“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.
Filed under Weekly Column
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.
Filed under Weekly Column
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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After the bloodiest day for Israel in the Middle East Conflict, the Israeli death toll has topped 75. Twelve soldiers were killed Sunday in the town of Kfar Giladi and three civilians were killed in Haifa. As the world awaits an official comment from Tel Aviv on a long-awaited UN ceasefire proposal, we go to Haifa to speak to Erez Gellar of the Israeli relief service Magen David Adom. [includes rush transcript]
The Israeli military is reportedly planning to ramp up its attacks on Lebanon by targetting more of the civilian infrastructure as well as symbols of the Lebanese government. One military official told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz “It could be that at the end of the story, Lebanon will be dark for a few years.” We speak to Catholic Relief Services representative Mark Shnellbaecher, who suggests that Lebanon could run out of fuel within the week, leading to a humanitarian catastrophe that will not be easily solved by ceasefire alone. [includes rush transcript]
The conflict in Congo has been called the world’s largest forgotten war. Yet while millions have died since the start of the most recent violence in 1998, the country has been torn apart by resource exploitation and government repression for decades. On July 30, Congo’s voters went to the polls for the first time in over 45 years, however allegations have surfaced that the elections were marred by fraud and international meddling. We speak to Alexis Motunda, national secretary for Congo’s main opposition party, as well as to journalist Johann Hari of the UK Independent, and the Congo Education Council’s Tshimanga John Metzel. [includes rush transcript]
Last week, the U.S. government announced that it was going to cancel a $50 million dollar contract with Bechtel, after a federal audit exposed gross mismanagement of a project to build a Children’s Hospital in Basra, Iraq. The auditors plan to expand their investigations to all of Bechtel’s $2.85 billion in Iraq contracts. Author and Activist Antonia Juhasz joins us from San Francisco. [includes rush transcript]