BBC Reporter Killed in Somalia, Africa’s Deadliest Country for Journalists

A local journalist working for the BBC in southern Somalia was reportedly shot and killed today.
“They shot him in the ribs and stomach. He was rushed to hospital but died shortly before he could receive a blood transfusion that was being prepared,” local resident Aden Osman told Reuters.
According to witnesses, the journalist who has yet [...]

Popularity: 7%

Gitmo Torture Hearing: 20th Hijacker Forced to Look at Porn, Chinese Agents Allowed to Interrogate Uighurs

Tomorrow, 9/11 conspirators Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Ramzi bin al Shibh, Ammar al Baluchi, Waleed Bin Attash and Mustafa al Hawsawi will be formally arraigned in a military commission at Guantanamo Bay.
This morning, the interrogation of some of their co-conspirators was discussed at the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s hearing into DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine’s recent report [...]

Popularity: 12%

Bush: We’ll Be in Iraq for 40 Years, Hamas Election Was “Good Thing”

When NBC News correspondent Richard Engel sat down with President Bush last year for an interview, he had little idea how much Bush would reveal about his true intentions and his real sentiments about the war on terror and America’s allies and enemies.

Among the excerpts of the interview captured in Engel’s new book, “War Journal: My [...]

Popularity: 100%

Rockefeller Slams Hayden’s Comments That Al Qaeda “On the Run”

This afternoon, Senator Jay Rockefeller sent a scathing letter to CIA director Michael Hayden, stating that comments he gave the Washington Post about al-Qaeda being “on the run” were contrary to what Hayden had told the Senate Intelligence Committee:
Here’s the letter:
May 30, 2008
The Honorable Michael V. Hayden
Director
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
Dear Director Hayden:
If today’s article [...]

Popularity: 28%

Video of the Day: Former Navy Official Pleads Guilty to Making Threats

Former U.S. Navy officer Declan O’Shea, who has admitted making hundreds of threatening phone calls to President Bush and a number of bomb hoaxes which caused security alerts in California, pled guilty today in an Irish court. O’Shea currently lives in Ireland. Thirteen FBI agents and U.S. Navy personnel came to the court hearing in [...]

Popularity: 5%

US Aid for Agricultural Development in Africa Plummets

According to the latest Government Accountability Office report on international food security, the US has focused more of its resources on emergency food aid and less on needed agricultural development in Africa, resulting in a dramatic drop in resources:
“The United States, consistent with other multilateral and bilateral donors, has steadily reduced its ODA to agriculture [...]

Popularity: 4%

Between the Lines: McCain Adviser’s Link to Olmert Scandal

Unmentioned in the New York Times’s illuminating story about McCain adviser Rick Davis’s lobbying activity are the recent revelations about his onetime client, ImageSat.
Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, received $120,000 to lobby for Imagesat, an Israeli company which sells satellite imagery, on both defense and domestic security issues in 2004 and 2005.
Imagesat has been in the [...]

Popularity: 8%

State Dept to Protect Olympic Torch

“I think everybody, it goes without saying, wants to have this be an event that is secure, that is one that helps reflect the Olympic spirit, but also respects people’s fundamental rights in this country to express themselves - to peacefully express themselves.”
- State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on how the feds will respond to [...]

Popularity: 1%

Pakistan’s Lobbying Wars in D.C.:
Bhutto’s Widower Goes on Hiring Spree

To win over the Bush administration, the Pakistan People’s Party has chosen a time-worn strategy: Hire more lobbyists.
The party, led by Benazhir Bhutto’s widower, Asif ali Zardari, which belongs to a coalition that overwhelmingly defeated the party of Pakistan’s unpopular leader Pervez Musharaff last month, recently retained Locke Lord Strategies to lobby the White House [...]

Popularity: 1%

China Gets Olympic Gold
For Long-Distance Surveillance

Buried in the State Department’s Fact Sheet on the Olympics in Beijing:
“All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations. All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times. Hotel rooms, residences and offices may be [...]

Popularity: 1%