Afghanistan has a monopoly on illegal opium production that has devastating global consequences, a UN report says. UN findings say an opium market worth $65bn (£39bn) funds global terrorism, caters to 15 million addicts, and kills 100,000 people every year.
The UN says corruption, lawlessness and uncontrolled borders result in only 2% of Afghan opiates being seized locally. The UN says more Russians die annually from Afghan drugs than Soviet soldiers were killed during its Afghan conflict.
Afghan opium fuels 'global chaos'
Israel push to change laws of war
Israel's prime minister has instructed his government to draw up plans for a "world wide campaign" to lobby for changes in the international laws of war.The order from Binyamin Netanyahu follows a special cabinet meeting on Tuesday to discuss Israel's response to the UN's Goldstone report, which condemned Israel's actions during the 22-day war on Gaza earlier this year. The meeting also called for the formation of a special committee to deal with the international legal consequences of the report and the prospect Israeli officials could face war crimes trials abroad.
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Pentagon used psychological operation on US public, documents show
A months-long review of documents and interviews with Pentagon personnel has revealed that the Bush Administration's military analyst program -- aimed at selling the Iraq war to the American people -- operated through a secretive collaboration between the Defense Department's press and community relations offices.Raw Story has also uncovered evidence that directly ties the activities undertaken in the military analyst program to an official US military document’s definition of psychological operations -- propaganda that is only supposed to be directed toward foreign audiences.
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TVNL Comment: The Snake Oil Merchants who sold us the war go back to all the usual suspects.
The three fallacies that have driven the war in Afghanistan
There is obviously a huge risk in sending an extra 40,000 machine-gun wielding troops into a country they don't understand to "clear" huge areas of insurgent fighters who look exactly like the civilian population, and establish "control" of places that have never been controlled by a central government at any point in their history.
To justify these risks, the proponents of the escalation need highly persuasive arguments to show how their strategy slashed other risks so dramatically that it outweighed these dangers. It's not inconceivable – but I found that in fact the case they give for escalating the war, or for continuing the occupation, is based on three premises that turn to Afghan dust on inspection.
Mobile phone users cannot walk in straight line
People chatting on mobile phones are oblivious to their surroundings and can pose a risk to themselves and others, scientists have claimed. Researchers made the discovery by watching the movements of hundreds of people as they crossed a university campus.
They then got a clown to ride a unicycle around the campus square and asked how many phone users spotted him as they walked by. They found that those that used mobile phones meandered randomly and failed to ackowledge other pedesterians. More than two-thirds also failed to notice the clown, even though he wore a purple and yellow shirt, outsized shoes and a giant red nose.
Military Children in Crisis
A seven-year-old second-grader attempted suicide while his father was serving yet another tour in Iraq. Seven years old. Seven. His mother was one of half a dozen military spouses I have spoken with about soldiers' kids who have attempted suicide during their fathers' deployments.
Three-plus decades ago, parents were exempt from conscription because of overwhelming concern about the harmful effects of deployment on children. Today, roughly half of the troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are parents, many of whom have served multiple tours.
Report: 1 in 6 Americans Live in Poverty
The level of poverty in America is even worse than first believed. A revised formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations show that approximately 47.4 million Americans last year lived in poverty, 7 million more than the government's official figure.
The disparity occurs because of differing formulas the Census Bureau and the National Academy of Science use for calculating the poverty rate. The NAS formula shows the poverty rate to be at 15.8 percent, or nearly 1 in 6 Americans, according to calculations released this week.
Iraq clinic deaths probe depicts troubled soldier
An American soldier who is accused of killing five fellow troops at a counseling center in Iraq had been unraveling for nearly two weeks but the U.S. military lacked clear procedures to monitor him or deal with the deadly shooting spree once it began to unfold, a military report found.
The shootings at a U.S. base in Baghdad in May were the deadliest case of U.S. soldier-on-soldier violence of the six-year Iraq war. Sgt. John M. Russell, 44, was arrested and is the only person charged in the incident.
Ending death penalty could save US millions: study
In just one death penalty trial "the state may pay one million dollars more than for a non-death penalty trial. But only one in every three capital trials may result in a death sentence, so the true cost of that death sentence is three million dollars," the study's author said.
"Further down the road, only one in ten of the death sentences handed down may result in an execution. Hence, the cost to the state to reach that one execution is 30 million dollars," Dieter added in the report entitled "Smart on Crime."
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