Technicality clears Blackwater employees
Five operatives from US security firm Blackwater have been absolved over the killing of 17 Iraqis in 2007

AP sources: Suicide bomber invited on base
The Associated Press has learned that the suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees at a remote outpost in southeastern Afghanistan had been invited onto the base and was not searched.

Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children
American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead.

Taliban responsible for deaths of 8 'CIA agents' in Afghanistan
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a base in eastern Afghanistan that killed eight American citizens believed to be working for the CIA.

International protesters beaten in Cairo
Protest organizers say Gaza Freedom March activists, including women, kicked, beaten to ground by Egypt’s police.

Activists fall victim to Gaza blockade
More than 1,300 international peace activists from 40 countries, including Australia, are in Egypt this week.

Was the Afghan Bomb Attack an Inside Job?
Possibility Arises that Someone Working with U.S. Forces was on the Side of the Terrorists

Israel, U.S. “not discussing” military tack on Iran
A U.S.-Israeli dialogue on Iran has not reached the point of discussing a military option to thwart its nuclear ambitions, focusing instead on sanctions in 2010, Israel's envoy to Washington said on Thursday.

Terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab took Islamic classes in Houston
An Islamic organization has confirmed that terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has studied at its institute in Houston, but has condemned his actions aboard a plane on Christmas Day.

Afghans rally against rising civilian killings
Afghan students have rallied in Jalalabad and threatened to "take up guns instead of pens and fight occupation forces" if the Karzai regime fails to stop the indiscriminate killing of civilians by occupation troops.

Detroit terror attack: United States 'plans retaliatory attacks on Yemeni soil'
The United States is planning to attack al Qaeda militants in Yemen in retaliation for the attempt to bring down an aeroplane over Detroit on Christmas Day, it has been reported.

Police Around World Ramp Up New Year’s Eve Security
New York is banning backpacks in Times Square, Bangkok tightened security and Sydney cracked down on public drinking as police around the world geared up for millions of New Year’s Eve revelers.

5 Canadians killed in Afghanistan, including 1 journalist
Canada's Afghan mission suffered its bloodiest day in more than two years on Wednesday when four soldiers and a journalist were killed in a powerful roadside blast.

Blasts Hit Anbar as Briton Is Freed
Staggered explosions Wednesday killed at least 27 people -- more than a dozen of them policemen -- and wounded an Iraqi provincial governor, officials said, in the worst violence in months to hit the western province that was formerly al Qaeda's top stronghold in Iraq.

CIA workers killed by 'Afghan soldier'
Eight Americans working for the CIA have died in a bomb attack in Afghanistan, the worst against US intelligence officials since 1983.

Explosion blasts against NATO troops in S Afghanistan
A powerful explosion blasted against NATO-led forces in Dand district of Kandahar province, south Afghanistan on Wednesday evening, causing panic among the locals, Xinhua's scribe in Kandahar said.

Eight Americans die in suicide blast in Afghanistan
A suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest at a military base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing eight American civilians, U.S. officials said. The explosion occurred at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province near the Afghan border with Pakistan.

U.S. pledges £10 billion to train, equip Afghan army - Kabul
The United States has pledged $16 billion (10 billion pounds) to spend on training and equipping Afghanistan's army and air force, but the country needs more to build a force that can guarantee stability, an Afghan army official said on Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands at pro-government rallies in Iran
Hundreds of thousands of government supporters rallied across Iran on Wednesday, swearing allegiance to the clerical establishment and accusing opposition leaders of causing unrest in the Islamic state.

U.S. Had Intelligence From Yemen On Nigerian Attack Before Christmas
President Barack Obama is demanding answers on why information was never pieced together by the U.S. intelligence community to trigger red flags about an alleged terrorist and possibly prevent his botched Christmas Day attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner.

Iraq attacks kill 30, provincial governor wounded
Blasts in central and western Iraq killed 30 people and wounded the Anbar provincial governor on Wednesday, the latest in a series of attacks in recent months against government targets in Iraq.

China may build Middle East naval base
China's rapidly-expanding navy is considering building its first foreign naval base, according to a senior admiral.

Afghan Probe Says NATO Fighting Killed Children
The head of a presidential delegation investigating the deaths of 10 people in eastern Afghanistan concluded Wednesday that civilians – including schoolchildren – were killed in an attack involving foreign troops, disputing NATO reports that the dead were insurgents.

Iran Nuke Document Was Forged - Just Like Iraqi "Yellow Cake" Document
Like the Nigerian “yellow cake” forgery, U.S. intelligence had to have known the Iranian document was a forgery, and yet failed to debunk either.

