| Latest News |
 | Dr. Aafia testifies as trial enters final week
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the U.S. trained neuroscientist alternately known as "Lady al Qaeda" or "The Gray Lady of Bagram", took the witness stand in her own defense over her court-appointed lawyers' protestations last week, in a trial rife with undercurrents of terrorism, torture, and incongruity.
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| Nation |
 | Obama to boost spending on maintaining nuclear stocks
President Barack Obama's administration plans to boost spending on maintaining the US nuclear arsenal and related laboratories by more than five billion dollars in the next five years.
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| World |
 | China suspends military exchanges with US
China suspended military exchange visits with the United States on Saturday in protest over $6.4 billion in planned U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and warned the U.S. ambassador that the sales would harm already strained ties.
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| Afghanistan/Pakistan War |
 | Karzai reinstates Afghan warlord accused of atrocities
He is among Afghanistan's most notorious warlords, accused of widespread abuses including the massacre of thousands of Taliban prisoners. Now he's back, reinstated by President Hamid Karzai in a top army post despite Western demands for sweeping reform.
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| Iraq War |
 | Blair 'warned by 27 lawyers Iraq war was illegal'
Tony Blair was warned two months before the invasion of Iraq that it would be illegal to go to war without UN backing, it was revealed yesterday.
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| US Military Affairs |
 | CIA black sites may amount to crime against humanity
UN human rights experts warned on Wednesday that "widespread and systematic" secret detention of terror suspects could pave the way for charges of crimes against humanity.
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| Palestine/Israel |
 | Israel closes case on US man wounded in protest
Israel's Justice Ministry declared Sunday that no indictments will be filed against police in the case of an American activist who was hit by a tear gas canister and left comatose during a violent demonstration in the West Bank last year.
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| Labor |
 | Massive protests in Greece over debt crisis
For the first time in the modern history of Greece, anti-government protesters last night pitched tents outside the large standstone building of the Athenian parliament amid growing public anger and unprecedented international concern over the country's dire public finances.
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| Environment |
 | Obama said to seek $54 billion in nuclear-power loans
President Barack Obama, acting on a pledge to support nuclear power, will propose tripling U.S. loan guarantees for new reactors to more than $54 billion, an administration official said.
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| Women |
 | Bolivia: Unprecedented gender parity in cabinet
Evo Morales began his second term as president of Bolivia by swearing in a cabinet made up of an equal number of women and men - unprecedented in this South American nation with a strong patriarchal tradition.
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| LGBT |
 | Tax court allows deduction for woman's sex change
The U.S. Tax Court ruled Tuesday that a Massachusetts woman should be allowed to deduct the costs of her sex-change operation, a decision that could have broad implications for transgender people.
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| Media Watch |
 | Does NYT's top Israel reporter have a son in the IDF?
The New York Times refuses to confirm or deny a report that its Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, has a child who is an enlisted member of the Israeli Defense Force--even though such a relationship would pose a serious conflict of interest.
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| Health |
 | Almost one in five US families were unable to buy food they needed in 2009
The Food Research and Action Center in collaboration with Gallup have been tracking what they term "food hardship" over the last two years. The poll question asked 535,715 adults, "Have there been times in the past twelve months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?"
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| Culture |
 | Oliver Stone: US, British bankers helped Hitler
Adolf Hitler was aided in his rise to power by western bankers who appreciated his tough line on communist agitators and worker power, Oliver Stone told reporters in Bangkok yesterday.
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| Technology |
Honda recalls 646,000 Fits for fire hazard
Honda announced a recall for 646,000 2007 and 2008 Fit, City and Jazz models worldwide, after a fire hazard involving a power window switch resulted in a death in South Africa.
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| Analysis |
 | The US game in Latin America
When I write about US foreign policy in places such as Haiti or Honduras, I often get responses from people who find it difficult to believe that the US government would care enough about these countries to try and control or topple their governments. These are small, poor countries with little in the way of resources or markets. Why should Washington policymakers care who runs them?
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| Commentary |
 | Remember the illegal destruction of Iraq?
British political news has been consumed for the last several weeks by a formal inquiry into the illegality and deceit behind Tony Blair's decision to join the U.S. in invading Iraq. Today, Blair himself is publicly testifying before the investigative commission and is being grilled about numerous false claims he made in the run-up to the war, not only about Iraqi weapons programs (his taxi-cab-derived "45-minutes-to-launch!!" warning) and Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda, but also about secret commitments he made to join the U.S. at a time when he and Bush were still pretending that they were undecided and awaiting the outcome of the U.N. negotiations and the inspection process.
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