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The Obama Justice Department is having problems prosecuting terrorist cases because top department attorneys have conflicts of interest. According to documents obtained exclusively by The Washington Times, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, No. 3 official in the Justice Department, had to recuse himself on at least 13 active detainee cases and at least 26 cases listed as either closed or mooted....

The West is "disappointed" over Iran's failure to respond positively to a UN-brokered nuclear deal, diplomats said in a statement Friday following a meeting of the UN Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany. However, no new sanctions were discussed during the meeting, according to an EU source. "We urge Iran to reconsider the opportunity offered by this agreement ... and to engage seriously with us in dialogue and negotiations," the statement said, noting that Teheran had not responded positively to the proposal of the International Atomic Energy Agency. An EU official said there was no mention of imposing further...

GENEVA (AFP) – The world's biggest atom-smasher, shut down after its inauguration in September 2008 amid technical faults, restarted on Friday, a spokesman for the European Organisation for Nuclear Research said. "The first tests of injecting sub-atomic particles began around 1600 (1500 GMT)," CERN spokesman James Gillies told AFP. He said the injections lasted a fraction of a second, enough for "a half or even a complete circuit" of the Large Hadron Collider built in a 27-kilometre (17-mile) long tunnel straddling the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva. "If all goes well tonight we will try to circulate a beam of particles...

It's official: the organisers of the Copenhagen climate conference conceded last weekend that it cannot deliver a final, legally binding deal. Danish prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the conference host, is hoping for a "political deal", followed by a legal one in 2010. The question now is how specific the political deal will be. Speaking at a meeting of Asian leaders in Singapore, Rasmussen said the Copenhagen agreement should be "precise on specific commitments and binding on countries committing to reach certain targets. We need the commitments. We need the figures. We need the action." His climate minister, Connie...

Forecasts of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter. One of the world's top climate modellers said Thursday we could be about to enter one or even two decades during which temperatures cool. "People will say this is global warming disappearing," he told more than 1500 of the world's top climate scientists gathering in Geneva at the UN's World Climate Conference. "I am not one of the sceptics," insisted Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, Germany. "However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or other people will do...

Prez. Incapable of making rational decisions Frolicking in the Quicksand: How the Obama Administration Keeps Making Huge Mistakes in the Middle East By Barry Rubin thelastcrusade.org Of course, the Obama Administration has its defenders. They either ignore criticism of the Administration’s foreign policy or claim it is all partisan and ideological. And yet the truth is that if you watch the government's policy on a daily basis it is truly remarkable how many dumb, avoidable mistakes are made.I won’t supply a long list here but instead will talk about the latest one. Let’s take it step by step to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai is an "unworthy partner" who does not deserve a big boost either in U.S. troops or civilian aid, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. Pelosi, a skeptic on sending more troops to Afghanistan, also said in an interview with National Public Radio aired on Friday that there was not strong support among her fellow Democrats in Congress for "any big ramp-up of troops" to oppose resurgent Taliban forces. She told NPR she had asked fellow Democrats to give President Barack Obama room to decide his Afghan strategy, which is expected to...

Detainees at a camp in Baghdad, Iraq have found a way to get under the skin of guard troops from Wisconsin. And it has to do with football and a painful chapter for some Green Bay Packers fans who consider Brett Favre a traitor for joining the rival Minnesota Vikings. First Lieutenant Tim Boehnen of New Richmond says the detainees are familiar with Favre and picked up on the troops' discussion about the quarterback's performance with the Vikings. Lt. Col. Tim Donovan says the detainees at Camp Cropper needle the guards about Favre's success as a Viking.

BEIJING – Washington's ambassador to Beijing hit out Friday at negative U.S. media coverage of President Barack Obama's visit to China, saying it failed to take into account important progress on many issues. Although producing no breakthroughs on key issues, Obama's first state visit to the Asian giant that ended Wednesday was heralded by both sides as a success. The trip was the top news story in China, drawing strong interest from the Chinese public who, surveys suggest, are largely positive in their view of the American president.

