Heightened security concerns in the United States have stalled the immigration process for tens of thousands of Iraqis who worked for the U.S. government or American firms in Iraq and hope to move to the United States, according to U.S. officials and refugee advocates.
A special program meant to distribute 25,000 visas to Iraqis who worked for the U.S. government has admitted just 7,000 since it started in 2008, officials said this week. In addition, the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, a global program that also admits Iraqis, will admit about 6,000 Iraqis this year, down from 18,000 in fiscal 2010.
Thousands of Iraqis wh worked for U.S. face long wait for visas
Ex-cop admits helping to cover up Hurricane Katrina shootings
A former police detective testified Monday that he participated in a plot to fabricate witnesses, falsify reports and plant a gun to make it seem police were justified in shooting unarmed residents on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina.
Jeffrey Lehrmann, a government witness in the federal trial of five current or former officers, said he saw Sergeant Arthur 'Archie' Kaufman retrieve a gun from his home several weeks after the deadly shootings on the Danziger Bridge.
Keith Olbermann Details How Rupert Murdoch Blackmailed Him
Olbermann pointed out that Rupert’s crew will do anything to you to get you to do what they want. He speculated that this is why nobody whistle blows on Fox News and News Corp. Until Keith Olbermann brought it up, I had never really thought about why so very few former Fox employees talk about their time at News Corp after they leave.
I have always thought that part of the reason for the silence was that there are very few television jobs available. Most people aren’t as lucky as Keith Olbermann. They don’t have the ability to do both news and sports. Jobs are scarce, so don’t go burning your bridges. It does seem to be the case that many in the media are rightfully afraid to cross News Corp. The culture there seems intent on destroying all enemies, real or imagined.
W.Va. study raises questions about fracking fluid
A gas company that legally doused a patch of West Virginia forest with salty wastewater from a drilling operation killed ground vegetation within days and more than half the trees within two years, a new report from the U.S. Forest Service says.
Lead researcher Mary Beth Adams says that the damage to the quarter-acre, detailed in a case study published in the Journal of Environmental Quality, shows the need for more research into industry practices.
The CIA's Secret Sites in Somalia
As part of its expanding counterterrorism program in Somalia, the CIA also uses a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shabab members or of having links to the group are held. Some of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and rendered by plane to Mogadishu.
While the underground prison is officially run by the Somali NSA, US intelligence personnel pay the salaries of intelligence agents and also directly interrogate prisoners. The existence of both facilities and the CIA role was uncovered by The Nation during an extensive on-the-ground investigation in Mogadishu.
George W Bush should be prosecuted over torture, says human rights group
A US human rights group has called on foreign governments to prosecute George W Bush and some of his senior officials for war crimes if the Obama administration fails to investigate a growing body of evidence against the former president over the use of torture.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Tuesday that the US authorities were legally obliged to investigate the top echelons of the Bush administration over crimes such as torture, abduction and other mistreatment of prisoners. It says that the former administration's legal team was part of the conspiracy in preparing opinions authorising abuses that they knew to have no standing in US or international law.
Fluoride consumption leads to brain damage, says study
It is becoming increasingly difficult for fluoride fanatics to defend the practice of artificial water fluoridation, thanks to a plethora of new reports highlighting its many dangers. A new study published in the journal Neurologia reveals that chronic exposure to, and ingestion of, the synthetic fluoride chemicals added to water supplies can cause serious brain and neurological damage. Confirming several others recently published, the study further exposes the lunacy of deliberately adding toxic chemicals to the water supply in the name of saving teeth.
Israeli soldiers blocked Icelandic FM’s car with rocks
Ossur Skarphedinsson, Icelandic Minister for Foreign Affairs, and his entourage had their trip to Gaza interrupted yesterday when Israeli soldiers obstructed the path of their cars with large rocks.
Skarphedinsson met with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and aides on Saturday. On his way to Gaza, the Icelandic delegation took a protracted route which avoided Israel; but the minister claims Israeli soldiers in the militarised zone were rude and un-cooperative.
Watchdog hits out at Yahoo! for 'spying' on customer emails to sell targeted advertising
Yahoo! has been accused of changing its terms and conditions to allow it to read its customers' private emails.
The world's biggest email provider says that by signing up to its service, users are giving their consent for both their outgoing and incoming mail to be analysed for information to sell targeted advertising.
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