After bomb plot, Yemen in U.S. cross hairs
All the signs are that the Obama administration is cranking up its secret war against al-Qaida in Yemen.

Afghan Army Rife With Corruption, Incompetence, U.S. Military Report Says (VIDEO)
The report, intended for military commanders and not for public distribution, concludes that Afghanistan's National Army is rife with corruption and incompetence, and that it will take far more than a year to rehabilitate the country's security forces.

Likely casualty of air plot: Obama's Guantanamo plans
The foiled Christmas Day plot to blow up a jetliner over Detroit has thrown up a major roadblock to President Barack Obama's pledge to close the prison camps at Guantanamo.

Ali Mousavi Was Assassinated, Iranian Police Say
Iran's deputy police chief says the nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was assassinated by unidentified assailants and not killed by security forces.

Climategate: Actual "Global" Warming Only Affects 10 to 20% of World, Sometimes
There have been numerous revelations from the Climategate emails and files about climate scientists and the science that have truly been incredible, yet confirm what skeptics have long felt and thought.

U.S. Intelligence Found Iran Nuke Document Was Forged
U.S. intelligence has concluded that the document published recently by the Times of London, which purportedly describes an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a "neutron initiator" for an atomic weapon, is a fabrication, according to a former Central Intelligence Agency official.

Israeli police arrest nuclear whistleblower Vanunu
Israeli police said on Tuesday they had arrested nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu for violating a ban on contact with foreigners.

European Parliament to Investigate WHO and “Pandemic” Scandal
The Council of Europe member states will launch an inquiry in January 2010 on the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign, focusing especially on extent of the pharma‘s industry’s influence on WHO.

No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds
Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

Hide the decline – new Jones station data file from 1999
While discussing Darwin data I was pointed to this file master.dat.com in the FOIA(leaked ClimateGate file) documents folders. I was amazed to find the 14MB file is in fact the Jones et al 1999 station data – another gem from FOIA.

Pharmaceuticals, Personal Care Products Found in New York City Water Supply
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has issued support for a proposed law that would require the Department of Environmental Protection in New York City to test the city’s drinking water supply for personal care product and pharmaceutical residue.

Mobile-Phone GSM Encryption Has Been Cracked
The most widely used mobile-phone technology -- Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) -- has been cracked.

U.S. to Lose $400 Billion on Fannie, Freddie, Wallison Says
Taxpayer losses from supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will top $400 billion, according to Peter Wallison, a former general counsel at the Treasury who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

GMAC Financial asks for government help
GMAC Financial Services is expected to get about $3.5 billion of additional US government aid.

How Goldman Sachs Made Tens Of Billions Of Dollars From The Economic Collapse Of America
One of the victims of this fraud was California’s retirement system for public employees.

U.S. in fiscal peril with $12.1 trillion debt
After $787 billion in stimulus spending and $700 billion in bank bailouts, 2010 is fast shaping up to be the year of the federal budget diet.

Gold ekes gains to end 2009 with 25 percent return
Gold prices sealed their biggest absolute annual gain in three decades with a small advance on Thursday, rising for an unprecedented ninth year in a row after dollar-hedging traders and central banks joined investors who turned to gold for price performance and protection.

UBS whistleblower asks why he is going to prison
The key informant in the U.S. tax fraud case against Swiss bank UBS AG says he does not deserve the federal prison term he is due to start serving next month, according to an interview to be broadcast on Sunday.

The Perfect Metaphor: The Makers of the Times Square Ball Filed for Bankruptcy
Each year Waterford Crystal designs a new pattern for the Times Square Ball that drops on New Year’s Eve. The new crystals, triangular in shape, number in the hundreds and are installed alongside the permanent Waterford crystals that remain in the ball year after year.

Commodities Heading for Best Year Since 1970 on Chinese Demand
Commodities headed for their best year since at least 1970, led by a doubling in copper, sugar and lead prices, as Chinese demand compensated for the steepest slump in the global economy since World War II.

Mortgage Bond Rally May End, Rates Rise as Fed Stops Purchases
ortgage bonds are poised to slump after a record rally as the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented buying of $1.25 trillion of the securities ends as soon as March, driving up interest rates on new home loans.

3 reasons home prices are heading lower
After four months of gains, home prices flattened in October. Worse yet, industry insiders think that they'll soon start to fall.

FDIC plans to seek stakes in buyers of failed banks
The agency hopes to recoup the costs of closing lenders by sharing in any profits from an increase in the buyer's stock after a takeover.