Senator John Kerry described international terrorism as “primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation,’’ and urged voters to think of deadly jihadist violence as merely “a nuisance’’ that we need “to reduce’’ - akin, he said, to gambling or prostitution. Kerry lost that election, and the Bush administration’s very different approach - treating terrorist attacks as acts of war, not criminal violations - continued for four more years. Pre-empting terror in advance, not prosecuting it after the fact, remained the overriding priority. Counterterrorism efforts under George W. Bush were aggressive and they drew much criticism. But whatever else might be...

More than 50 oil tankers are anchored off Britain - pieces in a game in which the only winners are market speculators. The losers are the millions of British motorists paying over the odds for their petrol and diesel. After yesterday's report in the Daily Mail on how several so-called 'oil shark' tankers were moored near the Devon coast, dozens more vessels were revealed to be loitering off-shore. Some are carrying aircraft fuel or fuel for homes. Others are empty, waiting to be restocked before setting off around the globe. But according to industry experts, a significant number are 'oil...

Two-thirds of Americans expect an Islamic suicide bomb attack on American soil within six months, according to a new poll that also shows Republicans are significantly more concerned than Democrats. Fritz Wenzel of Wenzel Strategies said one of the most shocking findings of his recent polling on the subject was that 65 percent are expecting an attack within six months. "Some of the communication between Fort Hood shooter Hasan and al-Qaida figures included discussion of such attacks inside the United States, and it has been a common form of violence in the Middle East for years," he said. "Now, Americans...

There's big news for climate change students. A hacker has gotten into the computers at Hadley CRU, Britain's largest climate research institute and a proponent of global warming, and seems to have uncovered evidence of substantial fraud in reporting the "evidence" on global warming; the unlawful destruction of records to cover up this fraud ,conspiracy,and deceit in the entire operation. While hacking into the institute's records is inappropriate if not illegal, the activities disclosed appear illegal and damaging to science and the economies of the world. At first many of us were inclined to dismiss the posted emails from the...

WASHINGTON - The International Atomic Energy Agency and Syria are walking a tightrope and appear to be headed toward a collision over two nuclear sites where undeclared uranium was recently found. The agency found traces of uranium at the Dair Alzour nuclear site that are not included in Syria's declared inventory, according to a just released report. The Syrians said the uranium came from the Israeli missiles used to destroy the nearby al-Kibar reactor in September 2007. The presence of uranium particles was detected at a second site near Damascus -- the Miniature Neutron Source Reactor. Syria said it came...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- CIA Director Leon Panetta arrived in Pakistan Friday to discuss the issue of the location of the leadership of the Taliban with security officials. Panetta was to meet with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and top military and intelligence officials, Pakistan's The National newspaper reported. He is expected to discuss issues related to the leadership of the Taliban believed to be hiding in the tribal border regions along the Afghan border. Pakistani officials denied claims the leadership is in the area, the report said.

Well, this should get interesting. The Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain was hacked yesterday, apparently by Russian black hats, and thousands of sensitive documents, including emails from climate scientists dating back a decade, were posted online. More here. Officials at Hadley, a leading global-warming research center, have apparently confirmed to an Australian publication that the documents are genuine. The whole affair has much of the blogosphere alight. Blogs skeptical of man-made global warming see blood in the water. Some of the old emails from scientists made public apparently make references to things like “hid[ing] the decline,” referring to global...

The University of East Anglia's Hadley Climatic Research Centre appears to have suffered a security breach earlier today, when an unknown hacker apparently downloaded 1079 e-mails and 72 documents of various types and published them to an anonymous FTP server. These files appear to contain highly sensitive information that, if genuine, could prove extremely embarrassing to the authors of the e-mails involved. Those authors include some of the most celebrated names among proponents of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Senior officials from six world powers expressed disappointment on Friday that Iran had not accepted proposals intended to delay its potential ability to make nuclear bombs and urged Tehran to reconsider. "We are disappointed by the lack of follow-up on the three understandings (in the proposed deal)," said senior European Union official Robert Cooper after a meeting of officials from Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Russia and China.

