President Barack Obama reiterated in a speech on Thursday that he would continue with the Bush administration’s policy of trying prisoners of the U.S. “war on terror” not in the Federal court system but through military commissions, which he described as “an appropriate venue for trying detainees for violations of…
Iran announced on Wednesday that it had successfully tested its Sejil 2 surface-to-surface missile, and Western media sources took the opportunity to portray the Middle Eastern nation as a threat to world peace and, specifically, as a threat to Israel. The Seijl 2 missile has a range of about 1,200…
The U.S. has announced $110 million in aid to Pakistan as the number of refugees fleeing the fighting in the country’s Swat district is quickly approaching 1.5 million. Pakistan’s military began an offensive campaign against militants in Swat and Buner districts two weeks ago, just days before President Asif Ali…
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is on trial under the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the ruling military junta in Burma that prevented her from taking her rightful position as Prime Minister after she was democratically elected in 1990. Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for…
U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed the “special relationship” between their two countries on Monday after their meeting at the White House, which focused mostly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on Iran. In opening his remarks to the press following their meeting, Obama reiterated “the…
Yisrael Beitenu, the political party of Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has proposed that Arab Israelis be banned from marking the anniversary of the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Arab Palestinians in 1948. An estimated 700,000 Arabs were expelled or fled from their homes in 1948 and forbidden from…
A recent unclassified CIA report to Congress says that it is not known whether Iran is working towards developing a nuclear weapon, despite consistent rhetoric from the Obama administration that Iran is pursuing the bomb. The report was drafted by the CIA’s Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center (WINPAC)…
Pakistani military officials have said that the number of civilians who have fled fighting in Pakistan has reached 1.3 million. A figure of more than half a million who have been registered has been confirmed by the U.N. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced…
A major offensive against militants in the Swat and Buner districts of Pakistan is underway, as thousands of civilians flee the area, headed for refugee camps that have been set up to help mitigate the crisis. The offensive marks the complete collapse of a peace agreement between the government and…
U.S. President Barack Obama met this week with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, while another U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan resulting in dead civilians set the tone for the visit. U.S. bombings in the Farah province of Afghanistan on Monday resulted in a large number of…
The Palestinian group Hamas has announced a cessation in rocket fire into Israel this week as Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, in exile in Syria, repeated that Hamas is seeking an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel along the pre-1967 border. In June 1967, Israel invaded and occupied the…
A spokesman for the Iraqi government said this week that the June 30 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from urban areas would not be extended. Although there has been some talk that U.S. forces might be asked to stay longer due to an increase in violence in some…
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