Records of Afghan detainee transfer orders showing whether Canadian military commanders took the risk of torture into account are buried in sea shipping containers and "may take years" to locate, the Military Police Complaints Commission was told Tuesday. The revelation by Maj. Denis Gagnon emerged when he was closely questioned by lawyer Paul Champ, who said the commission is on the verge of deciding whether it has to suspend public hearings, partly because of missing and delayed documents from the Defence Department. Gagnon said the documents are "all thrown together in a storage bin, a sea container" and an assessment of how long it would take to catalogue documents and identify the records requested by the commission may take years. The hearings are into a complaint by Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association that Canadian military commanders ordered the transfer of detainees to Afghan custody despite a high risk of torture and that military police failed to investigate. Such transfers are illegal under international law.

The Obama administration is seeking to compel a writer to testify about his confidential sources for a 2006 book about the Central Intelligence Agency, a rare step that was authorized by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The author, James Risen, who is a reporter for The New York Times, received a subpoena on Monday requiring him to provide documents and to testify May 4 before a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., about his sources for a chapter of his book, “State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration.” The chapter largely focuses on problems with a covert C.I.A. effort to disrupt alleged Iranian nuclear weapons research. Mr. Risen referred questions to his lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg, a partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel L.L.P., who said that Mr. Risen would not comply with the demand and would ask a judge to quash the subpoena.

The North Korean military has recently altered its wartime contingency plans against South Korea to concentrate on attacking the Seoul metropolitan region, a military source said yesterday. South Korean commanders will meet next month to discuss the change and their response to it. According to the high-ranking source, the North’s military recently decided to do away with the so-called “Five-to-Seven” plans dating from the 1980s to adopt a new plan in which it would occupy only a part of South Korea and start negotiating a cease-fire. “We believe the North made the change to better deal with the upgraded weapons systems of the U.S. and South Korean forces,” the source explained.

An Iranian maritime patrol aircraft buzzed the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower at sea in the Middle East last week, passing within 1,000 yards of the ship, but American defense officials sought to downplay the encounter as relatively common. There was no information about exactly where the encounter took place — for example, in the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Oman — but the official said it happened in “international waters.”

AntiWar: "Papering" the War Against Iran.

Currently, the search for a piece of paper that will seal the fate of Iran is underway, with considerable pressure from the White House to come up with a document that can be used to justify war.

A senior Iranian lawmaker says the United States is held in contempt for its status as the only country to have used nuclear weapons in the past. Chairman of Iran's parliamentary (Majlis) Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Wednesday that Washington should apologize for its failure to abide by its obligations under international law and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). He noted that Iran's sharp criticism against Washington's lack of commitment has further intensified “the global wave of revulsion and disdain” against US policies.

A solidarity caravan travelling to the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala in the Triqui Region of Oaxaca has been attacked by UBISORT paramilitaries. Two are confirmed dead, with at least 15 injured and three missing.

A soldier caught driving at 143mph has been allowed to keep his licence so he can train for a life-saving role in Afghanistan. Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineer Kameron Edmondson admitted going twice the speed limit on the M40 in his Ford Focus ST, believing he was being persued by a Subaru Impreza. He said did not realise it was an unmarked police car.

[Craig Murray:] Jack Straw and the Rule of Law -You would expect Jack Straw as "Justice Minister" to support the rule of law. But not only has he personally just flagrantly breached the criminal law on treating in elections, he has supported the astonishing idea that troops serving in Afghanistan should be exempt from law while off duty in the UK. Minister of Justice Jack Straw commented: "It seems to me that the judge has shown appropriate mercy for someone risking his life for the rest of us.” Anyone driving at 143mph on the public highway is a real threat to kill members of the public. So the Justice Minster believes soldiers should be exempt from such laws? What else will the principle be extended to? Rape? "Yes, he raped her, but he is doing important work protecting the nation in Afghanistan". -Straw is an absolute disgrace.

Gordon Brown was fighting for his political life today after he delivered a potential knockout blow to his own election hopes just hours before the crucial final live television debate. The Prime Minister will desperately try and draw a line under the 'bigotgate' scandal when he is expected to apologise again for insulting grandmother Gillian Duffy in tonight's debate. In a tumultuous day for Labour, the Prime Minister tore up his plans and returned to Mrs Duffy's terrace house to beg for forgiveness after he was caught calling her a bigot because she questioned him about immigration.

