Child prostitution we can believe in: DynCorp Up On Army Award For Afghanistan Work Worth Up to $7.5B 08 Jul 2009 Shares of DynCorp International Inc. rose Wednesday as the service provider to government agencies and Fluor Corp. were selected over rival KBR Inc. for U.S. contracts worth up to $7.5 billion each to support base-camp operations in Afghanistan. DynCorp and Fluor were notified Tuesday that each won one-year contracts worth as much as $1.5 billion with four one-year options for the same annual amount, Dan Carlson, spokesman for the U.S. Army Sustainment Command, told Dow Jones Newswires. [See: Secrets and Lies: How Secret Bidding and the Shut-Out of Foreign Corporations in Iraqi Reconstruction Violates International Trade Principles By Anupam Chander 24 Apr 2003 "DynCorp received the contract despite its checkered past. Just three years ago, its American employees on U.S. government contracts in Bosnia were allegedly deeply implicated in an international prostitution ring, which included child prostitutes." See also: DynCorp Disgrace (from Insight Magazine) 14 Jan 2002 By Kelly Patricia O’Meara "Middle-aged men having sex with 12- to 15-year-olds was too much for Ben Johnston, a hulking 6-foot-5-inch Texan, and more than a year ago he blew the whistle on his employer, DynCorp, a U.S. contracting company doing business in Bosnia."]
Iraq group calls for further attacks on US troops 08 Jul 2009 An insurgent group linked to al-Qaeda of Iraq urged militants to continue attacks against U.S. forces even after combat troops were pulled from city centres, according to an audiotape released on Wednesday. The Islamic State of Iraq is believed to be affiliated with al Qaeda's main organisation in Iraq, led by Abu Ayyub al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir Blackwater, also known as Xe.
Afghanistan in a serious state, UK minister warns 08 Jul 2009 Britain's defence secretary, making his first speech since being promoted to head the ministry last month, said on Wednesday the war in Afghanistan was a serious struggle that needed patience. "Let us be under no illusion," Bob Ainsworth, the third person to head the Ministry of Defence in the past nine months, told the Royal Institute for International Affairs. "The situation in Afghanistan is serious, and it is not yet decided. The way forward is hard and dangerous. More lives will be lost and our resolve is going to be tested."
Nick Clegg: We're throwing lives away in Afghanistan 08 Jul 2009 The cross party consensus on the British military mission in Afghanistan has been broken by Nick Clegg with a warning that young lives are being "thrown away" by politicians. After seven days in which seven British soldiers have lost their lives in the country, the Liberal Democrat leader urges Gordon Brown and his military planners to think again "before it’s too late." He claims that British troops will be "demoralised" by having to be "bailed-out" by the latest American troop surge.
Troop surge sign of 'failure': Afghan election candidate 08 Jul 2009 The increasing number of foreign troops battling in Afghanistan represents failure, not success, according to the leading election contender to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Dr. Abdullah Abdullah -- the country's former foreign affairs minister and the person polling closest to Karzai in the run-up to the Aug. 20 national election -- said Wednesday that more war can't solve his country's problems.
11 NATO troops killed in 2 days in Afghanistan 07 Jul 2009 International troops in Afghanistan endured another deadly attack Tuesday, a day after 10 NATO-led troops were killed in that country. Seven Americans, two Canadians and one Briton died in four separate incidents Monday.
At Least 12 Killed in Iraq Attacks 08 Jul 2009 Authorities in Iraq say at least 12 people were killed in a series of attacks Wednesday, mainly in and around the northern city of Mosul. Iraqi officials say a car bomb exploded near a Shi'ite mosque on the outskirts of Mosul, killing nine people and wounding others. A second blast in a nearby village also caused injuries. At least 22 people were wounded in the two explosions.
Attacks Kill Five in Iraq 06 July 2009 Iraqi authorities say unidentified gunmen killed three Iraqi soldiers and two policemen during an attack at a security checkpoint in western Baghdad. Officials say the attack took place late Sunday night. In other violence, police say a car bomb in the northern city of Mosul has wounded at least eight people.
