“Extraordinary rendition” is White House-speak for kidnapping. Just ask Maher Arar. He’s a Canadian citizen who was “rendered” by the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured for almost a year.
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U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Chancellor Keesling died in Iraq on June 19, 2009, from “a non-combat related incident,” according to the Pentagon. Keesling had killed himself.
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Climate-change activists, from pranksters to presidents, are stepping up the pressure by staging elaborate stunts.
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Lt. Dan Choi doesn’t want to lie. Choi, an Iraq war veteran and a graduate of West Point, declared last March 19 on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” “I am gay.” Under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” regulations, those three words are enough to get Choi kicked out of the military.
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A social worker from New York City was arrested last week while in Pittsburgh for the G-20 protests, then subjected to an FBI raid this week at home—all for using Twitter.
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Journalist Christian Parenti responds to our interview with Kevin Bales, founder of Free The Slaves
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Much of the media is holding up the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, as a white horse riding into Asia and other economically troubled parts of the world, bringing salvation in the form of U.S. dollars. But a remarkable coalition of groups as diverse as Friends of the Earth and the Heritage Foundation are uniting to challenge the IMF. They claim it’s ineffective, anti-poor and serves only to support a small and elitist agenda, financed by American taxpayers. In the next few weeks Congress may vote on an $18 billion funding increase for the IMF, of which $14.5 billion will be used to expand the fund’s operations and scope.
For decades, activists have been calling for an end to the nearly four-decade old American embargo of Cuba, decrying the embargo as inhumane, pointless, and just plain wrong. Now with the tourism booming in Cuba, the Cold War long over and the Pope’s impending arrival, their crusade has been joined by many others including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Retired Army General who once commanded the Guantanemo naval base on the island. The new coalition is supporting pending legislation in both houses of congress that would end the U.S. embargo on food and medical sales to Cuba.
The Pope will arrive in Cuba in little over a week. In preparation for his visit, host Amy Goodman went to Havana over the holidays to see how people were preparing for the visit and to get a sense of people’s lives in Cuba.