War on drugs goes literal: biowarfare on poppies

US and British forces in Afghanistan have been accused of waging biological warfare on poppy fields to stymie opium crop production. Last week, the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported: Poppy plants have been suffering from a mysterious disease which leaves them yellow and withered and slashes the yield of opium resin which is sold on and [...]

223,190 Kids Legally Beaten in US Schools

For the first time in over 18 years, Congress has held hearings on the use of Corporal Punishment in U.S. Schools. In the coming weeks, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (NY) will introduce a bill to institute a federal ban of corporal punishment in all US Schools. Every 20 seconds of the school day, a child is [...]

Christian ‘doctrine’ fueled dehumanization: UNPFII report

A groundbreaking report examining the roots of Christian domination over indigenous peoples and their lands was released this week at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. North American Representative to the Permanent Forum Tonya Gonnella Frichner, an attorney and founder of the American Indian Law Alliance, presented a preliminary study on the “Doctrine [...]

US school for disabled forces students to wear packs that deliver massive electric shocks

Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI)  has filed a report and urgent appeal with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture alleging that the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center for the disabled, located in Massachusetts, violates the UN Convention against Torture. The rights group submitted their report this week, titled “Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term [...]

U.S. says it has 5,113 nuclear warheads

WASHINGTON — The United States has 5,113 nuclear warheads in its stockpile and “several thousand” more retired warheads awaiting the junk pile, the Pentagon said Monday in an unprecedented accounting of a secretive arsenal born in the Cold War and now shrinking rapidly. The Obama administration disclosed the size of its atomic stockpile going back [...]

Let Dr. Aafia go home, Mr. President

Reading all those legal thrillers by John Grisham and watching Hollywood blockbusters that portray innocent individuals framed and ensnared by a powerful system, one always thought: Of course, these things do not happen in real life. I am not so sure anymore though. The abduction, persecution and now conviction of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Massachusetts [...]

Justice Lawyers Try to Define Cyber War

Run for the hills! The Department of Justice‘s lawyers are trying to figure out just what would constitute an act of war during a cyber attack. OK, it may not be that bad, but the specter of a room full of government lawyers trying to decide what constitutes an act of war when it occurs [...]

U.S. Senators Seek Changes to Plan Colombia

WASHINGTON – Three influential Democratic senators have urged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to review the U.S. contribution to the counter-narcotics initiative known as Plan Colombia in light of Bogota’s scant progress in reducing cocaine production or curbing human rights abuses. “Given U.S. record budget deficits, we cannot afford to continue assistance that is not [...]

David Kelly post mortem to be kept secret for 70 years as doctors accuse Lord Hutton of concealing vital information

Vital evidence which could solve the mystery of the death of Government weapons inspector Dr David Christopher Kelly will be kept under wraps for up to 70 years. In a draconian – and highly unusual – order, Lord Hutton, the peer who chaired the controversial inquiry into the Dr Kelly scandal, has secretly barred the [...]

UN removes Taliban officials from blacklist

The United Nations has removed five former Taliban officials from its blacklist as part of reconciliation efforts in war-weary Afghanistan. The de-listing, which came on Wednesday, was approved by a special Security Council committee. The UN said in a statement that the five Afghan nationals would no longer be subject to a freeze on their [...]

United Nations report blasts US over human rights abuses

A United Nations report says the US has been violating basic human rights by kidnapping and holding terrorism suspects in secret detention centers during the past nine years. The US is among dozens of countries that have kidnapped suspects, four independent UN rights investigators said in a year-long study based on flight data and interviews [...]

Government posting wealth of data to Internet

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday is posting to the Internet a wealth of government data from all Cabinet-level departments, on topics ranging from child car seats to Medicare services. The mountain of newly available information comes a year and a day after President Barack Obama promised on his first full day on the [...]

Dutch probe declares Iraq war ‘illegal’

An independent probe investigating the Netherlands‘ support for the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq says the US and Britain rushed to war without sufficient legal backing under international law. The commission’s 551-page report says United Nations resolutions prior to the outbreak of the war did not provide the mandate for the attack. “There was insufficient [...]

America’s Secret ICE Castles

“If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement‘s (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008. Also present [...]

