News updates

“The war on drugs has always been a pretext for political repression and social control.” Alexander Cockburn, Counterpunch editor Last Saturday, a US consulate employee and his pregnant wife were gunned down in their SUV in Ciudad Juarez while their seven month old baby watched from the backseat. Just minutes later, another consulate employee was killed at point-blank range in …

It is a case of the dog biting the hand that feeds it. After years of protection by Big Brother USA, covering up for its having nuclear warheads when Iran cannot even have a nuclear program, looking the other way when shocking war crimes and massacres of civilians are committed, when pregnant Palestinian mothers are left to die in the …

A fascinating scandal has erupted in Washington over the use of mercenaries (‘private contractors’ in US terminology) that is exposing the dark underbelly of America’s foreign wars. It has been that the Pentagon and other US intelligence agencies secretly fielded mercenaries in Afghanistan, Pakistan (aka “Af-Pak”), and Iraq to assassinate tribal militants. US law forbids murder or using mercenaries. But, …

Police stations in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, have opened special units to take down statements in the country’s main minority language, Tamil. So far, Sinhala has been the language overwhelmingly predominant in the police force. Tamil-speaking Sri Lankans had to rely on a friend to translate their complaints into Sinhala. The move has been hailed as a small but vital …

Tony Blair’s secret links to Gulf oil giants were revealed today as fresh details emerged of his “carte blanche” support for George Bush’s Iraq war The former prime minister has been in the pay of the Kuwaiti government and a South Korean oil firm for up to 18 months, a parliamentary watchdog has revealed. But the Advisory Committee on Business …

In spite of the fact that the United States faces no enemy anywhere in the world capable of opposing it on a battlefield, the Defense budget for 2011 will go up 7.1 percent from current levels.  A lot of the new spending will be on drones, America’s latest contribution to western civilization, capable of surveilling large areas on the ground …