Jonathan Pollard’s ex-wife Anne and her father were settled in Israel by the government there this week, the latest chapter in a renewed campaign to free the confessed spy. Israel has angled periodically for Pollard’s release since 1998, when it admitted, after 13 years of denials, that the former naval intelligence analyst was not a rogue agent but an officially sanctioned spy.
Last September Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu relit the fires under the case when, according to Israeli Army Radio, he asked the Obama administration to release Pollard in exchange for a temporary halt in Israel's construction of Jewish settlements.
Ex-intelligence official blast lobbying to free Israeli spy
Senate Votes One-Year Medicare Payment 'Doc Fix'
The Senate has passed a $15 billion bill that would block the impending 25% cut in the Medicare payment rate to physicians and instead keep rates steady through 2011. The cut was scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2011. If the House passes the bill -- which is likely -- it would be the fifth and longest extension of Medicare physician payment rates enacted this year. And it essentially puts doctors back in the yearly "last-minute-extension" cycle Congress has followed for most of the past decade.
What the bill does not do is fix the sustainable growth rate (SGR) problem, and doctors would be subject to a cut of more than 25% for treating Medicare patients in 2012 unless Congress figures out a long-term solution in the meantime.
Tony Blair recalled to Chilcot inquiry into Iraq war
Tony Blair has been recalled to give extra evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war. The former prime minister will answer further questions about Britain's involvement in the conflict at a public session early next year, the inquiry team said in a statement.
Ex-foreign secretary Jack Straw will also appear as a witness again and former attorney general Lord Goldsmith has been asked to provide further written evidence.
WikiLeaks cables: US 'lobbied Russia on behalf of Visa and MasterCard'
The US lobbied Russia this year on behalf of Visa and MasterCard in an attempt to ensure the payment companies were not "adversely affected" by new legislation, according to American diplomats in Moscow. A state department cable released this afternoon by WikiLeaks reveals that US diplomats intervened to try to amend a draft law going through Russia's Duma. Their explicit aim was to ensure the new law did not "disadvantage" the two US firms, the cable states.
The revelation comes a day after Visa – apparently acting under intense pressure from Washington – announced it was suspending all payments to WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website. Visa was following MasterCard, PayPal and Amazon, all of which have severed ties with the site and its founder Julian Assange in the last few days.
Filipinos sue CA hospital over English-only rule
Dozens of Filipino hospital workers in California sued their employer Tuesday alleging they were the sole ethnic group targeted by a rule requiring them to speak only English.
The group of 52 nurses and medical staff filed a complaint accusing Delano Regional Medical Center of banning them from speaking Tagalog and other Filipino languages while letting other workers speak Spanish and Hindi.
FCC push to regulate news draws fire
He said outlets should be mandated to do the following: prove they have made a meaningful commitment to public affairs and news programming, prove they are committed to diversity programming (for instance, by showing that they depict women and minorities), report more to the government about which shows they plan to air, require greater disclosure about who funds political ads and devote 25 percent of their prime-time coverage to local news.
George W. Bush is the most unpopular living U.S. president, claims survey
According to Gallup's 2010 poll of the most popular U.S. president of the last 50 years, John F. Kennedy, murdered in 1963, was top of the list with a 85 per cent approval rating.
Next came former actor Ronald Reagan with 74 per cent and Bill Clinton, Mr Bush's predecessor, who is the most popular living ex-president with 69 per cent, despite being caught up in a sex scandal.
George H. W. Bush, who Mr Clinton defeated in the 1992 election, was next with 64 per cent approval while behind him were Gerald Ford (61 per cent) and Jimmy Carter (52 per cent).
Revealed: Assange ‘rape’ accuser linked to notorious CIA operative
One of the women accusing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of sex crimes appears to have worked with a group that has connections to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Swedish prosecutors told AOL News last week that Assange was not wanted for rape as has been reported, but for something called "sex by surprise" or "unexpected sex."
One accuser, Anna Ardin, may have "ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups," according to Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett, writing for CounterPunch.
Are The Federal Reserve’s Crimes Too Big To Comprehend?
What if the greatest scam ever perpetrated was blatantly exposed, and the US media didn’t cover it? Does that mean the scam could keep going? That’s what we are about to find out.
I understand the importance of the new WikiLeaks documents. However, we must not let them distract us from the new information the Federal Reserve was forced to release. Even if WikiLeaks reveals documents from inside a large American bank, as huge as that could be, it will most likely pale in comparison to what we just found out from the one-time peek we got into the inner-workings of the Federal Reserve. This is the Wall Street equivalent of the Pentagon Papers.
Page 691 of 1155
