David Miliband gave MI6 the green light to proceed with intelligence-gathering operations in countries where there was a possible risk of terrorism suspects being tortured, the Guardian has learned. During the three years Miliband served as foreign secretary, MI6 always consulted him personally before embarking on what a source described as "any particularly difficult" attempts to gain information from a detainee held by a country with a poor human rights record.
While Miliband blocked some operations, he is known to have given permission for others to proceed. Officers from MI5 are understood to have sought similar permission from a series of home secretaries in recent years.
Computer simulations show how the movement of wind could have parted the waters of the Red Sea The parting of the Red Sea, as described in the Bible, could have been a phenomenon caused by strong winds, according to new computer simulations.
A group of United Nations experts has criticized Israel and Hamas for failing to conduct serious probes into alleged war crimes last year in the Gaza Strip. The fact-finding mission of Justice Richard Goldstone last year recommended that the sides conduct independent investigations into his report, which charged that war crimes may have taken place during the 2008-2009 conflict in the Gaza Strip.
Just when the Catholic Church didn't need another scandal, Italian magistrates have frozen $30 million from the Vatican bank and are investigating top bank officials for alleged violations of European money laundering rules.
For years, America’s military has been divided, competent military professionals and patriots on one side and Christian Zionists, loyal to Israel and addicted to a propaganda “dreamworld” on the other.
Zahraa is a rambunctious toddler. She still sucks on a pacifier and her mother dresses her in pink. But according to the government, she does not exist. The daughter of an al-Qaeda in Iraq militant who forced her mother into marriage and motherhood, then disappeared, Zahraa is one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children whose births amid the anarchy and insurgent violence of Iraq were never legally recorded.
Scientists fear migratory birds may be spreading hard-to-treat infections after discovering seagulls can carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Portuguese researchers analysed 57 samples of droppings from the yellow-legged Caspian Gull Larus Cachinnans.
The FBI had a weak factual basis for opening and extending some investigations of U.S. activist groups and put individuals affiliated with Greenpeace USA on the terrorist watch list improperly, a report by the Justice Department's Inspector General released Monday found.
The FBI improperly opened and extended investigations of some U.S. activist groups and put members of an environmental advocacy organization on a terrorist watch list, even though they were planning nonviolent civil disobedience, the Justice Department said Monday.