G8 sets Iran deadline for nuclear talks 08 Jul 2009 Group of Eight major powers will give Iran until September to accept negotiations over its nuclear ambitions or else face tougher sanctions, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday. Upping the stakes in a dispute with Tehran, Sarkozy said the powers would review the situation at a G20 meeting of developed and developing countries in Pittsburgh on September 24 and 25.
'That window is a very narrow window.' U.S. military chief says clock ticking on Iran nuke 08 Jul 2009 The top U.S. military officer warned on Tuesday that time is running out for dialogue with Tehran to avoid either a nuclear-armed Iran or a possible military strike against the Islamic Republic. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it is critical for diplomatic efforts to reach a solution before Iran develops a nuclear weapon or faces an Israeli or U.S. strike to turn back its nuclear program.
Israeli sub sails Suez, signaling reach to Iran 03 Jul 2009 An Israeli submarine sailed the Suez Canal to the Red Sea as part of a naval drill last month, defense sources said on Friday, describing the unusual maneuver as a show of strategic reach in the face of Iran. Israel long kept its three Dolphin-class submarines, which are widely assumed to carry nuclear missiles, away from Suez so as not to expose them to the gaze of Egyptian harbormasters.
Israeli activist goes on the record for Gaza 08 Jul 2009 An Israeli human rights activist says detainees were held with no access to food, water or restrooms and subjected to violent interrogations during the Gaza war. Attorney Majd Bader of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) testified in Geneva on Tuesday before a UN investigation team that is probing the three-week Israeli onslaught against Gaza which started in December.
Israel's spying 'violation of Lebanon's sovereignty' 08 Jul 2009 A top UN envoy says the running of spy networks by Israel in Lebanon is considered a serious violation of the country's sovereignty. "If these allegations are confirmed in court, this would constitute a very serious violation of Lebanon's sovereignty and consequently undermine relevant Security Council resolutions," Michael Williams said on Wednesday.
'Iran to publish detailed report on elections' 08 Jul 2009 Iran is to publish a report on its latest presidential election to clarify in full detail how the complaints about the election results were dealt with. The Guardian Council Spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei told Fars news agency that the "detailed report" will be published for the first time in the coming days. The report is aimed at resolving any ambiguities some people may still see in the election process, the official said.
Fresh US drone attacks kills dozens in Pakistan 08 Jul 2009 US drones targeting suspected militants have fired missiles killing about thirty people in Pakistan's troubled South Waziristan, leaving dozens injured. The Wednesday strike was the second drone attack of the day in the area controlled by Pakistan militant chief Baitullah Mahsud. The death toll is expected to rise as some of the injured are said to be in critical condition.
CIA Drone Targeting Tech Revealed, Qaeda Claims 08 Jul 2009 American drone strikes are finding their targets in Pakistan through a series of infrared homing beacons, 'Al Qaeda' alleges in a new online publication. The unmanned aircraft have supposedly carried out 28 attacks on suspected militants, just since the start of the year. Hundreds [of civilians] have been killed, including as many as 45 more people in a series of strikes today.
Funding totaling $11.5 million obtained for Minot AFB facilities 08 Jul 2009 Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., announced Tuesday $11.5 million in funding has been obtained for construction of new facilities critical to the 'nuclear mission' at Minot Air Force Base. Dorgan, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, secured the funding in the fiscal year 2010 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations bill to construct a new missile procedures training operations facility and a munitions trailer storage facility at the Minot base.
US leaves Honduras to its fate --Washington is unwilling to take the side of democracy in Honduras by opposing the coup leaders it helped to train By Mark Weisbrot 08 Jul 2009 The military coup that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras took a new turn when he attempted to return home on Sunday. The military closed the airport and blocked runways to prevent his plane from landing. They also shot several protesters, killing at least one and injuring others. The violence and the enormous crowd – estimated in the tens of thousands and reported as the largest since the coup on 28 June – put additional pressure on the Obama administration to seek a resolution to the crisis.
