U.S. and the World
New Afghan Commander Oversaw Torture Program
Prior to being selected by President Barack Obama to lead all U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Lt. General Stanley McChrystal led the military’s Special Operations command, and in this capacity, he helped oversee one of the more infamous torture progra... read more
60-Year-Old U.S. Soldier Killed in Iraq
Steven Hutchison of Scottsdale, AZ, had worked for a health care corporation and as a part-time college instructor before hijackers attacked New York City and Washington, DC, in 2001. Following the September 11 attacks, Hutchison wanted to reenlis... read more
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Faces Trial
Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize winning democracy advocate who has spent much of the past two decades under house arrest, is scheduled to go on trial May 18 for violating the terms of her confinement. Media reports say Suu Kyi got into t... read more
North Korea Indicts U.S. Reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling
The two American journalists from Current TV, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were arrested in North Korea on March 17th, are now facing trial in early June. The women have been indicted on charges of illegally entering the country and for committing... read more
Former IRA Prisoner to be Deported after 25 Years in U.S.
Former IRA prisoner Pol Brennan is set to be deported May 18. His only hope of staying in the US is if Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano grants him a special deportation waiver due to the hardship his deportation would cause his Amer... read more
China Overtakes the US in Trade With Brazil
In the midst of the U.S. economic downturn, China has surpassed the United States as Brazil’s biggest trading partner, a role the U.S. has played for the last 70-80 years. In April, the sum of China’s trade with Brazil reached $3.2 billion, exceed... read more
Death Threats by Text Message
In a sign of the times, nine members of two human rights organizations in Guatemala have received serious death threats by text message, according to Amnesty International. Between April 30and May 5, the members of the Association for the Study an... read more
Massacre in Afghanistan: U.S. Bombing or Taliban Trick?
U.S. military officials tried to blame the Taliban for the carnage in western Afghanistan earlier this week, only to have others in the Defense Department admit that American air strikes were at least partially responsible for the death of more th... read more
Bipartisan Support for Combating Soot
This past Earth Day, April 22, senators from both ends of the political spectrum, including John Kerry (D- Massachusetts) and James M. Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), came together to support and present a bipartisan bill that would order the Environmental P... read more
5 Americans Make UK “Least Wanted” List
Move over America’s “Most Wanted.” Here comes the United Kingdom’s “Least Wanted”—a select group of individuals who are persona non grata on British soil. Since 2005, the British government has compiled a list of those banned from entering the U... read more
Obama Administration Clashes with Canada over Food Labeling
On April 27, Stockwell Day, Canada’s International Trade Minister, announced that Canada gave notice to the Obama Administration of a complaint it has filed with the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding new”country-of-origin” labeling regulati... read more
Fake News Headline Calls Attention to Real Tragedy
The headline was shocking: “1,500 Farmers Commit Mass Suicide in India.” The story began in Northern Ireland’s Belfast Telegraph, was picked up by The Independent in England, and spread to the United States as a home-page story on the Huffington P... read more
Harvard Divinity Student Faces Deportation
Nur Munir, a graduate student at Harvard Divinity School, and U.S. resident for more than ten years, is likely to be deported to Indonesia, where he faces the possibility of political retaliation from the former military supporters of President Su... read more
Lockerbie Bomber Files Second Appeal, May Return to Libya
The only man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, may be transferred from Scotland to finish his sentence at home in a Libyan prison. Megrahi was convicted of murder for the bombing of the Pan Am... read more
Chevron May Face Biggest Fine Ever as 16-Year-Old Case Nears Judgment
When Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001, the oil giant also bought responsibility for a lawsuit that now threatens to yield the largest penalties ever in an environmental case. In 1993 lawyers in Ecuador filed suit claiming Texaco had caused widespre... read more
Security at Canadian Border Catches More Confusion than Terror Suspects
When the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency was created in 2003, its purpose was to provide immigration and counter-terrorism enforcement to prevent future attacks on the U.S. Six years later, the efficacy of the CBP along the U.S. border ... read more