ACLU: Obama’s reversal on Patriot Act reform ‘a major travesty’

Fighting has intensified in a region in northwestern Pakistan where the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters dodging the South Waziristan operation have regrouped. Limited military operations, consisting largely of air and artillery strikes backed by the paramilitary Frontier Corps, are concentrating on Taliban strongholds in a region that borders the Arakzai, Kurram, and Khyber tribal

Continue reading Fighting intensifies in northwestern Taliban strongholds

The Taliban leadership and the bulk of its fighters have eluded the Pakistani military during the current operation in South Waziristan. The Pakistani military had billed the South Waziristan offensive, which was launched in the eastern half of the Taliban-controlled tribal agency on Oct. 17, as the decisive battle that would break the back of the group. Instead, the leadership of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, including its leader Hakeemullah Mehsud and its South Waziristan commander Waliur Rehman Mehsud, have escaped to neighboring tribal areas, and the terror attacks in Pakistan

Continue reading Taliban Escape South Waziristan Operation

US intelligence officials are concerned that Syria is becoming an al Qaeda haven, as the terror group becomes increasingly intertwined with Ba’athist groups operating from Iraq's neighbor to the west. Al Qaeda has refocused its efforts to build an infrastructure in eastern Syria after its network in Iraq was decimated by Iraqi and US security forces from 2007 to 2009, and now the organization is partnering with former Ba’athists from Saddam Hussein’s

Continue reading Eastern Syria Becoming a New Al Qaeda Haven

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has opened a new training camp in the South. The new camp highlights Yemen's value to al Qaeda in waging its global terror

Continue reading Al Qaeda Opens New Training Camp in Yemen

Doctors and officials in Fallujah are appealing to the international community for an investigation into the unnatural increase in birth defects, 5 years after two major battles between the U.S. military and Sunni militia groups took place

Continue reading Fallujah’s Infants Suffer From Sharp Rise in Birth Defects

Task Force Has Influenced Government Policy in the Past The Democrats downplaying the gravity of new recommendations for breast cancer screening have left out an inconvenient fact: their health care bills would automatically adopt

Continue reading Dems’ Health Bills Would Adopt New Mammogram Guidelines

If President Obama orders an additional 30,000 to 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, he will be deploying practically every available U.S. Army brigade to war, leaving few units in reserve in case of an unforeseen emergency and further stressing a force that has seen repeated combat deployments since

Continue reading Army Data Shows Constraints on Troop Increase

Stolen e-mails reveal venomous feelings toward skeptics Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global

Continue reading In The Trenches on Climate Change, Hostility Among Foes

BAGHDAD -- The Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq has rebounded in strength in recent months and appears to be launching a concerted effort to cripple the Iraqi government as U.S. troops withdraw, Iraqi and American officials

Continue reading Al-Qaeda in Iraq regaining strength

Claims that British soldiers tortured and murdered up to 20 prisoners after a battle with Iraqi insurgents are to be scrutinised at a public inquiry. Concern that the Army covered up the most serious accusation of war crimes that it has faced has prompted Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, to order the independent

Continue reading British Army Investigated for Torture and Murder in Iraq

The Chinese government is opening an official bar for gay men as part of local authorities’ efforts to fight HIV and AIDS. The bar is based in Dali, a town in the south western Yunnan province. Yunnan has the country’s highest rates of HIV and AIDS, according to official data. The government said it funded the 120,000 yuan (17,500 US dollar) project to reach out to the gay community in China and break social stigma against gay

Continue reading China Opens First Official Gay Bar

UK PM Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have proposed a multi-billion-dollar fund to help developing nations deal with climate change.

Mr Brown said the $10bn (£6bn) fund should also be used to help developing nations cut greenhouse gas

Continue reading UK and France Propose Climate Fund for Poor

Pakistani security forces recently detained a mid-level Taliban commander who was wanted by the government.

Abdullah Shah Mehsud, who was number 17 on the list of 20 most-wanted Taliban commanders from South Waziristan, was captured by Pakistani forces in the district of Tank. He is an “active member of Hakeemullah Mehsud Group from Shaktoi village near Razmak” in North

Continue reading Pakistan captures wanted South Waziristan Taliban commander

Former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, pondering a future in politics, is trying to wipe away his image as an enemy of Latino immigrants by positioning himself as a champion of that fast-growing ethnic bloc.

Mr. Dobbs, who left the network last week, has said in recent days that he is considering a third-party run for a New Jersey Senate seat in 2012, or possibly for president. Polls show voters unhappy with both parties, and strategists believe Mr. Dobbs could tap populist anger over economy issues just as Ross Perot did in the

Continue reading Dobbs Reaches Out to Latinos, With Politics in Mind

President Barack Obama has given a major boost to next month’s UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen by offering firm targets for cuts in US greenhouse gas emissions. The move, announced today, has been widely welcomed by climate change campaigners. But although they may seem generous, the proposed targets are in fact far from what developing nations and climate scientists have called

Continue reading Obama Offers Fixed Targets for US Emissions Cuts

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Keeping workers healthy, happy and at work through so-called wellness programs remains a priority for many companies despite financial pressures from the global economic downturn, a survey found on

Continue reading Healthy Worker Programs Survive Economic Crisis

ISLAMABAD: The Obama administration may be close to reversing course on its current strategy in Afghanistan, after our sources quoted as saying that high-level talks with senior Taliban militants are currently

Continue reading US Involved in Secret Talks with Senior Taliban

Hopes for the Copenhagen climate summit in December have been boosted after it emerged that more than 60 presidents and prime ministers plan to attend.

There had been concern that no strong agreement would emerge from the talks in Copenhagen.

But observers say the presence of so many leading government figures will radically increase

Continue reading Hopes for Copenhagen Climate Summit Boosted

MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin has made headlines by championing the endangered Siberian tiger — posing with a cuddly cub and placing a tracking collar on a full-grown female in the wilds of his country’s Far East. Now Russia is helping plan an ambitious program it hopes can double the global tiger population by

Continue reading Russia Launches Program to Save Tigers Worldwide

ACHIN, Afghanistan — American and Afghan officials have begun helping a number of anti-Taliban militias that have independently taken up arms against insurgents in several parts of Afghanistan, prompting hopes of a large-scale tribal rebellion against the

Continue reading As Afghans Resist Taliban, U.S. Spurs Rise of Militias

Al Ram, West Bank (CNN) — The Faisal al Husseini football stadium was packed, two hours before kick off, with a noisy sea of Palestinian flags and white hijabs.

Football matches are always a big deal in the West Bank, but this game was more significant than most. 10,000 women had flocked to the stadium, on the outskirts of East Jerusalem and a mere few meters from the separation barrier that snakes around the West Bank, to watch a historic football match few would have believed possible just a few years ago: the Palestinian women’s national team were to play Jordan in their first ever home

Continue reading Women flock to see first female football game in West Bank