Without notifying the public, federal agents for the past four years have assigned millions of international travelers, including Americans, computer-generated scores rating the risk they pose of being terrorists or criminals, based on several things, such as the type of meal they ordered.
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Hundreds of people may have been killed in the heaviest fighting between northern Sudanese forces and their former southern rebel foes since they signed a peace deal last year, a top southern officer said on Thursday.
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A German citizen who suffered torture after being kidnapped by the CIA is in the United States to appeal the dismissal of his lawsuit against the US government. Three years ago, Khaled el-Masri was seized along the Serbian-Macedonian border and then flown to Afghanistan where he was tortured inside a secret prison. He was released without charge after five months.
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The U.S. government agreed to pay two million dollars and apologize to Brandon Mayfield. Mayfield is the Muslim attorney in Oregon jailed two years ago after the FBI mistakenly tied him to the Madrid train bombings.
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The bi-partisan Iraq Study Group has agreed to call for a gradual pullback of US troops from Iraq and to open negotiations with Iran and Syria.
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President Bush said Thursday that American troops would stay in Iraq unless its government asks them to leave.
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Chinese scientists revealed that showing pornography to pandas has helped increase the captive panda population, and said that they had successfully mated robot fish.
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Former Darfur rebel turned presidential adviser Minni Arcua Minnawi on Monday accused the Sudanese government of rearming and mobilizing the feared Janjaweed militia, violating a peace deal signed in May.
He also urged the international community to take action rather than just talk about the Darfur conflict, which has killed 200,000 and driven 2.5 million people from their homes in the vast region in the west of Sudan.
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Americans decided they didn’t like John Kerry.
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Israel is ready to release many jailed Palestinians in return for a soldier seized by militants in June, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced on Monday.
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The White House said Iraq was in a new phase.
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A group of Santa Clauses were on strike on one of Vienna’s main shopping avenues in honor of “Buy Nothing Day,” an international initiative to counter consumerist attitudes ahead of the Christmas season.
“Today is Buy Nothing Day, allow yourself a break,” ten Santas, in full garb with red felt jackets and fake beards, told shoppers on Vienna’s Mariahilferstrasse.
People are rushing by and do not have a relaxed look on their face at all. I am doing much better,” said one Father Christmas, lounging in a deckchair.
Instead of the usual presents, the “striking” Santa Clauses doled out advice about environmentally safe washing products and energy-saving lamps, and encouraged people to spend time with their families rather than just buy expensive gifts.
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The former prison commander of Abu Ghraib reported in an interview that Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized mistreatment of detainees that went on there.
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert by telephone on Saturday that militant groups had agreed to cease attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip as of 0400 GMT on Sunday, an Abbas aide said.
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The Army is expanding training for advisers who will try to improve Iraqi security forces.
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The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, corrupt charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded. The amount is less than what it costs the US to sustain the war in a single day.
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Today is buy nothing day.
It was cold, it was dark and in some places it was foggy. None of that would stop millions of bargain-seekers from climbing into their cars for a pre-dawn raid on their local malls, electronics retailers and discounters for the official start to the holiday season.
The Best Buy store in West Paterson, N.J., had almost 2,000 people waiting for Friday’s 5 a.m. opening _ nearly 24 hours after they started lining up.
“They had turkey sandwiches,”
said Chuck O’Donnell, a district service manager for Best Buy.
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Two men who say they were insulted by actor-comedian Michael Richards during his racist rant at a comedy club want a personal apology and maybe some money, their lawyer said Friday.
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The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has nearly completed an investigation into war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region and has sufficient evidence to file charges soon, he said on Thursday.
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Palestinian militant groups offered to stop firing rockets into Israel in exchange for a cessation of all attacks on the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, an official said on Thursday.
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