TV News LIES

A number of Afghan construction companies working on contracts for American and NATO military bases in Afghanistan have accused American middlemen of reneging on payments for supplies and services, and in one case of leaving the country owing Afghan companies hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars.

The failure of American companies to pay for contracted work has left hundreds of Afghan workers unpaid in southern Afghanistan, and dozens of factories and small businesses so deep in debt that Afghan and foreign officials fear the fallout will undermine the United States-led counterinsurgency effort to win the support of the Afghan people.

The U.S. military often portrays its drone aircraft as high-tech marvels that can be operated seamlessly from thousands of miles away. But Pentagon accident reports reveal that the pilotless aircraft suffer from frequent system failures, computer glitches and human error.

Design and system problems were never fully addressed in the haste to push the fragile plane into combat over Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks more than eight years ago. Air Force investigators continue to cite pilot mistakes, coordination snafus, software failures, outdated technology and inadequate flight manuals.

There's a dirty secret buried under Gulf of Mexico beaches after cleanup workers scrape away the oil washing ashore. Walk to a seemingly pristine patch of sand, plop down in a chair and start digging with your bare feet, like everyone does at the beach. Chances are you'll walk away with gooey tar between your toes.

So far, cleanup workers hired by BP have skimmed only the surface, using shovels or sifting machines to remove oil. The company is planning a deeper cleaning program that could include washing or incinerating sand once the leak is stopped off the coast of Louisiana.

CNN's Octavia Nasr is leaving the network over a tweet in which she praised a late Hezbollah leader. Nasr, CNN's Senior Editor of Middle East affairs, mourned the passing of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, calling Fadlallah "One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot."

In an internal memo, CNN executive Parisa Khosravi discusses Nasr's abrupt exit:

Most important thought: I'm sick and tired of this thing called "patriotism".

The Japanese pilots who bombed Pearl Harbor were being patriotic. The German people who supported Hitler and his conquests were being patriotic, fighting for the Fatherland. All the Latin American military dictators who overthrew democratically-elected governments and routinely tortured people were being patriotic — saving their beloved country from "communism".

As President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet, a report reveals 42 per cent of territory is controlled by settlers.

The jurisdiction of some 200 settlements, illegal under international law, cover much more of the occupied Palestinian territory than previously thought. And a large section of the land has been seized from private Palestinian landowners in defiance even of an Israeli supreme court ruling, the report said, a finding which sits uncomfortably with Israeli claims that it builds only on state land.

The Catholic Church child abuse scandal in Belgium just got a whole lot worse. Belgian newspaper Het Laaste Niews is reporting that when authorities searched the home of the former archbishop of Brussels, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, they discovered a hidden cache of documents and photographs on notorious child sex killer Marc Dutroux — documents that Danneels was not supposed to have. Here’s a Google translation of one of their reports:

Philip Weiss, who runs a blog called Mondoweiss (War of Ideas in the Middle East) has just posted a remarkable piece entitled “Petraeus Emails Show General Scheming with Journalist to Get out pro-Israel storyline.”