OAS member states agree to lift suspension of Cuba
by Frances Robles
SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras -- Cuba's 47-year suspension from the Organization of American States will be lifted, thanks to an agreement reached Wednesday by foreign ministers assembled in Honduras, diplomats here announced.''The cold war has ended today in San Pedro Sula,'' Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said. |
Brazil navy races to pull Air France wreck from sea
by Alonso Soto
(Reuters) - Brazilian navy divers rushed on Wednesday to reach the wreckage of an Air France jet and start the grim job of pulling debris from the Atlantic Ocean, where the plane with 228 people went down in the airline's worst disaster in its 75-year history. |
I just don't get Obama's Gitmo strategy.
by Matt Taibbi
'If Obama had stated that preventive detention would not apply to anyone apprehended going forward, he would have offered a decisive - not to mention, for people like me, more acceptable - policy directive. The fact that he did not make this distinction cannot help but make one wonder whether the remedies created to address the unfortunate and unacceptable baggage of the Bush years may carry over into his own era. If that is the case, we might well ask ourselves, what other good intentions might choose to hide behind a legacy that begs for closure?' |
Obama Should Visit Gaza
by Medea Benjamin
US President Barack Obama will give a major policy talk at Cairo University on 4 June, intended to start mending the rift between the United States and the Arab world. During the Bush years, many Arabs turned against the United States because of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. But the issue that is really at the crux of the tensions with the United States is the intractable conflict between Israel and Palestine, and what many perceive as a one-sided US policy in support of Israel. |
Dick Cheney's verbal diarrhea
by Doug Thompson
With apologies to the late Gen. Douglas MacArthur, old politicians never die. They just become thorns in the side of those elected to follow them.Case in point: Former Vice President Dick Cheney. More than any other member of the failed administration of George W. Bush, Cheney is working overtime in a vain attempt to rewrite history in real time, sometimes twisting facts and more often lying outright. |
Expert: Air France black boxes may never be found
by Federico Escher and Emma Vandore
Military planes and ships struggled through high seas and heavy winds Wednesday as they searched for the bobbing wreckage of an Air France jet in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, while an investigator said the plane's black boxes may never be found.Rescue boats from several nations were sailing toward the site to start the recovery as aviation experts tried to determine why the plane carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on Sunday night ended up in the sea. |
Tillman’s mother says general lying — again — about son’s death
by John Byrne
The mother of football star Pat Tillman, who was killed by friendly fire in 2004 but whose fratricide was deliberately kept from the public and his family, says a general’s testimony to Congress is yet another lie by a military officer about her son’s death. |
Cheney backpedals on earlier claims
by Doug Thompson
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, under fire for bombastic, misleading and outright lies about claimed Bush Administration 'successes' in the so-called 'war on terror,' is changing his story.Now, after years of claiming Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- one of the 'justifications' used by the Bush White House to sell the invasion of Iraq -- Cheney now admits no such link existed. |
He Kept Us Safe (Except When He Didn't)
by David Michael Green
I'm really sick to death of hearing the Bush administration people brag about how they kept us safe from terrorists, matrimonially inclined homosexuals, and other really mean people.Sure, I understand why they do it. And, no, I'm not referring to the fact that regressives seem to be congenital liars, or that, because they themselves are so existentially frightened, they understand instinctively just how the politics of fear work. |
The White Stuff
by Ed Naha
At what point, in America, did it become okay to be stupid? When did it become acceptable for someone to blurt out any inane mental fart at Led Zeppelin volume and, then, smirk smugly as if they'd just revealed the secret of life?Here's conservative icon and convicted felon G. Gordon Liddy on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. 'Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating or something, or just before she's going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.' |
Should We Waterboard the Domestic Terrorist Who Shot Dr. Tiller?
by Cenk Uygur
I think we can all agree that the man who shot Dr. George Tiller is a domestic terrorist. I know what Republicans think we should do with accused terrorists -- waterboard them. So, let's get it on.Initial reports are that the suspect is an anti-abortion activist named Scott Roeder. Good enough. Let's torture the son of a bitch. Remember the people in Guantanamo Bay were just detainees, they were not convicted of anything before we started the 'enhanced interrogation' techniques. Most of them didn't even have the verifiable criminal and terroristic history of Roeder who was previously arrested with bomb making material and has called murder of doctors 'justifiable homicide' before. So, if you can't waterboard Roeder, then who can you waterboard? He is the perfect candidate. |
Reagan Didn’t Do It
by Robert Scheer
How could Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and author of generally excellent columns in The New York Times, get it so wrong? His column last Sunday-'Reagan Did It'-which stated that 'the prime villains behind the mess we're in were Reagan and his circle of advisers,' is perverse in shifting blame from the obvious villains closer at hand. |
US Report Finds Airstrike Errors in Afghan Deaths
by Eric Schmitt and Tom Shanker
WASHINGTON - A military investigation has concluded that American personnel made significant errors in carrying out some of the airstrikes in western Afghanistan on May 4 that killed dozens of Afghan civilians, according to a senior American military official. |
Washington Didn't Want You to See this Guantanamo Photo
by Michelle Shephard
Star journalist captures landmark protest hours before a suicide puts heat on ObamaWASHINGTON - A Guantanamo Bay detainee committed suicide late Monday just hours after two Chinese Muslim captives staged the detention centre's first public protest, increasing the pressure on U.S. President Barack Obama to outline his plan of how he will close the offshore prison. |