LIMA, Peru - Police say a gang in the Peruvian jungle has been killing people and draining fat from the corpses to sell on the black market for use in cosmetics, although medical experts say they doubt a major market for fat exists. Three suspects confessed to killing five people, but the gang may have been involved in dozens more, said Col. Jorge Mejia, chief of Peru's anti-kidnapping police. He said one suspect claimed the gang wasn't the only one doing such killings.

For the past couple of months I have worried about the risks of a failed presidency. No one should want this, regardless of party affiliation. It is harmful and dangerous to our economy and country. However, it appears obvious to me that the royal regime known as Obama has ended. Seth Leibsohn writing in the National Review summarized it this way: "This is reminiscent of the Jimmy Carter years - the last time the U.S. was seen as weak - unable to move and coax other countries, unable to reassure dependent allies, unable to have the respect of the world...

RZD President Vladimir Yakunin gave United States Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood a presentation on the program to develop high-speed rail transport in Russia. The presentation took place at the RZD Science and Technical Information Centre at Rizhsky Station, and was attended by the US ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle. The RZD president showed the high-speed Sapsan train to the delegation from the US Department of Transportation, and described the program to develop high-speed rail transport in Russia up to 2030. The US transportation secretary said he was impressed by the first Russian high-speed train, built jointly by German and Russian...

Yesterday, Somali pirates attacked the commercial cargo ship Maersk Alabama. This time, however, an armed security team successfully thwarted the attackers. Last April, Somali pirates successfully attacked the Alabama, kidnapping ship’s Captain Phillips and holding him hostage until Navy SEAL snipers killed the captors. In 2008, Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, commander of the U.S. Navy’s fleet in that area, specifically warned that the Navy “can’t be everywhere” and that “shipping companies have to take responsibility for their own ships.” It appears that after the last near-tragedy, Maersk took the warning seriously. But the story also highlights media bias against self-defense....

ROME — A Vatican researcher claims she has found a nearly invisible text on the Shroud of Turin and says the discovery proves the authenticity of the artifact revered as Jesus' burial cloth.The claim made in a new book by historian Barbara Frale drew immediate skepticism from some scientists, who maintain the shroud is a medieval forgery.Frale, a researcher at the Vatican archives, says the faint writing emerged through computer analysis of photos of the shroud, which is not normally accessible for study.Frale says the jumble of Greek, Latin and Aramaic includes the words "Jesus Nazarene" and mentions he was...

Britain’s Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, suffered a data breach in recent days when a hacker apparently broke into their system and made away with thousands of emails and documents. The stolen data was then posted to a Russian server and has quickly made the rounds among climate skeptics. The documents within the archive, if proven to be authentic, would at best be embarrassing for many prominent climate researchers and at worst, damning. The electronic break in itself has been verified by the director of the research unit, Professor Phil Jones. He told Britain’s Investigate magazine's TGIF Edition...

A suspected US drone aircraft fired two missiles in North Waziristan on Friday, killing eight people, the second such attack this week. Eight militants were killed in a US missile strike in northwest Pakistan on Friday, officials said. The United States has carried out 45 attacks with its pilotless, missile-firing aircraft in northwest Pakistan this year as its forces in neighbouring Afghanistan have faced an intensifying Taliban insurgency.

Dubai 09: UAE hosts first mock dogfights for F-22, Typhoon, Rafale By Stephen Trimble The United Arab Emirates not only attracted the Lockheed Martin F-22 to the Dubai air show, but also staged perhaps the first mock dogfights between F-22s, Dassault Rafales and Eurofighter Typhoons. In parallel with the air show, the advanced tactical leadership course at Al Dhafra air base near Abu Dhabi hosted a five-nation fighter exercise, says the UK Royal Air Force. France, the UK and the USA each sent six of their top-line fighters to the exercise, and those were joined by jets from the UAE...

