Monday, Dec 01st
Last update10:42:03 AM GMT
A U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks on Thursday quoted American officials as saying a key Israeli cargo crossing for goods entering the Gaza Strip was rife with corruption.
The June 14, 2006, cable, published Thursday by Norway's Aftenposten daily, says major American companies told U.S. diplomats they were forced to pay hefty bribes to get goods into Gaza. It was unclear whether the practice still continues.
The doctor who linked childhood autism to a vaccine and has been branded a fraud by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) said he was the victim of a smear campaign by drug manufacturers.
Andrew Wakefield was barred from medical practice last year after the General Medical Council in London found him guilty of "unethical" research that sparked unfounded fears about the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
Just hours after taking control of the House, Republicans passed a sweeping set of rules promising transparency and reform.
But the new majority is already showing these promises aren’t exactly set in stone.
After calling for bills to go through a regular committee process, the bill that would repeal the health care law will not go through a single committee. Despite promising a more open amendment process for bills, amendments for the health care repeal will be all but shut down. After calling for a strict committee attendance list to be posted online, Republicans backpedaled and ditched that from the rules. They promised constitutional citations for every bill but have yet to add that language to early bills.
After the marines arrived, a small group of Iraqis gathered around a statue of Saddam Hussein in the middle of the square and tried to bring it down with a sledgehammer and rope. More photographers and TV crews appeared. An American flag was draped over the statue’s head. Eventually, a Marine vehicle equipped with a crane toppled the statue. The spectacle was broadcast live around the world.
Some have argued that the events at Firdos were staged, to demonstrate that America had triumphed, the war was over, and the Iraqis were happy. After all, the marines had seized the only place in Baghdad where a large number of foreign reporters could be found—at least two hundred were at the Palestine.
A second person denied transplant coverage by Arizona under a state budget cut has died, with this death "most likely" resulting from the coverage reduction, a hospital spokeswoman said Wednesday.
University Medical Center spokeswoman Jo Marie Gellerman said the patient died Dec. 28 at another medical facility after earlier being removed from UMC's list for a liver transplant needed because of hepatitis C.
Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki says the archdiocese had no choice but to file for bankruptcy due to the lawsuits it faces for sexual abuse by its clergy. Listecki described the bankruptcy filing Tuesday as something that would allow the archdiocese to pay victims molested by priests while preserving programs, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
"As a result of the horrific actions of a few, there are financial claims pending against the archdiocese that exceed our means," Listecki said at a news conference at the archdiocesan headquarters.
BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill was caused by poor management practices that are “systemic” in the industry and may recur absent “significant reform,” according to a presidential panel probing the spill.
Bad decisions by BP and its main contractors, Halliburton Co. and Transocean Ltd, coupled with lax government oversight, caused the worst U.S. offshore oil spill, the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill said today. The April 20 blowout of BP’s Macondo well, which killed 11 workers, destroyed Transocean’s $365 million Deepwater Horizon rig and spewed crude for 87 days, was avoidable and not the result of “aberrational decisions,” the panel said in a report.
Israeli left-wing organizations decried Wednesday a Knesset plenum decision to support a panel of inquiry to investigate certain groups suspected of "delegitimizing" the Israel Defense Forces.
The plenum's approval means that the initiative will now be taken to the Knesset House Committee for debate. The initiative proposes investigating the sources of funding for these left-wing groups, and to determine whether money is being funneled from foreign states or organizations linked to terror activities.
Israel told U.S. officials in 2008 it would keep Gaza's economy "on the brink of collapse" while avoiding a humanitarian crisis, according to U.S. diplomatic cables published by a Norwegian daily on Wednesday.
Three cables cited by the Aftenposten newspaper, which has said it has all 250,000 U.S. cables leaked to WikiLeaks, showed that Israel kept the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv briefed on its internationally criticized blockade of the Gaza Strip.
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