Wednesday, Sep 17th
Last update07:13:23 AM GMT
The US Senate has passed bill to end the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, putting the long campaign to end the ban on gay men and lesbians close to its conclusion. The final vote was 65 Senators in favor and 31 opposed to the bill.
This is breaking news.
A congressionally mandated study concludes that sexual assault and harassment climbed at the service academies in 2009-2010, but the Pentagon questions whether the latest figures show problems are increasing or merely reflect a greater willingness by victims to report incidents.
According to the Annual Report on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the United States Military Service Academies there were 41 sexual assaults on cadets or midshipmen, a 64 percent increase over the 2008-2009 period.
“The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern.” — Henry Kissinger
One of my main points in that article was the extent to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was dependent on a coalition that gave important porfolios to political parties with insane ideologies. I instanced Israel Beitenu, the ultra-chauvinist group led by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and the religiously orthodox Shas Party, under the spiritual leadership of deranged Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. “Fringe” though they might be, members of such groups hold key ministries, including the ones that dominate the “settlement” process. Since I last wrote about him, Rabbi Yosef has again been to the fore, blaming the calamitous forest fires in northern Israel on the failure of Jews to observe the Sabbath in the proper way. And the country’s interior minister, a Shas member named Eli Yishai, has rejected offers of fire-fighting equipment from Christian organizations, lest they use the opportunity to seduce Jews away to the worship of the Nazarene.
The White House on Friday released its long-delayed scientific integrity guidelines, intended to ban political interference in science. President Barack Obama campaigned on scientific integrity after scientists and others complained that Bush administration officials distorted scientific work and limited access to information on a variety of issues ranging from climate change to lead poisoning and mountaintop removal mining.
Shortly after Obama took office, he issued a memorandum in March 2009 calling for scientific integrity guidelines. He gave John Holdren, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, until that July, but the deadline kept slipping until Friday.
Bolivia joined Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay by announcing it recognized Palestine as a sovereign state within the 1967 borders, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported Friday.
Bolivian President Evo Morales made the announcement during the South American trade block Mercosur's summit which took place in Brazil. Morales was quoted as saying that Bolivia recognized the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders with Israel.
Children born to mothers who live close to freeways have twice the risk of autism, researchers reported Thursday. The study, its authors say, adds to evidence suggesting that certain environmental exposures could play a role in causing the disorder in some children.
"This study isn't saying exposure to air pollution or exposure to traffic causes autism," said Heather Volk, lead author of the paper and a researcher at the Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles. "But it could be one of the factors that are contributing to its increase."
The CIA has pulled its station chief from Islamabad, one of America's most important spy posts, after his cover was blown in a legal action brought by victims of US drone strikes in the tribal belt.
The officer, named in Pakistan as Jonathan Banks, left the country yesterday, after a tribesman publicly accused him of being responsible for the death of his brother and son in a CIA drone strike in December 2009. Karim Khan, a journalist from North Waziristan, called for Banks to be charged with murder and executed.
As more Americans lose health coverage because of unemployment, the latest snapshot of the uninsured reveals a grim picture: It's not just the poor and unemployed who now go without health insurance.
About a third of California's uninsured had family incomes of more than $50,000 a year in 2009, according to the California HealthCare Foundation. Indeed, the percentage of uninsured among families earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually has nearly doubled over the past decade.
Speaking at a hearing to explore whether Wikileaks violated the Espionage Act -- which the Obama administration claims its editor-in-chief violated -- Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) said that "America was founded on the belief that speech is sacrosanct" and dismissed calls for censorship of media outlets publishing leaked documents.
"As an initial matter, there is no doubt that WikiLeaks is very unpopular right now. Many feel that the WikiLeaks publication was offensive," Conyers said, according to prepared remarks. "But being unpopular is not a crime, and publishing offensive information is not either. And the repeated calls from politicians, journalists, and other so-called experts crying out for criminal prosecutions or other extreme measures make me very uncomfortable."
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