The bushit administration may be funnelling more & more money into Iraq, but Afghanistan - yes, the same Afghanistan that Osama bin Laden & Al Qaeda used as a safe haven to plan the September 11th attacks - has fallen by the wayside.

Sunday marks the sixth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. The goals: to oust the Taliban & Al Qaeda & build a stable, secure Afghanistan.

from The Observer

The PM might mouth platitudes, but our phone records lie exposed, a whistleblower is prosecuted and a demonstration is banned.

The art of government these days is to extend power without people noticing. Gordon Brown proclaims his solemn duty 'to uphold freedom of speech, freedom of information and freedom of protest', yet his ministers steal through the night to attack each one of these rights. We are moving with a sickening speed to a point where the reality of government intentions is the precise opposite of its presentational rhetoric.

from the New York Times

Once upon a time, it was the United States that urged all nations to obey the letter and the spirit of international treaties and protect human rights and liberties. American leaders denounced secret prisons where people were held without charges, tortured and killed. And the people in much of the world, if not their governments, respected the United States for its values.

US accuses Iran's envoy to Iraq

The top US military commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, has accused Iran's ambassador of belonging to an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Gen Petraeus said Hassan Kazemi-Qomi was a member of the Quds Force, which the US believes backs foreign Islamic revolutionary movements.

Gen Petraeus said he had no doubt Iran was behind attacks that had led to the deaths of US soldiers.

Diplomatic relations between Britain and the United States over Iran are under increasing strain after Gordon Brown's special security adviser warned that American claims about Tehran's military capability should be taken 'with a pinch of salt'.

As a new conservative campaign group with links to the White House prepares to make the case that Iran is a direct threat to the US, Patrick Mercer urged scepticism towards any US justification for strikes against the country.

In two separate legal opinions written in 2005, the Justice Department
authorized the C.I.A. to barrage terror suspects with a combination of
painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping,
simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

The memorandums were written just months after a Justice Department opinion
in December 2004 declared torture "abhorrent."

Turning Success Into Failure

from the Centre for American Progress

Upon graduation from Yale in 1968, George W. Bush was accepted into the Texas Air National Guard, known as the "Champagne Unit" for serving as a haven for the privileged sons of the Texas elite seeking to escape duty in Vietnam.

Trees are our most valuable resources in combating global warming, IF WE LEAVE THEM THERE, but we are about to cut more of them for paper.

Vatican buys soccer club

The players of Italian third division side Ancona will most likely think twice before misbehaving on the pitch after the club was bought by the Vatican.

La Stampa reported on Wednesday that the Centro Sportivo Italiano (CSI) has bought 80% of the club through a group of Milanese Catholic entrepreneurs, leaving 20% to the former president Sergio Schiavoni.

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture "abhorrent" in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto Gonzales's arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Abbott announces $15m health plan for elderly

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott has announced the Federal Government will provide Medicare-funded health checks for people aged 65 and over.

Patients can be referred to a geriatrician, who can then develop treatment plans to help patients stay out of aged care homes.

Mr Abbott says the program will cost about $15 million over four years.

Fueling the military junta that has ruled for decades are Burma's natural gas reserves, controlled by the Burmese regime in partnership with the U.S. multinational oil giant Chevron, the French oil company Total and a Thai oil firm. Offshore natural gas facilities deliver their extracted gas to Thailand through Burma's Yadana pipeline. The pipeline was built with slave labor, forced into servitude by the Burmese military.

The original pipeline partner, Unocal, was sued by EarthRights International for the use of slave labor. As soon as the suit was settled out of court, Chevron bought Unocal.