The Land of the Rising Bearish Wager
Some Hedge Funds Bet Against Japanese Government Debt as Borrowing Climbs; Not All Are Worried

How Corruption Stalks The Stimulus
Having spent more than $3 trillion on stimulus and bailouts so far, the government apparently can't be sure it's not being massively defrauded. So much for transparency and accountability.

Investors only could lose in Goldman's Caymans deals
When financial titan Goldman Sachs joined some of its Wall Street rivals in late 2005 in secretly packaging a new breed of offshore securities, it gave prospective investors little hint that many of the deals were so risky that they could end up losing hundreds of millions of dollars on them.

GATA sues Fed to disclose gold market intervention records
GATA today brought suit against the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, seeking a court order for disclosure of the central bank's records of its surreptitious market intervention to suppress the monetary metal's price.

No Jobs for Ten Years?
The decade ahead could be a brutal one for America’s unemployed – and for people with jobs hoping for pay raises.

China: Top 10 toppled executives 2009
With great power comes at least some responsibility. But not everyone with great power turns out a responsible person.

JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs Trillions Deep In Derivatives or Dumbed-Down Reporting?
Kosman reports that J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs reported their outstanding derivatives positions as 42 and 79 Billion respectively. THIS IS WRONG. The real amounts are measured in TRILLIONS. Maybe Mr. Kosman cannot conceive of the ABSURDITY of these institutions have proprietary positions in the TRILLIONS and thought it was a typo?

China and South East Asia create huge free trade zone
A free-trade zone spanning more than 1.9 billion people will come into life on January 1 as China, and 10 South-East Asian countries join together to scrap tariffs.

Goldman Sachs denies betting against its clients on CDOs
Goldman Sachs has moved to justify spending millions of dollars short-selling some of the financial products it made and sold to clients.

Janet Tavakoli: Responding to Goldman Sachs
The New York Times published a Christmas Eve expose of Goldman Sachs's so-called "Abacus" synthetic collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).

Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank: David Reilly
To close out 2009, I decided to do something I bet no member of Congress has done -- actually read from cover to cover one of the pieces of sweeping legislation bouncing around Capitol Hill.

How Stupid Do They Think We Are?
By Ian R. Crane
The campaign to make air travel a nightmare experience, for all but the political elite, continues to be ramped up. How much longer before passengers are required to place hands and feet in shackles for the duration of the flight?

Israel Rules
By Paul Craig Roberts
America’s wars in behalf of Israel’s territorial expansion will complete the bankruptcy of America.

Another false flag terror attack as justification for war and trampling on our freedoms
The Blood of Patriots and Tyrants | It wasn’t convenient at all that this kamikaze hid his “bomb” in his underpants.

Scripting the ‘fear of flying’
By Jerry Mazza
No, I’m not talking about making a movie of Erica Jong’s best-selling novel, Fear of Flying, which was scripted and shot by Columbia and flopped big time.

Obama administration prepares public opinion for attack on Yemen
By Patrick Martin
Yemen possesses, like Afghanistan and Iraq, is a highly strategic geographic location.

A Hell of a Decade
By Peter Schiff
In its recent look back on the first ten years of the century, Time Magazine proclaimed the period to be "the decade from hell."

Corporatism and Socialism in America
By Anthony Gregory
Principled advocacy of the free market requires an understanding of the differences between genuine free enterprise and “state capitalism.”

The scariest article you will read this year
By James Delingpole
I first chanced upon this horror (in abbreviated form) while in the bath reading The Week (which used to be my favourite mag but has gone seriously off now that it has abandoned all pretence of neutrality on the AGW issue).

Iran: The End May Be Near
By William Pfaff
Nobody will leave Iran alone, and everyone affects
to tremble at the threat of Ahmadinejad’s suicide-bomb.

Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA?
By Ray McGovern
Harry Truman and John Kennedy were the only ones to take on the CIA directly.

Losing the Bill of Rights
By Jacob Hornberger
Last month, President Obama announced that Khalid Sheik Mohammed would be transferred to New York, where he would stand trial in U.S. district court for his purported role as principal architect of the 9/11 attacks.

Balance of Terror: From Detroit City to Ghazi Khan
By Chris Floyd
You want to stop the "radicalization" of young Muslims? It's simple: stop killing innocent Muslims in wars of domination all over the world.

The Conservative vs Liberal Tail Chase
By Jeff Matthews
Are we really “conservatives” or “liberals?” It is time to think about what these words actually mean and not what Hannity and Olbermann tell us they mean.

Changing the Narrative for War
By Philip Giraldi
In spite of the calamities of the past eight years, there continues to be no shortage of neoconservatives in one's face in the media, advising their fellow Americans that wars can be won quickly and decisively and that using military force to change how other nations behave is sound policy.