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UNITED NATIONS, May 18, 2010 (IPS) – The United States, and most of the Western world, have transformed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into a virtual bogeyman, thereby spreading fear throughout the neighbouring countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A nuclear-powered Iran, so the argument goes, is a …

“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” -Thomas Jefferson We are approaching another ominous anniversary in American History without anyone acknowledging it- not even a peep from the mainstream media. When Iranian students took hostages in Tehran and kept them for 444 days, for those of …

With tongue firmly entrenched in his cheek, an Arab diplomat recounts an Israeli cabinet meeting interrupted by an aide rushing in with the latest statistics on the state of the economy. The crops were down, growth was low, reserves were minimal and inflation was high, he announced, portraying a rather gloomy economic picture. Momentarily, the prime minister seemed flustered by …

Britain has a Conservative prime minister after 13 years of Labour governments. For the first time since World War II, Britain is governed by a coalition after the May 6 elections produced a hung parliament. The coalition came into being after days of painstaking talks between the Conservative Party, which emerged as the largest party in the House of Commons, …

The journalist who helped break the story that detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were being tortured by their US jailers told an audience at a journalism conference last month that American soldiers are now executing prisoners in Afghanistan. New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh also revealed that the Bush Administration had developed advanced plans for a military strike …

Faisal Shahzad sought to massacre scores of fellow Americans in Times Square with a bomb made of M-88 firecrackers, non-explosive fertilizer, gasoline and alarm clocks. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a U.S. airliner over Detroit with a firebomb concealed in his underpants. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot dead 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood and wounded 29. Why …