Russia surprised by U.S., EU stance on UN anti-Nazi resolution

Russia is concerned over the stance of the United States and the European Union on a United Nations resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism and the desecration of World War II monuments, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia said on Sunday. The United Nations General Assembly adopted on December 18, 2009 a draft resolution [...]

Serbia will submit EU candidacy bid

The Serbian government on Saturday decided formally to submit a membership bid to join the European Union. A decision on when that bid is formally submitted will depend upon Sweden, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetković, told RTS television in Belgrade. Serbia has been under pressure to increase its [...]

Copenhagen Accord

Three page draft Copehagen Accord, from around Friday 7pm, Dec 18, 2009; includes pen-markings. The Copenhagen Accord is the document that delegates at the United Nations Climate Change Conference agreed to “take note of” at the final plenary session of the Conference on 18 December 2009. The Accord is not legally binding, and does not [...]

Obama ordered deadly blitz on Yemen: US media

US Nobel Peace Prize Laureate President Barack Obama has signed the order for a recent military strike on Yemen in which scores of civilians, including children, have been killed, a report says. Upon the orders of Obama, the military warplanes on Thursday blanketed two camps in the North of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, claiming there [...]

UN ombudsman to review list of terrorist suspects

An ombudsman is now to consider the delisting of terrorist suspects from the United Nations list of Al Qaeda and Taliban members as the Security Council adopted a resolution intended to bring ‘fairness and transparency’ to its anti-terrorism efforts. The decision, driven by repeated criticism that non-suspects might be included in the 500-member list, was [...]

Spy agencies closely monitoring climate change talks

I have written before about the increasing involvement of intelligence agencies in ongoing climate change negotiations between the world’s governments. In October, the Central Intelligence Agency announced the establishment of its Center on Climate Change and National Security, despite fierce opposition by Republican lawmakers. Earlier this month, it was alleged that the hackers who stole [...]

Drug money saved banks from collapse

While banks were enduring a severe financial downturn, they absorbed billions of dollars in drugs money, says Antonio Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Costa told the Observer that drugs money “saved banks from collapse” at the height of the global financial crisis, the Daily Mail reported on Sunday. [...]

UN Equipped Congolese Army That Carried Out Atrocities

United Nations peacekeeping officials were explicitly warned months ago by their legal advisers not to participate in combat operations with the Congolese Army if there were a risk that Congolese soldiers might abuse human rights, internal documents show. But the mission went forward — and the abuses took place as feared. According to United Nations [...]

Ex-British diplomat: Iraq war was illegitimate

The former UK ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock says that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was “of questionable legitimacy”. Greenstock was speaking on day four of public hearings at a wide-ranging inquiry into the US-led, British-backed Iraq War covering the period from 2001 to 2009. Jeremy Greenstock said the United States seemed to [...]

Let’s Eliminate Welfare for Terrorists

Of all the factors on the table in the current Afghan strategic review, the War on Drugs and its unintended consequences should be front and center. Our 95-year effort to create a Drug Free America by enforcing world-wide prohibition has twisted our foreign policy out of shape all over the globe and the nightmare in [...]

Poll: US views Israel exempted from law

The US apparently views Israel as being exempted from abiding by international law, the results of a recent online opinion poll indicate. Press TV asked in an online poll about the respondents’ opinion on a recent motion by the US congressmen against the Goldstone report (United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict), which [...]

15-fold rise in birth defects in Fallujah

There has been a 15-fold rise in birth defects and early childhood cancers in the war-ravaged enclave of Fallujah, the site of two major battles after the Iraq invasion, doctors say. Dr. Ayman Qais said that before the war began in 2003, there were sporadic numbers of deformities in babies, but now the frequency of [...]

UN: West Africa on verge of producing drugs

West Africa is on the verge of becoming a source for drugs as well as a transit point, the United Nations drug chief warned Thursday. Antonio Maria Costa told the United Nations Security Council that since July his office and Interpol have been investigating numerous West African sites where they found large amounts of chemicals [...]

British nuclear expert’s 17th floor UN death plunge ‘was not suicide’

A British nuclear expert who fell from the 17th floor of a United Nations building did not commit suicide and may have been hurled to his death, says a doctor who carried out a second post-mortem examination. Timothy Hampton, 47, a scientist involved in monitoring nuclear activity, was found dead last week at the bottom [...]

