Secret Dossiers Kept on Muslims ?

Former Marine Outlines Secret Dossiers

By Rick Rogers

In interviews with The San Diego Union-Tribune, Gary Maziarz, 39, said “dozens of files” he gave the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group while serving as an intelligence specialist at the base were dossiers on Muslims and Arabs living in Southern California. Continue

Rahm Emanuel’s Israeli gate

By Paul J. Balles

Paul J. Balles considers the racist, anti-Arab comments made by the father of Rahm Israel Emanuel – President-elect Barack Obama’s chief of staff – and asks why these comments are acceptable to the American public whereas if they had been referring to Jews, African Americans or Hispanics they would have caused uproar. Continue

War or Peace?

The World After the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

By Richard C. Cook

Whatever agreements U.S. bankers and politicians may once have made with China for them to take over U.S. manufacturing while the nation lived off financial profits have grievously backfired. Solving this conflict with China peacefully may be the next president’s greatest challenge. Continue

The Third Clinton Administration

By RALPH NADER

While the liberal intelligentsia was swooning over Barack Obama during his presidential campaign, I counseled “prepare to be disappointed.” His record as a Illinois state and U.S. Senator, together with the many progressive and long overdue courses of action he opposed during his campaign, rendered such a prediction unfortunate but obvious. Continue

Israel Continues Starvation of Gazans Despite UN Pleas

By The Irish Sun

In what the UN has described as collective punishment, the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip continues. Notwithstanding 56% of the 1.5 million Gazan population consists of children, Israel has shut down access to the region refusing to allow desperately needed food trucks to reach their destination. Continue

Bearing Out The Betrayal

By Saleh Al-Naami

With Israel's breach of the ceasefire in Gaza, Saleh Al-Naami laments yet another example of Israeli-PA collusion which victimises Hamas. Continue

Forgotten Victims

Inside Kandahar's Main Hospital

3 MinuteVideo

Civilians in Afghanistan have paid the heaviest price for the conflict in their country, caught up almost daily in both Taliban attacks and air raids by US force. Al Jazeea's David Chater has been to the main hospital in the Afghan city of Kandaha , where he heard some of their stories. Continue

Imperial Presidency
 
 Has the US become over-dependent on military force?
 
 By Al Jazeera
 
 Riz Khan speaks with Andrew Bacevich, author of The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Continue

US Power 'to Decline by 2025' : US National Report

By Al Jazeera and agencies

The current global financial crisis is the beginning of a weakening of the US dollar to the point where it becomes "first among equals", said the National Intelligence Council's (NIC) Global Trends 2025 report published on Thursday. Continue

US Global Trends Report: Key points

By The BBC

Brazil, Russia, China and India are picked as countries which might benefit, boosted by rising oil and commodity price rises that have generated windfall profits for the Gulf states and Russia, as well as a shift in manufacturing and some service industries to Asia. Continue

Clinton Decides to Accept Post at State Dept
By PETER BAKER

Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to give up her Senate seat and accept the position of secretary of state, making her the public face around the world for the administration of the man who beat her for the Democratic presidential nomination, two confidants said Friday. Continue

Update
Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales Indicted

By Democracy Now!

A Texas judge has set an arraignment date for Friday for Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. They were indicted this week by a Texas grand jury on state charges accusing them of responsibility for prisoner abuse in a privately run federal jail. We speak with Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra. Continue

6 killed in Iraq: Three people were killed and another 20 were wounded, mostly in Baghdad. Three U.S. servicemembers died in three separate incidents as well.

Iraqis hold protest against US pact: Thousands of followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, a prominent Shia leader, have protested in central Baghdad against a security pact with the United States.

Mahdi Army warns of new insurgency in Iraq if US troops stay until 2011: At one point the effigy of the outgoing US President, dressed in a black suit and carrying a suitcase labelled “security agreement”, was hoisted up a parapet where the Saddam statue once stood in Firdous Square.

Iraq war illegal – bring on the trial: A senior British law lord, former Lord Chief Justice Lord Bingham, stated yesterday in a speech at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in London that the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was “a serious violation of international law”.

17 Killed In Mogadishu Fighting: At least 17 people were killed after the government troops repelled an insurgent attack on the house of district commissioner in the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Friday, said officials and witnesses

Is Somalia on the verge of an "Islamist" takeover?: After a two-year "insurgency", "Islamist" fighters are within nine miles (six km) of the capital and President Abdullahi Yusuf admits his Western-backed government is on the verge of collapse. The Islamists or aligned groups now control most of the south, except Mogadishu and the seat of parliament, Baidoa.

"Islamists" hunt tanker hijackers: Dozens of Somali Islamist insurgents stormed a port yesterday hunting the pirates behind the seizure of a Saudi supertanker that was the world’s biggest hijack, a local elder said.

10 killed in Pakistan blast: At least 10 people were killed and 20 injured in a bomb attack on a Shia funeral procession in Pakistan’s troubled North-West