Calif. students quarantined in Japan for swine flu 08 Jul 2009 A group of 20 students studying in Japan through the University of California Davis have been quarantined after two of their Japanese tutors were diagnosed with swine flu. UC Davis summer abroad coordinator Kathy Cunningham said Wednesday the students arrived in Kyoto, Japan, on June 27 and were quarantined to a dormitory on July 3.
Bomb parts smuggled into 10 federal buildings during test 08 Jul 2009 Plainclothes investigators sent to test security at federal buildings in four U.S. cities were successful in smuggling bomb components through guard posts at all 10 of the sites they visited, according to a government report. The buildings contained offices of several federal lawmakers as well as agencies within the departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security, which is responsible for safeguarding federal office buildings.
US officials eye North Korea in cyber attack 08 Jul 2009 U.S. authorities eyed North Korea on Wednesday as the origin of the widespread cyber attack that overwhelmed government Web sites in the United States and South Korea, although they warned it would be difficult definitely to identify the attackers quickly. The powerful attack that targeted dozens of government and private sites underscored how unevenly prepared the U.S. government is to block such multipronged assaults [despite the *billions* taxpayers forked over to Bush's corpora-terrorist trolls for 'security'].
Former Bush aide testifies on prosecutor firings 07 Jul 2009 Former Bush White House official Karl Rove was questioned by House Judiciary Committee lawyers Tuesday on any role he may have played in politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys. Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., confirmed Rove's closed-door appearance through a committee spokesman who was not authorized to be quoted by name. The committee has been seeking answers on who created the list of federal prosecutors who would lose their jobs.
House Panel Interviews Karl Rove About Attorney Firings 08 Jul 2009 Former presidential aide Karl Rove sat for a day-long interview with members of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and is expected to return for another round of testimony later this summer, according to people familiar with the session. The panel, led by Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), is continuing to examine why the Bush administration fired nine top federal prosecutors in 2006, setting off an outcry that prompted the resignation of more than a dozen Justice Department officials including former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales.
Arizona Sheriff Won't Cooperate With DOJ 08 Jul 2009 The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office will not cooperate with the U.S. Department of Justice in an ongoing investigation into whether the office uses racial profiling, Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced in a news conference Tuesday. Arpaio said he's halting all interviews between his staff and DOJ investigators. The sheriff claims the DOJ is investigating his office for political reasons, not because of racial profiling.
Court Upholds Dismissal of Colorado Professor 08 Jul 2009 Three months after a jury ruled that Ward L. Churchill, a former University of Colorado professor, was wrongfully terminated for his political views, a judge on Tuesday refused to give him his job back. Chief Judge Larry J. Naves of Denver District Court ruled that the university’s regents were effectively acting as judicial officers when they voted to dismiss Mr. Churchill in 2007 after a faculty committee concluded that he had committed 'academic fraud.' As a result, Judge Naves found, the regents were legally protected from Mr. Churchill’s effort to reverse their ruling.
Ensign told him, 'I'm in love with your wife.' Ensign Hampton speaks publicly, says Ensign paid severance --Hampton said Ensign paid the woman more than $25,000 in severance when she stopped working for the senator. 08 Jul 2009 Doug Hampton spoke publicly for the first time today about the affair his wife had with Sen. John Ensign, saying the Nevada Republican continued his pursuit even after intermediaries tried to get him to stop. Hampton said that Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and others urged him to end the affair and help the Hamptons pay off their home and move to Colorado. But Ensign was so infatuated that he continued, Hampton said. Hampton and Ensign were bonded by their conservative evangelical faith. Hampton said he reached out to intermediaries involved in a Christian fellowship home in Washington, D.C., where Ensign and several other powerful Washington figures live. The group, including Coburn, a well-known conservative, confronted Ensign and suggested that the Hamptons needed to be given financial assistance -- in the millions of dollars -- to pay off their $1 million-plus mortgage and move them to a new life away from Ensign. [So he gets two bl*wjobs! One from the woman and one for the mortgage!]
