Each Friday, teachers in elementary schools in a corner of the richest country in the world quietly slip packs of peanut butter, fruit and granola bars into some pupils' bags - enough food to get them through the weekend before school dinners resume on Monday.
Not a word is said to the pupils or their parents because, even as the number of famil
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 4, 2009 at 1:45pm —
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Suckers rally in the markets, Dow will be driven down again, market gyrations motivated by insider greed, bank acquisitions point to a greater agenda, despite what economists and institutions are attempting, the economy will remain in a spiral
In the first three weeks of April this year, insiders for NYSE listed companies sold 8.32 times more stock, by dollar value, than they purchased. What does that tell you? We won't insult your intelligence by answering. If ever there
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 4, 2009 at 1:38pm —
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Oakton, Va. - Two American icons, General Electric and Berkshire Hathaway, lost their triple-A credit ratings. Then China, America's largest creditor, called for a new global currency to replace the dollar just weeks after it demanded Washington guarantee the safety of Beijing's nearly $1 trillion debt holdings. And that was just in March.
These events are the latest warnings that our world is changing far more rapidly and profoundly than we – or our politicians – will adm
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 4, 2009 at 1:36pm —
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Nations that use torture disgrace themselves. Armed forces and police that torture inevitably become brutalized and corrupted. "Limited" use of torture quickly becomes generalized. "Information" obtained by torture is mostly unreliable.
I learned these truths over fifty years covering dirty "pacification" wars, from Algeria to Indochina, Central and South America, southern Africa, the Mideast, Afghanistan, and Kashmir in which torture was commonly used.
In spite of all th
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 4, 2009 at 1:33pm —
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The difference between American involvement in South American atrocities in 1964 and 'enhanced interrogation' now is that some modern-day officials appear proud of themselves.
As President Obama grapples with accusations of torture by U.S. agents, I suggest he consult the former Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle.
I first contacted Daschle in 1975, when he was an aide to Sen. James Abourezk of South Dakota, who was leading a somewhat lonely campaign against CIA abuses.
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 4, 2009 at 1:19pm —
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The Obama administration is increasingly treating its growing intervention in Pakistan as a separate counter-insurgency war for which it is demanding the same kind of extraordinary military powers obtained by the Bush administration in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This was the main message delivered by Pentagon officials on Capitol Hill over the last few days, together with increasingly dire warnings that without immediate and unconditional US military funding for Pakistan, the g
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 4, 2009 at 1:15pm —
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WASHINGTON (
AFP) — Press freedom declined around the world last year, deteriorating for the first time in every region, according to a study released by Freedom House.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), meanwhile, unveiled its list of "10 worst countries to be a blogger," naming Myanmar, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Tunisia, China, Turkmenistan and Egypt to i
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 4, 2009 at 1:09pm —
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The proclamation that President George W. Bush issued on June 26, 2003, to mark the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture seemed innocuous, one of dozens of high-minded statements published and duly ignored each year.
The United States is “committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example,” Mr. Bush declared, vowin
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 4, 2009 at 1:00pm —
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2-Year Battle Also Raises Rights Questions
MEXICO CITY -- Mexican authorities have arrested more than 60,000 people in connection with drug trafficking over the past two years, according to government statistics from a nationwide crackdown that has also led to dramatic increases in violence and allegations of human rights abuse.
The detention figures, obtained by The Washington Post, represent the first public accounting of the government's offensive against Mexico
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 1, 2009 at 1:15pm —
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Two former military officers, both psychologists, were paid $1,000 a day by the Central Intelligence Agency to supervise the torture and waterboarding of US detainees, according to a report published late Thursday.
According to current and former government officials cited by ABC News, the CIA doled out responsibility for waterboarding to a private contractor, Mitchell Jessen and Associates. Waterboarding of detainees was designed to be “safe” by the two men running the fi
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 1, 2009 at 12:08pm —
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It’s not just right-wing “radical” groups on the Department of Homeland Security’s black list anymore.