An oil spill caused by last week’s deadly explosion on a British Petroleum (BP) oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico is spreading toward the coast of Louisiana, threatening fisheries, beaches and numerous species. The April 20 explosion on the BP-contracted rig, Deepwater Horizon, took the lives of 11 workers and critically injured four more. It was caused by a blowback when a mud sealant applied to the drill hole on the seabed likely failed to seal. Oil then forced its way up the drill bore blowing apart machinery and igniting a fire that lasted two days, eventually collapsing the rig, which was operating in 5,000 feet of water. Louisiana’s coastal waters and its vast Mississippi Delta contain about 40 percent of US wetlands and are home to nesting and spawning areas for hundreds of species of birds and fish. The area of the spill is also the habitat for a pod of sperm whales. “If some of the weather conditions continue, the Delta area is at risk,” said Charlie Henry of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This Can't Be Happening!: Murphy's Law and the Stupidity of Obama's Drill-Drill-Drill Offshore Oil Policy.

The pilots waging America’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan could be liable to criminal prosecution for “war crimes,” a prominent law professor told a Congressional panel Wednesday. Harold Koh, the State Department’s top legal adviser, outlined the administration’s legal case for the robotic attacks last month. Now, some legal experts are taking turns to punch holes in Koh’s argument. It’s part of an ongoing legal debate about the CIA and U.S. military’s lethal drone operations, which have escalated in recent months — and which have received some technological upgrades. Critics of the program, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have argued that the campaign amounts to a program of targeted killing that may violate the laws of war.

Four Palestinians were killed and another 10 injured after Egyptian security forces blew up four tunnels under the border with Gaza. The Palestinian police blame the Egyptian security forces for killing the Palestinians by destroying the tunnels while they were working in them, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Egyptian security officials have admitted they destroyed four tunnels north of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. Three people died of smoke inhalation and a fourth died due to injuries received from flying debris. Palestinians have largely relied on the tunnels for importing food and other vital assistance into the Gaza Strip since Israel imposed a tight blockade on the coastal enclave after Hamas took control of the region in June 2007.

An Israeli border police officer sprays colored pepper spray in the eyes of a handcuffed Palestinian youth as Israeli security forces scuffle with Palestinians during a demonstration against the construction of Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank village of Walajeh, outside occupied Jerusalem, Tuesday. Haaretz: Israeli soldiers Wednesday opened fire on a group on non-violent protesters in Gaza killing a 20-year old Palestinian.

WMR has learned from two El Al sources who worked for the Israeli airline at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport that on 9/11, hours after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded all civilian domestic and international incoming and outgoing flights to and from the United States, a full El Al Boeing 747 took off from JFK bound for Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport. The two El Al employee sources are not Israeli nationals but legal immigrants from Ecuador who were working in the United States for the airline. The flight departed JFK at 4:11 pm and its departure was, according to the El Al sources, authorized by the direct intervention of the U.S. Department of Defense. U.S. military officials were on the scene at JFK and were personally involved with the airport and air traffic control authorities to clear the flight for take-off. According to the 9/11 Commission report, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta ordered all civilian flights to be grounded at 9:45 am on September 11. The El Al flight took off two days before commercial flights were permitted to resume on September 13.

The U.S. GIVES Israel over 3 BILLION DOLLARS a year in aid.
The U.S. turns a blind eye on every atrocity committed by Israel.
The U.S. vetos every UN Resolution condemning Israel.
The U.S. supplies Israel with the arms used to commit the genocide against the Palestinian people.

BUT……Foxman: US shift in Israel policy “deeply distressing”

Nancy Schaefer "The Unlimited Power of Child Protective Services" (Part 2 of 2)

"After 4 years of viewing the ruthless and unsparing actions of CPS... I wrote a scathing report, entitled 'The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services." The report cost me my senate seat."