40% of GOP Voters Say Resignation Hurts Palin’s Chances in 2012 07 Jul 2009 Forty percent (40%) of Republican voters nationwide say Sarah Palin’s decision to resign as governor of Alaska hurts her chances of winning the party’s presidential nomination in 2012. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of GOP voters finds that (24%) believe Palin’s resignation helps her chances of winning the Republican nomination, while 28% say it will have no impact on the race.
Bern to block UBS record transfer to US 08 Jul 2009 18:38 The Swiss government on Wednesday waded into the legal battle between UBS and the US authorities by saying it would forbid the bank from handing over confidential client information, if a crucial court case next week required it. Bern warned it might go as far as confiscating the data, should a US court in Miami rule the bank was obliged to transfer the client names requested.
G8 leaders claim historic break through on new deal to tackle global warming 09 Jul 2009 President Obama and other leaders backed historic new targets for tackling global warming last night in an agreement designed to pave the way for a world deal in the autumn. For the first time, America and the other seven richest economies agreed to the goal of keeping the world’s average temperature from rising more than 2C (3.6F). They also agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 as they strove for a worldwide deal at Copenhagen in December.
Group will sue EPA over pesticides in polar bears 08 Jul 2009 An environmental group said Wednesday that it plans to sue the federal government to stop approving pesticides that end up in food eaten by polar bears. The Center for Biological Diversity gave 60-day notice it will sue the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to consider the effects of pesticides on polar bears, a threatened species, and their Arctic habitat.
Polar Bears Poisoned by Pesticide Pollution --Lawsuit to Be Filed to Force EPA to Protect Arctic From Pesticide Contamination 08 Jul 2009 Today the Center for Biological Diversity notified the Environmental Protection Agency of its intent to file suit against the agency for failing to consider impacts to the polar bear and its Arctic habitat from toxic contamination resulting from pesticide use in the United States. Pesticides approved by EPA for use in the United States are known to be transported to the Arctic via various atmospheric, oceanic, and biotic pathways. Such pesticides are biomagnified with each step higher in the food web, reaching some of their greatest concentrations in polar bears, the apex predators of the Arctic.
Previous lead stories: MI5 accused of bribe offer in Rangzieb Ahmed torture case --Jailed torture victim says he was offered cash to drop collusion claim 06 Jul 2009 The Security Service MI5 is being accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice by offering a man inducements to drop his allegation that its officers colluded in his torture. Rangzieb Ahmed had three of his fingernails ripped out after MI5 and Greater Manchester police (GMP) drew up a list of questions for officers from a notorious Pakistani intelligence agency who had detained him in Pakistan. He was later deported to the UK and jailed for terrorism offences. Ahmed says he was visited in prison by an MI5 officer and a police officer who offered to secure a reduction in his sentence or a payment of money to withdraw his torture complaints when his appeal against conviction is heard later this year.
'The deeper you look into the murky world of governments and germ warfare, the more worrying it becomes. We have proved there is a black market in anthrax.' Kelly's Book of Secrets 05 Jul 2009 Weapons inspector David Kelly was writing a book exposing highly damaging government secrets before his mysterious death. He was intending to reveal that he warned Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq weeks before the British and American invasion. Following his death, his computers were seized and it is still not known if any rough draft was discovered by investigators and, if so, what happened to the material. Dr Kelly was also intending to lift the lid on a potentially bigger scandal, his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa. US television investigators have spent four years preparing a 90-minute documentary, Anthrax War, suggesting there is a global black market in anthrax and exposing the mystery "suicides" of five government germ warfare scientists from around the world.
US and Russia to scrap 2000 nuclear weapons 07 Jul 2009 The United States and Russia are to slash their nuclear stockpiles by up to a third as part of a move to improve relations between the former Cold War foes. The weapons deal was agreed in principle after four hours of talks at the Kremlin between US president Barack Obama and Russia's Dmitry Medvedev.
Russia allows U.S. weapons shipments to Afghanistan 03 Jul 2009 Russia will allow the United States to ship weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, Kremlin spokesman Alex Pavlov said Friday. Pavlov said he doesn't know when the policy will take effect, but imagines the details will come out when presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev meet Monday and Tuesday in Moscow.
