The US Central Intelligence Agency has been operating a secret airbase for unmanned drones in Saudi Arabia for the past two years.
The facility was established to hunt for members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen.
A drone flown from there was used in September 2011 to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric who was alleged to be AQAP's external operations chief. US media have known of its existence since then, but have not reported it.
CIA operating drone base in Saudi Arabia, US media reveal
After fights over military detention, GOP and White House team up against lawsuit
The Obama administration and Republican Senate hawks have fought tooth and nail over indefinite detention laws, but now they are joining forces to stop a lawsuit that argues military detention is unconstitutional.
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) have taken the rare step of securing time at oral arguments alongside the administration’s attorneys to defend the law they helped write, which critics say allows U.S. citizens to be detained indefinitely.
Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency embarked on a highly classified program of secret detention and extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects.
The program was designed to place detainee interrogations beyond the reach of law. Suspected terrorists were seized and secretly flown across national borders to be interrogated by foreign governments that used torture, or by the CIA itself in clandestine “black sites” using torture techniques.
Globalizing Torture is the most comprehensive account yet assembled of the human rights abuses associated with CIA secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations.
Afghan corruption, opium, and the strange case of Kam Air
Kam Air, an airline owned by a politically-connected Afghan businessman, was blacklisted by the US military in Afghanistan for opium smuggling. Then the Afghan government complained.
In late January, the US military blacklisted Afghanistan's Kam Air from winning contracts with the US in Afghanistan, with the head of a US military anticorruption unit asserting that the airline was involved in bulk opium smuggling on commercial flights to Tajikistan.
Clinical trials on rise, but many lack participants
In the next two decades, deaths from cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes and a host of other illnesses are poised to soar as the American population ages. Medical advances have already sliced the pie of disease into smaller and smaller biological slivers, making it possible to target a growing range of niche medications to specific subsets of illness.
But at the same time that science is identifying a growing number of potential new cures, the public is providing a smaller number of people willing to volunteer to help test the drugs needed to treat disease.
Prairie2: ... and God changed his mind
One of the big hits among the Super Bowl commercials was a Dodge truck spot that hardly showed the product or the company logo. Instead it showed nostalgic pictures of a bucolic American farm life while the late Paul Harvey laid on the platitudes like a 40 ton John Deere liquid manure wagon.
"...And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said I need a caretaker- So God made a Farmer". This speech was delivered by Harvey in 1978 at the behest of his Agri-business sponsors to a convention of high school students that belonged the FFA (Future Farmers). Few if any of the 1000 or so boys who were there that day, and would be now be about 50 years old, likely have farms.
Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans
A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” -- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.
The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the September 2011 strike in Yemen that killed alleged al-Qaida operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes.
US control is diminishing, but it still thinks it owns the world
Does the United States still have the same level of control over the energy resources of the Middle East as it once had?
Noam Chomskly: The major energy-producing countries are still firmly under the control of the western-backed dictatorships. So, actually, the progress made by the Arab spring is limited, but it's not insignificant. The western-controlled dictatorial system is being eroded. In fact, it's been being eroded for some time. So, for example, if you go back 50 years, the energy resources – the main concern of US planners – have been mostly nationalised. There are constantly attempts to reverse that, but they have not succeeded.
Marine officials at Lejeune never tested water for pollution
No records can be found indicating that Marine officials at Camp Lejeune, N.C., ever tested the drinking water there for contaminants, authorities say.
Contamination of the drinking water at the base is believed to be the worst in U.S. history, the Tampa Bay Times reported Sunday.
Although the corps began requiring the testing at Marine bases in 1963, a check of more than 8,000 pages of documents have not found evidence the testing was done, said Corps spokeswoman Capt. Kendra Motz.
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