The Israeli navy boarded the aid ship Estelle in international waters on Saturday, illegally commandeering it and kidnapping the 30 persons aboard, including five European parliamentarians and Canadian former member of parliament Jim Manly, who is also a retired minister of the United Church. The Israeli authorities have imposed a blockade on the civilian Palestinian […]
Archives for October 2012
Were TSA Scanners Dangerous? Ionizing X-Ray Machines Removed from Airports (Grabell)
Michael Grabell writes at ProPublica: The Transportation Security Administration has been quietly removing its X-ray body scanners from major airports over the last few weeks and replacing them with machines that radiation experts believe are safer. The TSA says it made the decision not because of safety concerns but to speed up checkpoints at busier […]
Masdar – The First Green City (Video)
A tour of Masdar, in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates — the world’s first city powered entirely by green energy. Video by Robert Llewellyn, “Fully Charged.” Here is the video:
Some blame Syria’s al-Assad for Bombing in Christian Beirut that Kills Top Lebanese Security Official
A powerful bomb exploded in Ashrafieh, a largely Christian neighborhood in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, on Friday, killing Wissam al-Hassan, an intelligence expert in the Lebanese security apparatus who had been critical of Syria. Tensions immediate rose in hot spots such as Tripoli or the Bikaa Valley, with protesting youth burning tires in the […]
Walsh (Republican): No Pregnancy Ever threatens a Mother’s Life (Young Turks Video)
Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill, a conservative Republican, now argues that there is never an instance when an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother. In fact, 64,000 ectopic pregnancies occur each year in the US, which typically do require that the fetus be aborted or otherwise the mother would die. That is […]
Air Massacre in Maaret al-Numan, Syria as Fighting Intensifies
On October 9, the revolutionaries in Syria took the town of Maaret al-Numan in northern Idlib province for a second time, and began besieging the nearby Wadi Deif military base. From this position, the revolutionaries can cut off road access to Aleppo from the capital of Damascus. They are thus making it impossible for Bashar […]
Campaign Humor from the Candidates: Obama and Romney do Stand-Up
Barack Obama tells jokes at the Al Smith dinner, three weeks before the election. Obama observes that he was much more awake in the second debate, having gotten a nice long nap during the first one. He said he had done some shopping in New York City; he heard Gov. Romney had done some shopping […]
The US & Pakistan: The Mr & Mrs Smith of Foreign Policy (Hiro)
Dilip Hiro writes at Tomdispatch.com: The Alliance from Hell How the U.S. and Pakistan Became the Dysfunctional Nuclear Family of International Relations The United States and Pakistan are by now a classic example of a dysfunctional nuclear family (with an emphasis on “nuclear”). While the two governments and their peoples become more suspicious and resentful […]
A Letter from Benghazi on Crappy Republican Talking Points
A common friend sent me this message from a resident of Benghazi, Libya: === I’m so fed up with all the nonsense that’s repeated over and over about the Benghazi attack that I need to vent. You kind of get used to most reporting on international issues being more or less complete crap, but for […]
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