“I hope you believe America is part of the battlefield.”-Lindsey Graham, U.S. Senator from South Carolina
In a confusing back and forth between the House and Senate, on December 15 the Senate passed the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, allowing the indefinite detention and torture of U.S. citizens. […] Continue Reading…
“It is not possible to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program without targeting its nuclear program as a whole, because there is no safe dividing line between those activities and facilities that are purely peaceful and those which are military related.”-Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, U.S. Representative for Florida
By using that argument then any country can justify destroying […] Continue Reading…
On December 14, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011. It passed with an overwhelming majority; 410 for, 11 against and 12 abstaining.
The U.S. Senate is now debating their version.
Basically HR 1905 continues the same old sanctions, but with some interesting exemptions and additions:
(1) the procurement of certain […] Continue Reading…
The final version of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012, known in the House as HR 1540, was voted on twice. The first time it failed to pass!
According to CSPAN records the act was first voted on at 18:33 hours, local Washington DC time, then again at 18:50 hours.
The first time it failed […] Continue Reading…
A U.S. military contractor is suing two Texas companies for killing 14 bomb sniffing dogs. The dogs were supposed to be shipped to U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The two companies being sued are Indian Creek Enterprises Incorporated and Live Animal Transportation Services.
The military contractor said the dogs were supposed to have been put in the […] Continue Reading…
For the third time this year, Hecla Mining Company’s Lucky Friday Mine suffered a rock burst.
It happened before 19:30 hours on the evening of December 14. This time the miners were actually ‘lucky’. Seven miners were rescued, with one going to a local hospital.
But two other mine employees were not lucky. They were both […] Continue Reading…
The creation of the new country of South Sudan was all about U.S. access to its oil. On December 14, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, announced that South Sudan’s oil fields were open to U.S. investment.
But she had an ominous, and hypocritical warning: “We know that it will either help your country finance […] Continue Reading…
Japan’s Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa, and Australia’s Ambassador to Japan Bruce Miller, have publicly expressed a desire to form a new military pact involving the United States.
Japan already has military pacts with the U.S., and with Australia. Japanese officials say it is only natural that all three should join into one single pact.
Recently U.S. […] Continue Reading…
The Japanese government is in need of some cash (no wonder since they’ve been making promises of financial aid to other countries). But they’re so desperate that they’ll even sell off a famous bullet train.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has instructed his cabinet, and Japanese business leaders, to sell Japan’s infrastructure to India, including the […] Continue Reading…
Japan’s Environment Ministry has given some clues as to how bad the radiation contamination is in north eastern Honshu. The area is being devastated by radiation coming from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
In a report on how the government of Japan plans to address decontamination issues, they revealed that some areas have soil that’s […] Continue Reading…