United States

Climate Cycles Are Driving Wars, Says Study

Coutesty: The Earth Institute, Columbia University When El Niño Warmth Hits, Tropical Conflicts Double 2011-08-24 The long war leading to South Sudan’s recent independence began during the powerful El Niño drought of 1983. In continuing hostilities, southern fighters display a grenade launcher captured from northern Sudanese, July 2011. (Trevor Snapp/Global […]

U.S. Sues 17 Banks Over Mortgage Losses

Courtesy: Thestreet.com NEW YORK (TheStreet) — The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced Friday afternoon that it had sued 17 large banks, alleging violations of federal securities laws in the sale of mortgage-backed securities to government-sponsored enterprises, including Fannie Mae (FNMA_), Freddie Mac (FMCC_). . Ally Financial, for $6 billion in […]

Analysis: Cheney vigorously defends war in Iraq

Source: The Associated Press Author: Steven R. Hurst WASHINGTON (AP) — Dick Cheney’s autobiography presents a robust defense of his push for the U.S. invasion of Iraq without critically examining two issues central to America’s near-failure in the war: the Bush administration’s decision to disband the country’s army and banish […]

Why Muslims are still mad at America

Source: CNN Author: Steven Kull On the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, many Americans are wondering whether the risk of a terrorist attack against America has been reduced.  The picture is mixed. With the death of Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda is weaker.  With revolutions in several Arab countries, […]

What really happened on September 11, 2001?

by Bernard Léchot, swissinfo.ch Ten years on from the attacks in the United States which killed nearly 3,000 people, questions about the fateful day still remain unanswered. swissinfo.ch spoke to three Swiss specialists who have sifted through the official and unofficial versions. “When I saw the second plane – indicating […]

Chilling accounts

SOURCE: ARABNEWS The WikiLeaks spotlight is once again trained on American war crimes in Iraq WikiLeaks finds itself in the spotlight all over again. The decision of the whistleblower website to put its full “unredacted” archive of more than 250,000 US government cables online has led to an uproar in […]

Why be scared of a Palestinian state?

By Rami G. Khouri, The Daily Star, Beirut, Lebanon Two major Middle East-related events will take place this month with their epicenter in New York City: the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States, and the expected Palestinian bid for the United Nations General […]