Another embarrassing Homeland Security memo (
pdf here) detailing those the agency believes are extremists has leaked. The first
was sent to police and warned of radic
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 1, 2009 at 12:02pm —
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WASHINGTON – The Obama Justice Department moved Friday to drop all charges against two former pro-Israel lobbyists who had been charged under the Espionage Act with improperly disseminating sensitive information.
The move by the government came in a motion filed with the federal court in Alexandria, Va. which was to be the site of the trial that was scheduled to begin June 2.
The prosecution’s case against Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman suffered several setbacks in ru
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 1, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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In little-noticed comments Thursday, the former White House counsel for President Richard Nixon John Dean said Thursday that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have unwittingly admitted to a criminal conspiracy when questioned about torture by a group of student videographers at Stanford.
Rice told students at Stanford that she didn’t authorize torture, she merely forwarded the authorization for it. Dean, who became a poster child for whistleblowing after aidin
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 1, 2009 at 11:54am —
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WASHINGTON — Justice David H. Souter plans to retire at the end of the term in June, giving President Obama his first appointment to the Supreme Court, four people informed about the decision said Thursday night.
Justice Souter, who was appointed in 1990 by a Republican president, the first George Bush, but became one of the most reliable members of the court’s l
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 1, 2009 at 11:51am —
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A children's colouring book depicting the burning towers of the September 11 terror attacks has caused controversy in the U.S.
The book, called A Scary Thing Happened, was prepared by a crisis response team to help youngsters ‘cope with disasters’.
Its cover shows a childlike drawing of one of the Twin Towers in flames, with a hijacked plane on collision course for the
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Added by In Depth Stories on May 1, 2009 at 12:23am —
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A petition on the Downing Street website calling for Gordon Brown to resign reached 31,310 signatures last night.
In the process it became the most popular petition on the site, a milestone that has irritated No10 officials.
Asked for Mr Brown's response, his spokesman said: 'What he is doing is focusing on addressing the needs of the people of the country and the big
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Added by In Depth Stories on April 30, 2009 at 12:30pm —
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WASHINGTON (
CNN) -- Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking in Berlin, Germany, on Wednesday night, appealed to European nations to accept some of the detainees held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to help the Obama administration close down the prison facility.
"I know that Europe did not open Guantanamo, and that in fact, a great many on this continent opposed it," Holder s
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Added by In Depth Stories on April 29, 2009 at 8:20pm —
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It was called one of the most horrific crimes by U.S. troops against Iraqi civilians: In March 2006, a group of whiskey-fueled soldiers, their faces concealed and wearing black long underwear, descended upon a farmhouse some 20 miles south of Baghdad, gang-raped a teenage girl and shot her in the head, killing her along with her younger sister and their parents. The soldiers then tried to burn the bodies, setting fire to the house.
The grisly crime was initially blamed on
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Added by In Depth Stories on April 29, 2009 at 5:00pm —
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The Man giveth, and The Man taketh away. Forty years ago, when Americans -- lots of Americans -- made things, more of them died in a year on the job than died in a year fighting in Vietnam. This never registered much in the national consciousness. Death in war seems so preventable, so grotesque. Death on the job is “an accident.” The one gets headlines; the other, a shrug.
Forty years on, everything is diminished, but the basic pattern holds. Fewer Americans make things, a
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Added by In Depth Stories on April 29, 2009 at 5:00pm —
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Federal officials knew a flyover in lower Manhattan could spark chaos and panic in the streets below - but they did it anyway.
A memo clearly marked "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY," shows theFederal Aviation Administration was aware that sending a Boeing 747and F-16 fighter jet over New York City at a low altitude raised "the possibility of public concern."
Yet, the agency demanded the information be shared on a "need to know" basis and the public and media be kept
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Added by In Depth Stories on April 29, 2009 at 1:09pm —
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