by Haider Rizvi, IPS, Feb. 23, 2009 UNITED NATIONS, Feb 23 (IPS) – The Barack Obama administration’s apparent resolve to take U.S. foreign policy in a new direction is creating ripples of hope for an enhanced U.N. agenda on nuclear…
Category: International
Canadian Government Continues Ouster of US War Resisters
by Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams, Feb. 15, 2009 In the past weeks, the Harper Administration has moved swiftly to push U.S. Iraq War resisters out of Canada, issuing removal orders to five more resisters who had resettled up north. Two…
Attack of the Killer Robots
Designed by Massachusetts-based defense contractor Foster-Miller, the Special Weapons Observation Remote Direct-Action System, or SWORDS, stands three feet tall and can be equipped with machine guns and rocket launchers. The Pentagon’s dream of a techno army is doomed to fail…
Senior US soldiers investigated over missing Iraq reconstruction billions
Illustration: Studio Bendlib A ‘fraud’ bigger than Madoff By Patrick Cockburn in Sulaimaniyah, Northern Iraq The Independent, UK. Feb. 16, 2009 In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate…
Rebranding a war monger
The Mercenaries Previously Known as Blackwater PR Watch, Feb. 17, 2009 Source: Washington Post, February 14, 2009. First it was Blackwater USA. Then it was Blackwater Worldwide. Now, it’s “Xe“ (pronounced “Zee”). The private military company has repeatedly tried to…
Strasbourg to be locked down for NATO’s birthday party
Strasbourg prepares for siege as Anti-NATO forces gather Russia Today, Feb. 15, 2009 From April 3 to 5, 40 heads of state and government leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, will come to Strasbourg and Baden-Baden to celebrate the 60th…
Médecins Sans Frontières criticises UN for inaction over LRA attacks in Congo
United Nations peacekeepers in eastern Congo. Photograph: Jerome Delay/AP by Annie Kelly, The Guardian, UK, Monday 16 February 2009 12.52 GMT UN peacekeeping forces are standing by while hundreds of civilians are killed and abducted and scores of villages are…
Sudan, Darfur rebels close to accord: rebel spokesman
by AFP, Feb. 14, 2009 DOHA (AFP) — Sudan and the Darfur rebel group Justice and Equality Movement are close to signing a “trust building and good intentions” draft document, the JEM spokesman said in Qatar on Saturday. “It will…
Afghanistan war unwinnable – retired Soviet general
Last Russian general warns US on Afghanistan By JIM HEINTZ – Feb. 13, 2009 MOSCOW (AP) — Twenty years after Red Army troops pulled out of Afghanistan, the last general to command them says the Soviets’ devastating experience is a…
Bagram Prison: Obama’s Guantanamo
Next flash point over terror detainees: Bagram prison by Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor, February 12, 2009 With Guantanamo set to close, more attention is falling on the US military facility in Afghanistan and those in custody there. At…