Defense Secretary Robert Gates just proposed cutting the military and security budget by $78 billion over five years — perhaps only a downpayment on coming further reductions. Secretary Gates’s list of proposed cuts includes high-profile projects and weapons. But he does not mention the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, an exemplar of undisciplined spending in the name of defense.
Never heard of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency? You’re not alone. A fair guess is that nine of 10 Washington pundits and political insiders don’t know the NGA exists, while perhaps one in 100 can describe its function.
Undisciplined spending in the name of defense
Blocking "rogue gene" may stop cancer spread-study
British scientists have discovered a "rogue gene" which helps cancer spread around the body and say blocking it with the right kind of drugs could stop many types of the disease in their tracks.
Researchers from the University of East Anglia said their findings could lead within a decade to the development of new medicines to halt a critical late stage of the disease known as metastasis, when cancer cells spread to other parts of the body.
Pakistan prisoners in Afghan jails despair
For Wakeel Khan, the worst aspect of the disappearance of his son Hameedullah was initially not knowing his fate. Hameedullah disappeared from the tribal region of Waziristan bordering Afghanistan in a 2008 military operation. For a while, it seemed that he had fallen off the face of the earth.
"It was five, six months after my son went missing that I found out he was at Bagram [the main US base in Afghanistan]," a visibly upset Mr Khan - who served in the Pakistan Army for 15 years - told the BBC. "The Red Cross helped us get in touch with him in jail, but for two years, he couldn't even tell us why he'd been arrested.
Two decades of secret Israeli-Palestinian accords leaked to media worldwide
Al-Jazeera TV begins leaking 1,600 secret documents: PA agreed to concede almost all of East Jerusalem to Israel, accept Israeli demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Al-Jazeera TV and The Guardian revealed Sunday the details of 1,600 confidential documents on negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians over the last two decades. The documents leaked so far mostly reveal secret concessions offered by Palestinian negotiators on the issues of the right of return of Palestinian refugees, territorial concessions, and the recognition of Israel.
ACLU: ‘Unjustified homicides’ go unpunished at military prisons
The American Civil Liberties Union has said it identified 25 to 30 cases of "unjustified homicide" in US-run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. After filing a Freedom of Information request in 2009, the civil rights group last week obtained 2,624 pages of documents from the US military detailing investigations into 190 deaths in custody at prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the detention center in Guantanamo Bay.
The Defense Department says many of those deaths were due to illness, natural causes or inmate-on-inmate violence, but the ACLU alleges it has identified more than two dozen deaths it sees as being unjustified.
Domestic use of aerial drones by law enforcement likely to prompt privacy debate
The drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is entering the national airspace: Unmanned aircraft are patrolling the border with Mexico, searching for missing persons over difficult terrain, flying into hurricanes to collect weather data, photographing traffic accident scenes and tracking the spread of forest fires.
But the operation outside Austin presaged what could prove to be one of the most far-reaching and potentially controversial uses of drones: as a new and relatively cheap surveillance tool in domestic law enforcement.
How Congress helped thwart Obama's plan to close Guantanamo
Two years after the newly minted Obama administration moved to undo what had become one of the most controversial legacies of the George W. Bush presidency by ordering the closure of the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a trove of State Department documents made public by the website WikiLeaks is providing new information about why that effort failed.
Key among the factors, the cables suggest: Congress' refusal to allow any of the captives to be brought to the United States.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL SLIP OVER WAR CRIMES ‘GUILT’
ALASTAIR Campbell heaped further pressure on Tony Blair by admitting he and the former Prime Minister should face prosecution for war crimes if the invasion of Iraq is found to be illegal.
In a rare slip-up, the spin doctor confessed that if it was found to be unlawful, those who took the country into war “should be punished”. He then tried to squirm out of his comments, made during a debate on BBC1’s Question Time, insisting the war in 2003 was lawful.
9/11 Truth: Another Expert “Speaks Out”: Jeff Farrer, PhD
Dr. Farrer first became aware of the destruction of WTC 7 on 9/11 when he read a paper by Professor Steven Jones, first published in 2005, where he discusses the strange details and evidence surrounding that event, including evidence that iron or steel from the World Trade Center had been melted during the destruction.
This made no sense, given the official theory of what brought down the twin towers and WTC 7, since the temperature of office and jet fuel fires was at least 1000°F cooler than the melting point of iron. Farrer sought out Professor Jones to discuss this evidence further.
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