As we now know, Nancy Schaefer lost more than her senate fighting CPS. Let's keep her spirit alive, and keep fighting against the "ruthless and unsparing" gang of thugs known as CPS. This video is Part 1 of a 2, a powerful speech, given by Nancy Schaefer in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, August 15, 2009.

A new government report says global warming could lead to an increase in both cancer and mental illness worldwide, and it calls for more federally funded research to determine how that might happen. The report, A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change, was published by the Interagency Working Group on Climate Change and Health – a combination of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NIH, State Department, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Agriculture, the EPA, and the Department of Health and Human Services. The report's overall thrust is for more federally funded research to investigate the alleged links between global warming and public health, including the potentially negative effects from warming and the potentially negative side-effect of green technologies.

NEW YORK - The only man ever to admit involvement in the assassination of Malcolm X was freed on parole yesterday, 45 years after he helped gun down the civil rights leader. Thomas Hagan was the last man still serving time in the 1965 killing, part of the skein of violence that wound through the cultural and political upheaval of the 1960s. He was freed from a Manhattan prison where he spent two days a week under a work-release programme. Hagan, 69, has repeatedly expressed sorrow for being one of the gunmen who fired on Malcolm X, killing one of the civil rights era's most polarising and compelling figures. One of the groups dedicated to Malcolm X's memory condemned Hagan's parole.

The US military has announced the death of an American soldier after a roadside bomb went off in Iraq's northeastern province of Diyala. "A United States Division-North soldier was killed Tuesday by a bomb explosion in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad," US military said in a statement issued on Wednesday. According to the statement, the incident is currently under investigation. Meanwhile, the name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. The latest death raises to seven the number of fatalities among American soldiers in war-ravaged Iraq during the month of April. The death also brings to 24 the number of US soldiers killed so far this year in the country. The US army has lost 4,394 soldiers in Iraq so far.

Ekaterina Gerasimova has piercing blue eyes, an innocent girl-next-door face, and likes to do a little amateur modelling. But if her "victims" are to be believed, she is the Kremlin's most effective secret agent and a latter-day Mata Hari. Her mission, it is claimed, is to discredit prominent Kremlin critics by luring them into compromising situations using vintage KGB honey trap techniques. Offering her own body, sex, and drugs from cocaine to marijuana as an inducement, "Katya" as she is usually known has tried and often succeeded in bedding at least half a dozen high-profile Kremlin critics. The reputational damage she has inflicted has varied from serious to negligible depending on her victim's marital status and response. Her latest victim was Viktor Shenderovich, a journalist and the script writer on Russia's now defunct version of the Spitting Image TV satire. Mr Shenderovich, who is married and has a daughter, admits that he slept with Ms Gerasimova but claims he was set up by the Kremlin. Sydney Morning Herald: Modern Mata Hari leaves Kremlin critics exposed.

Today’s Senate hearings, carried on CNBC, Bloomberg, and C-SPAN, represent the first major exposure of the American people to the scandalous frauds of the derivatives casino, including synthetic collateralized debt obligations (synthetic CDOs or CDO²). These are things most people have heard very little about. They begin to open up the shocking reality behind such shopworn euphemisms like “toxic assets,” “exotic instruments,” and “troubled assets.” Reactionaries in general and Republicans in particular have done everything possible to hide the role of derivatives, which must be considered the main cause of the financial panic of September 2008 which brought down Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and AIG, after felling Bear Stearns in March of the same year. The reactionary legend, repeated yesterday on the Senate floor by financier minion GOP Sen. Gregg of New Hampshire, is that the crisis was caused by poor people taking out subprime mortgages and then defaulting, bringing down the entire Anglo-American banking system and triggering the bailouts. Either that, or too much government spending was too blame.

Palin on Fox News refers to something the "lamestream media" did. Turns out it was Fox News. On last night's Hannity, Fox News contributor Sarah Palin did what she does best-complain about the "lamestream media throughout our country." This time, the media's "lame[ness]" was revealed through their coverage of Arizona's new controversial immigration law. Palin sniffed: "One of the media outlets the other day just-was killing me on this one, Sean, where they had a caption across their screen that said Arizona law will make it illegal to be an illegal immigrant? Some bizarre type of headline like that where it was just this illustration that they just don't get it."