Occupiers involved in drug trade: Afghan minister

The Afghan minister of counter narcotics says foreign troops are earning money from drug production in Afghanistan. General Khodaidad Khodaidad said the majority of drugs are stockpiled in two provinces controlled by troops from the US, the UK, and Canada, Islamic Republic News Agency reported on Saturday. He went on to say that North Atlantic [...]

UN says US drone strikes may violate international law

US unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) strikes against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan could be breaking international laws against summary executions, the United Nations top investigator of such crimes said. “The problem with the United States is that it is making an increased use of drones/Predators (which are) particularly prominently used now in relation to [...]

Individual Rights Must Come Before Protecting Religious Institutions

The Obama Administration has changed the way the United States relates to the world.  I tend to think this is good on many levels, but change can be nerve-racking.  An example of this is the recent United Nations Human Rights Council resolution regarding freedom of opinion and expression co-authored by the U.S. and Egypt.  (You read [...]

Waco Siege “Enforcer” To Rule Over Global Police Force

Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Monday, October 12, 2009 United Nations and Interpol officials will meet today to discuss the formation of a “global police force” that would enjoy access to a worldwide database of DNA, biometric and fingerprint records. The effort will be spearheaded by a man known as “The Enforcer” who helped federal [...]

New York police comes down on Russia Today correspondent

As the United Nations session continued, Russia Today (RT) correspondent Marina Portnaya was verbally abused and harassed by overzealous New York City Police Department officers. She was prevented from broadcasting and denied the use of her phone, but was later told she had done nothing wrong. However, a live broadcast associate was told that our [...]

United Nations Backs Drug Decriminalization In World Drug Report

In an about face, the United Nations on Wednesday lavishly praised drug decriminalization in its annual report on the state of global drug policy. In previous years, the UN drug czar had expressed skepticism about Portugal’s decriminalization, which removed criminal penalties in 2001 for personal drug possession and emphasized treatment over incarceration. The UN had [...]

Comment: Get real, drug czars

ELEVEN years ago, the United Nations pledged to win the war on drugs within a decade. It has failed. At this year’s meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, held in Vienna in March, there was a two-day session to evaluate the progress since 1998. In his opening remarks, the head of the UN [...]

EU nations eye prosecution of Bush officials

European officials and lawyers seek to criminalize former US officials over torture charges amid the reluctance of President Barack Obama. A number of European authorities and human rights groups have expressed dissatisfaction with Obama’s failure to press charges against ex-CIA authorities who sanctioned or administered the so-called ‘enhanced interrogation methods’ to terror suspects, saying that [...]

US military admits killing mother, children

A US soldier, stands guard in the Inzeri village of Tagab Valley, Afghanistan. The US military in Afghanistan has admitted that four of its troops killed non-combatants in a raid that included a mother and her children. Afghan officials and witnesses had earlier accused US forces of killing civilians in an overnight raid in the [...]

In Defense of Pirates

Hazardous waste on Somalian shore (scidev.net) If I’m to believe the mainstream press and pundits (most disappointingly, Rachel Maddow,) there are bands of inexplicably evil men sailing around the Horn of Africa, pillaging ships and terrorizing sailors simply because they are pirates. And pirates are evil. End of story. Except, that’s a rather shallow interpretation [...]

Wikileaks cracks NATO’s Master Narrative for Afghanistan

Wikileaks has cracked the encryption to a key document relating to the war in Afghanistan. The document, titled “NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative”, details the “story” NATO representatives are to give to, and to avoid giving to, journalists. The encrypted document, which is dated October 6, and believed to be current, can be found on [...]

U. N. Crime Chief Says Drug Money Used To Keep Banks Afloat

VIENNA: The United Nations‘ crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis, its head was quoted as saying on Sunday. Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian weekly Profil that drug money [...]

US veto blocks UN anti-Israel resolution

The UN Security Council has been unable to force an end to Israeli attacks against Gaza due to the intervention of the United States. Washington once again used its veto powers on Sunday to block a resolution calling for an end to the massive ongoing Israeli attacks against the Gaza Strip. See also: Israeli blockade [...]