Talk about The Comeback Spy. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush (for Dubya he was like family), spectacularly resurfaced after one year in speculation-drenched limbo (was he or was he not dead, following an assassination…
Category: Afghanistan
On Friday morning, the AKP government of Turkey´s Prime Minister R. Tayyip Erdogan ordered Turkey´s police to begin a crackdown on Turkey´s opposition, resulting in numerous arrests of prominent opposition members and journalists. Roadblocks have been…
At least 14 suspected al-Qaeda militants have been killed in Yemen in three drone strikes presumed carried out by the US. Since July 27, the US has murdered 34 people, according to an Associated Press…
On August 3 the US government issued a new terrorist warning. 22 US foreign missions from Mauritania to Afghanistan are closed, including Israel, the closest ally. The New York Police Department is on…
If, as Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote, “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons” then we are a nation of barbarians. Our vast network of federal and state prisons, with some 2.3 million inmates, rivals the gulags of totalitarian states. Once you disappear behind prison walls you become prey. Rape. Torture. Beatings. Prolonged isolation. Sensory deprivation. Racial profiling. Chain gangs. Forced labor. Rancid food. Children imprisoned as adults. Prisoners forced to take medications to induce lethargy. Inadequate heating and ventilation. Poor health care. Draconian sentences for nonviolent crimes. Endemic violence. Bonnie Kerness and Ojore Lutalo, both of whom I met in Newark, N.J., a few days ago at the office of American Friends Service Committee Prison Watch, have fought longer and harder than perhaps any others in the country against the expanding abuse of prisoners, especially the use of solitary confinement. Lutalo, once a member of the Black Liberation Army, an offshoot of the Black Panthers, first wrote Kerness in 1986 while he was a prisoner at Trenton State Prison, now called New Jersey State Prison. He described to her the bleak and degrading world of solitary confinement, the world of the prisoners like him held in the so-called management control unit, which he called “a prison within a prison.”
While joint military exercises between the Pentagon and South Korea gained tremendous attention over the last week, there have been two major maritime and ground operations carried out under United States leadership with the involvement of…
Those scientists, technicians and workers of the DPRK who contributed to the success of the third underground nuclear test were accorded the most cordial hospitality in Pyongyang. From the moment they arrived in Pyongyang on…
Introduction President Hugo Chavez was unique in multiple areas of political, social and economic life. He made significant contributions to the advancement of humanity. The depth, scope and popularity of his accomplishments mark President Chavez…
Chavez spent his last days in the army hospital of Caracas. The fourth cancer surgery in Cuba failed to improve his health. He took a decision to return. There were rumors going round that it…
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has just completed its annual gala in Washington. A reported thirteen thousand AIPAC supporters reportedly cheered the latest efforts to make Israel America’s most favored nation….