According to a June 2010 fact sheet on the USAID Internet site, last year American taxpayers funded the paving of 63 kilometers of asphalt roads in the West Bank. Travelers along the "original" West Bank roads, the ones enabling drivers to bypass Palestinian villages, can see signs declaring "USAID from the American People."
The roads are one of the initiatives of the United States Agency for International Development for building infrastructure in underdeveloped countries. Israel has already proudly left the club of developing countries and is not among the clients of USAID. Nevertheless, it appears the Smith family of Illinois is making the occupation a little less expensive for the Cohen family of Petah Tikva.
U.S. taxpayers are paying for Israel's West Bank occupation
Abramoff lobbyist Kevin Ring found guilty on five of eight counts in fraud re-trial
A federal jury Monday convicted Washington lobbyist Kevin A. Ring on five of eight counts related to the Jack Abramoff bribery and influence-peddling scandal, handing a victory to the Justice Department unit charged with fighting corruption in government.
After a two-week trial and three days of deliberation, the District panel of eight men and four women found Ring guilty on charges of conspiracy, fraud and illegal gratuities related to his work with disgraced lobbyist Abramoff and his former boss and congressman, John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.).
Redeeming Role for a Common Virus: Ability to Kill Cancer
A common virus that can cause coughing and mild diarrhea appears to have a major redemptive quality: the ability to kill cancer. Harnessing that power, researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of Georgetown University Medical Center, are conducting a clinical trial to see if the virus can target and kill certain tumor types.
Guantanamo seven 'paid off' to halt legal action against Government
A group of former Guantanamo Bay detainees who claim they were tortured with the complicity of the British security services have been paid millions of pounds to drop legal action against the Government.
Ministers will announce on Tuesday that a deal has been reached with the men, at least one of whom is expected to receive more than £1 million of taxpayers’ money.
Eric Cantor's Pledge of Allegiance (to Israel over America)
Soon-to-be GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor met on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- the same day when the actual U.S. Secretary of State met with Netanyahu -- and vowed that he and his GOP colleagues would protect and defend Israeli interests against his own Government. According to a statement proudly issued by Cantor's own office:
Regarding the midterms, Cantor may have given Netanyahu some reason to stand firm against the American administration.
World Health Organization takes on tobacco lobby
President Jose Mujica described Uruguay Monday as a "laboratory of confrontation" with Big Tobacco.
Philip Morris International Inc., the world's second-biggest cigarette company after the state-controlled China National Tobacco Corp., is pursuing a claim before World Bank arbitrators alleging that Uruguay is violating its trade agreement with Switzerland by requiring that anti-smoking warnings cover 80 percent of cigarette packages.
Alabama Trooper Pleads Guilty to 1965 Killing
James Bonard Fowler is 77 now, but in 1965 he was a white Alabama state trooper facing the rising tide of the civil rights movement. On Monday, at the Perry County Courthouse in Alabama, that past came calling: Mr. Fowler pleaded guilty to the 1965 killing of a black man whose death triggered the historic civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery.
Mr. Fowler will face six months in prison for the fatal shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old civil rights marcher who died after a confrontation with the police in Marion, Ala. His death inspired the first of the famous Selma marches the next month, an event that also ended in violence.
PBS edits Tina Fey's remarks from Twain event
Tina Fey got a little political airbrushing from PBS Sunday night during its annual broadcast of the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Fey, this year's recipient of the prize, caused a few ripples during her acceptance speech at the ceremony on Tuesday when she mock-praised "conservative women" like Sarah Palin, whom Fey has so memorably impersonated on "Saturday Night Live."
Peru Amazon's rare species, uncontacted tribes face risks from logging
Here in the vast wilderness surrounding Peru's Alto Purús National Park, the locations of such trees, worth tens of thousands of dollars in the United States, have become closely guarded secrets among members of indigenous tribes.
Industrial logging is pushing ever deeper into the area, making mahogany the leading front in the ever-growing battle for control of the resource-rich Peruvian Amazon. But the threat goes far beyond any single species, said Chris Fagan, director of the Upper Amazon Conservancy.
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