A senior Democratic adviser said yesterday he is disappointed and dismayed by the efforts of House and Senate Democrats to change administration policies in Iraq, predicting they would lead to further division and stalemate in Congress on the war. "If you stand back, the whole debate has been pretty frustrating. The bigger problem is that [Democratic leaders'] proposals are not going anywhere, such as some revised authority for the war," said Leon Panetta, a key Democratic member of the Iraq Study Group whose proposals to stabilize Iraq were largely dismissed by President Bush. "But those efforts are doomed. Either they are going to be blocked in Congress or vetoed by the president, or both. The end result is that it will make us more divided and impotent on war policy," President Clinton's former White House chief of staff said in an interview with The Washington Times....
http://www.washingtontimes.com
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Editor - 21:20:00 03-01-07
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 U.S. Blasted for Treatment of Detainees |
The U.N. human rights chief expressed concern Wednesday at recent U.S. legislative and judicial actions that she said leave hundreds of detainees without any way to challenge their indefinite imprisonment. Louise Arbour referred to the Military Commissions Act approved by Congress last year and last month's federal appeals court ruling that Guantanamo Bay detainees cannot use the U.S. court system to challenge their detention. The case is likely to go to the Supreme Court. Arbour was critical of the ruling, calling on the judicial system to ``rise to its long-standing reputation as a guardian of fundamental human rights and civil liberties and provide the protection to all that are under the authority, control, and therefore in my view jurisdiction of the United States.'' ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6448430,00.html
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Editor - 21:12:00 03-01-07
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| Feds bust major insider trading ring |
The U.S. government on Thursday charged 13 people, including employees at major Wall Street banks, with securities fraud, wire fraud, bribery and other charges in what authorities are calling one of the most pervasive insider trading rings in years. Michael Garcia, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the insider trading schemes involved a UBS (Charts) Securities executive who is accused of selling information about upcoming analyst upgrades and downgrades and a former Morgan Stanley (Charts) attorney accused of giving out information about mergers and acquisitions. Prosecutors said that two brokers at Assent LLC found out about the scheme involving the UBS executive and blackmailed some of the people involved. In addition, prosecutors charged that a Banc of America Securities representative allocated shares of initial public offerings and secondary offerings to a hedge fund, Q Capital, for cash kickbacks. Prosecutors said that all 13 people had been ...
http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/01/markets/insider_trading.reut/index.htm?postversion=2007030115
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Editor - 17:04:00 03-01-07
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| Key Figures About Iraq Since the War Began in March 2003 |
Key figures about Iraq since the war began in March 2003: CASUALTIES: Confirmed U.S. deaths as of March 1, 2007: 3,159. U.S. wounded as of March 1, 2007: 23,677. Iraqi civilian deaths: Estimated at more than 57,000, with one controversial study contending as many as 655,000. Since the Baghdad security crackdown was formally launched on Feb. 14, there has been a sharp drop in the number of victims of sectarian death squads. The number of bodies found has dropped by nearly 50 percent to 494 last month as of Feb. 26, compared with 954 in January and 1,222 in December. Assassinated Iraqi professors: at least 188. Journalists killed on assignment: 93. COST: More than $360 billion. Combined with the conflict in Afghanistan and operations against terrorism elsewhere, the cost has topped at least $500 billion. OIL PRODUCTION: Prewar: 2.58 million barrels daily. Feb. 18, 2007: 2.05 million barrels daily....
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2915805
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Editor - 16:02:00 03-01-07
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| U.S. report cites friends, foes in global drug war State Department says Afghanistan, Pakistan failing, faults Iran, N. Korea |
The United States said Thursday that top anti-terrorism allies Afghanistan, Pakistan and Colombia had fallen short in the war on drugs despite enhanced counter-narcotics efforts and it criticized perennial foes Iran, North Korea and Venezuela for not cooperating. The State Department also noted backsliding in some key Latin American nations like Bolivia and Peru while it praised improved performances by traditional transshipment countries in Asia, notably China and Thailand, but slammed neighboring Myanmar for illicit drug production. In its annual global survey of the drug war, the department said massive opium poppy production in Afghanistan, long the world's top producer of the main ingredient for heroin, continued to pose a major threat due to its links with groups such as the Taliban. "Afghanistan's huge drug trade undercuts efforts to rebuild the economy and develop a strong democratic government based on the rule of law," the department said in the 2007 International ...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17401407/
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Editor - 14:08:00 03-01-07
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| Poppy valley key to British hold on Helmand province |
The British effort to consolidate its hold on Afghanistan's Helmand province in anticipation of a Taliban offensive is being threatened by powerful druglords in the poppy-filled Sangin valley.About 1,400 British troops are on the way to southern Afghanistan but they will not arrive before summer and the most decisive battles could be over by then.The Royal Marines are fighting a cat-and-mouse battle in an attempt to push the Taliban away from a hydroelectric power station at Kajaki dam.But to get electricity from Kajaki to the provincial capital, Lashkargar, 75 miles to the south-west, the British troops serving in Nato's international security assistance force (Isaf) will have to pacify Sangin Valley, a steep-sided expanse of deep green on either side of the Helmand river....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2024605,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
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Editor - 12:37:00 03-01-07
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