000 price of the bill was only one aspect that disgusted Dr. Budris:
It listed something called “M/S SUPPLY GENERAL,” which came to $1,247. Then there was another $2,425 for “EMERGENCY ROOM GENERAL.”
“I'm a doctor and I can't tell you what all of that means,” said Budris.
Climate Emails Stoke Debate Scientists' Leaked Correspondence Illustrates Bitter Feud over Global Warming
KEITH JOHNSON, 23 November 2009
In the emails, which date to 1996, researchers in the U.S. and the U.K. repeatedly take issue with climate research at odds with their own findings. In some cases, they discuss ways to rebut what they call “disinformation” using new articles in scientific journals or popular Web sites.
The emails include discussions of apparent efforts to make sure that reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that monitors climate science, include their own views and exclude others. In addition, emails show that climate scientists declined to make their data available to scientists whose views they disagreed with.
Encountering Peace: Getting serious about ‘economic peace'
More than 10 months have passed since President Barack Obama entered the White House and seven months since Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took over the reins in Jerusalem and there is still no peace process worth mentioning.
Full Story Online
Phi Beta Iota: Imagine an “Information Wall” available online and projected on walls around the world, showing the stark contrast between the day to day conditions of the Palestinians and of the Israelis.
EDITORIAL: Hiding evidence of global coolingJunk science exposed among climate-change believers
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Scientific progress depends on accurate and complete data. It also relies on replication. The past couple of days have uncovered some shocking revelations about the baloney practices that pass as sound science about climate change.
It was announced Thursday afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England. Those e-mails involved communication among many scientific researchers and policy advocates with similar ideological positions all across the world. Those purported authorities were brazenly discussing the destruction and hiding of data that did not support global-warming claims.
