Sign up to receive our daily news summary via e-mail »
Quote of the day. "When George Bush was president, I was on this floor saying we need an exit strategy. The same applies with Afghanistan. I'm tired of wars with no deadlines, no exits and no ends." Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) (Washington Post)
War funding. House Passes War Funds As 51 Democrats Dissent “The House passed a bill yesterday that would provide more than $96 billion in funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through Sept. 30, as President Obama had requested, but a bloc of 51 Democrats opposed it.” Obama's extra war funding wins House approval “President Obama on Thursday won decisive House approval for money to escalate U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the victory obscured anxiety within his party about the course he is taking in the war-torn region.” Wartime spending bill passes in House “A $96.7 billion war funding bill cleared the House on Thursday, but the loss of 51 Democrats, including prominent chairmen, underscores serious misgivings in the party over President Barack Obama’s new military commitments to Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Military tribunals. Obama to renew military tribunals “The Obama administration will announce plans today to revive the Bush-era military commission system for prosecuting terrorism suspects, current and former officials said, reversing a campaign pledge to rely instead on federal courts and the traditional military justice system.” Obama 'to revive military trials' “US President Barack Obama is expected to announce on Friday that he is reviving military trials for some of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. But legal rights for defendants facing the military commissions will be significantly improved,”
CIA & Congress on torture. Pelosi Accuses CIA of Misleading Congress on Interrogations “The debate over the tactics used by the Bush administration to combat terrorism continued to grip Washington yesterday, as Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill lobbed accusations about controversial interrogation methods used on suspects.” Pelosi says CIA misled lawmakers on torture “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi charged Thursday that U.S. intelligence officials had misled Congress about the use of torture on terrorism suspects.” Pelosi Says She Knew of Waterboarding by 2003 “The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, acknowledged for the first time Thursday that she knew by early 2003 that the Central Intelligence Agency had subjected terror detainees to waterboarding but saw little recourse to challenge the practice except by achieving Democratic control of Congress and the White House.”
Health care reform. Health care reform taking shape in House “Details of how House Democrats might tackle health care reform emerged from Capitol Hill on Thursday, as a draft outline leaked out showing a plan that would require Americans to carry health care coverage and provide federal aid to help consumers afford it.”
Employee free choice act. Obama: Not enough votes for labor's 'card check' bill “President Obama on Thursday acknowledged there aren't the votes to pass the union-sought bill to make it easier to form labor unions, and said congressional backers will have to rewrite the bill to find common ground.”
Abortion. On Abortion, Obama Is Drawn Into Debate He Hoped to Avoid “In nearly four months in office, President Obama has pursued a careful two-pronged strategy on abortion, enacting policies that secure a woman’s right to the procedure while vowing to move beyond the culture wars that have divided the nation on the issue for more than three decades.”
Immigration. Mexican Data Say Migration to U.S. Has Plummeted “Census data from the Mexican government indicate an extraordinary decline in the number of Mexican immigrants going to the United States.”
Food safety. Administration seeks to boost food-safety efforts “Food safety efforts are accelerating across many fronts after repeated finds of tainted California crops.” Food Companies Try, but Can’t Guarantee Safety “Increasingly, the corporations that supply Americans with processed foods are unable to guarantee the safety of their ingredients.”
US-Canada trade. Trade Wars Launched With Ruses, End Runs “Is this what the first trade war of the global economic crisis looks like? Ordered by Congress to "buy American" when spending money from the $787 billion stimulus package, the town of Peru, Ind., stunned its Canadian supplier by rejecting sewage pumps made outside of Toronto.”
Pope in Mideast. Pope ends trip with Mid-East plea “Pope Benedict ends his pilgrimage to the Middle East, calling for an end to fighting between Israel and the Palestinians.” Hate kills the soul, says pope in Nazareth mass “Benedict's message contained little of the fraught Middle East politics that have taken a high profile on his trip so far. Instead, he spoke of the importance of the family in the Christian community and encouraged all his listeners to "reject the destructive power of hatred and prejudice, which kills men's souls before it kills their bodies". Israeli leader tells pope of qualms about Palestinian state “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday that a Palestinian state backed by Iran would jeopardize Israel's security. He urged the Roman Catholic leader, who favors an independent Palestine, to turn his moral authority against Iran and its threats toward the Jewish state.”
Israel-Iran. Israel: U.S. will know before any Iran strike “Israel has acceded to American demands by pledging to coordinate its moves on Iran with Washington and not surprise the United States with military action.” CIA head's mission to stop Israel bombing Iran “As Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, prepares to visit Washington, it emerged yesterday that Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA, went to Israel two weeks ago. He sought assurances from Mr Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister, that their hawkish new Government would not attack Iran without alerting Washington.”
Gaza. Amira Hass / Life among the ruins in Gaza “The thousands of heaps of ruins in the Strip have now become part of the landscape. What attracts attention is when one pile of ruins or another disappears.”
Pakistan. Pakistan hospitals, camps are overwhelmed “The injured come by taxi, on foot, in cars and by truck, collateral damage from a conflict many of them don't understand, as the Pakistani army and Taliban militants battle it out in the picturesque Swat Valley, destroying property and lives.” Civilians say they're casualties of Pakistan's fight against the Taliban “The Pakistani army denies knowing that its war against Islamic militants has caused civilian casualties, but patients and family members at a local hospital told McClatchy Thursday that multiple relatives were killed when the military shelled or bombed their homes.”
Nuclear weapons. ElBaradei warns of new nuclear age “The number of potential nuclear weapons states could more than double in a few years unless the major powers take radical steps towards disarmament, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog has warned.”
Tiananmen memoirs. In Posthumous Memoir, China's Zhao Ziyang Details Tiananmen Debate, Faults Party “Zhao Ziyang violated one of the central tenets of Communist Party doctrine: He spoke out. But it is only now, four years after his death, that the world is hearing what he had to say.” Secret Tiananmen Square memoirs of Chinese party leader to be published “In tapes secretly recorded during his 16 years under house arrest, Zhao Ziyang, the former head of the Communist party, denounced the killing of protesters as a "tragedy", and challenged the party's subsequent rejection of democratic reforms.”
Opinion.
The courage of the martyrs (Virginia Moffatt, Guardian) “Today, Friday, is International Conscientious Objector's Day and we remember those who will risk imprisonment or worse by choosing not to kill.”
Cheer, Cheer for Old Notre Dame (James Carroll, Tom Dispatch.com) “President Obama goes to Notre Dame University this Sunday to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree, the ninth U.S. president to be so honored. The event has stirred up a hornet's nest of conservative Catholics, with more than 40 bishops objecting, and hundreds of thousands of Catholics signing petitions in protest.”
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!