In response to an environmental lawsuit filed against the oil giant, Chevron has fortified its defenses with at least twelve different public relations firms whose purpose is to debunk the claims made against the company by indigenous people living in the Amazon forests of Ecuador. According to them, Chevron dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Amazon between 1964 and 1990, causing damages assessed at more than $27 billion.

Anthony Lawson did it again, a brilliant expose of Israeli brutality: the numbers, the intensity, the images and the carnage the Israel has left behind. Must watch…

As Israel keeps threatening the regional countries with war, Egyptian maritime sources say the Israeli navy has deployed two missile ships to the Persian Gulf. Citing the sources, Yediot Ahronot reported Saturday that two Israeli missile ships passed through the Suez Canal en rout to the Red Sea on Thursday morning.

AlterNet: New Poll Results Are Proof That Republicans Don't Think.

A record 38.2 million Americans were enrolled in the food stamp program at latest count, up 246,000 from the previous month and the latest in record-high monthly tallies that began in December 2008. Food stamps are the primary federal anti-hunger program, helping poor people buy groceries. The Agriculture Department updated enrollment data on Friday with a preliminary figure for November.

Terri Cullen, the reporter who wrote that article earlier this week alleging an Obama "back door" tax hike for nearly everyone, which became a rightwing cause -- and then was withdrawn by Reuters -- has now left the company. Jumped or pushed? She had just come on board a month ago, and had spent many years as a top WSJ staffer. MyBudget360: Game Over for the American Middle Class.

Dwight D. Eisenhower exit speech on Jan.17,1961. Warning us of the military industrial complex.
Cnet: FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited: The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years indefinitely, a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations of 'child pornography' and other 'serious crimes'. 'Child pornography' and "other" 'serious crimes' are nothing but pretexts. They want a police state. We need to wake up and resist this.

School bombing exposes Obama’s secret war inside Pakistan. The discovery of three American soldiers among the dead in a suicide bombing at the opening of a girls’ school in the northwestern Pakistan town of Dir last week reignited the fears of many Pakistanis that Washington was set on invading their country. Barack Obama has banned the Bush-era term “war on terror” and dithered about sending extra troops to Afghanistan, but across the border in Pakistan, the US president has dramatically stepped up the covert war against Islamic extremists.

A woman has been tortured by her neighbours for two days and forced to eat human waste before she finally gave in and confessed to practising witchcraft. Those who beat, punched and kicked Kalli Biswokarma, 47, accused her of casting evil spells on a schoolteacher who had fallen ill in the village of Pyutar, 40 kilometres south of Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.

As many as 24 million eligible bachelors in China may never be able to marry because of a lack of women in the country. New stats from the State-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences show there has been no let up in China’s 20-year-old gender imbalance. Authorities say the normal male-female ratio is between 103-107 males for every 100 females. But the latest figures show that in 2005, there were 119 boys for every 100 girls in China. The study said that in some areas the ratio was as high as 130-100.

Egypt has completed the restoration of reputedly the world's oldest Christian monastery, called Saint Anthony's. The monastery is believed to be 1,600 years old. The government-sponsored restoration project cost over $14m (£8.9m) and took more than eight years. The monastery is a popular site for Coptic Christian pilgrims. The restoration comes soon after Egypt's worst incident of sectarian violence in a decade, when six Copts were shot dead on Christmas Eve. BBC's Cairo correspondent Yolande Knell says it is hoped the newly-restored monastery in Suez City will be held up as a sign of co-existence between Egypt's Muslim majority and Christian minority.