European Union leaders named Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as the first "president of Europe" Thursday, edging out former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for a still-vaguely defined job. "I did not seek this high position, and I didn't take any steps to achieve it," Van Rompuy said in accepting the job. "But tonight, I take on this task with conviction and with enthusiasm." Van Rompuy, a 62-year-old, soft-spoken fan of Japanese poetry, will become the face of European Union and represent its 27 member nations at summits overseas. His conservative government took office in December 2008.

MOGADISHU, Somalia — As a Spanish warship looked on, a $3.3 million ransom was delivered by boat Tuesday and Somali pirates freed a Spanish trawler and its 36 crew members. Spain's prime minister did little to deny paying off the hijackers — one reason the lucrative attacks are on the rise. "The government did what it had to do," Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told a news conference in Madrid. "The important thing is that the sailors will be back with us. The first obligation of a country, of the government of a state, is to save the lives...

Herman Van Rompuy, Belgium's reluctant prime minister, is an unexpected first President of the European Union. Balding, short in stature, slight of build and self-effacing, the 62-year Flemish Christian Democrat economist is no European George Washington. Kristen Hemmerechts, a well known Flemish essayist, has compared his looks to the Extra-Terrestrial film character made famous by Steven Spielberg. "I can't look at a picture of him without thinking: ET," she wrote recently. A year ago, Mr Van Rompuy was drifting towards retirement before he was plucked from obscurity by King Albert II in one the periodic crises that threaten to split...

Original article from Thursday (19), links to the Japanese "Sankei Shimbun" website. FReepranslation is provided as a summary; the original Japanese version directly by the author governs and takes precedence over the unofficial English.Troubling developments.

TV Ad Seeks To Recruit Arab-Americans To CIA By JEFF KAROUB, Associated Press Writer DEARBORN, Mich. – There's a swirl of activity in a spacious, modern kitchen as final meal preparations are made. An older man tries to swipe a felafel off an appetizer plate but instead gets a loving hand slap from a woman. The happy, well-dressed guests move to a table full of food in a dining room adorned with Middle Eastern wall-hangings. It's an inviting, if idealized, dinner party scene from any Arab-American home — at least that's what the CIA seeks to convey in the first...

Barack Obama's suggestion that the alleged September 11 mastermind would be convicted could affect the verdict in the trial, legal experts have warned. Remarks by the US president and Eric Holder, the Attorney General, forecasting a conviction for the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could create unnecessary delays in the trial, analysts said. Defence lawyers were sure to apply to have the charges dismissed after Mr Obama made an overarching effort to reassure Americans that the decision to put Mohammed on trial at a federal court in New York was sound. "I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's...

Trying to counter perceptions that the trip failed to bring about solid results, advisor David Axelrod says, 'Things don't change overnight.' Reporting from Seoul - Even before President Obama boarded his home-bound flight for Washington, capping a grueling weeklong Asian tour, the White House was scrambling to combat perceptions that the trip failed to produce concrete results. Compared to Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, the U.S. is putting its alliances "on a firmer footing" and has "reasserted our leadership in the region," the White House said in a statement released to reporters hours before the president's flight home.

The little-known Belgian federalist and the Labour peer who has never held elected office were selected at a meeting in Brussels. EU leaders chose the Belgian prime minister as the first President of the European Council. Britain's European Trade Commissioner was made the High Representative for Foreign Affairs. The surprise combination emerged after Gordon Brown ended Tony Blair's hopes of becoming president, abandoning his support for his successor and proposing Baroness Ashton for the foreign job instead. The Prime Minister's switch surprised European leaders, not least because of Baroness Ashton's lack of diplomatic experience. A former health authority chairwoman made...

This week, while "the most traveled president in history" was on his latest foreign adventure and bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito, the rest of the O-Team was busy kowtowing to political correctness. The headlines tell the story: "(Defense Secretary Robert) Gates Condemns Leaks on Fort Hood Investigation," and "Gates Says 'Shut Up' About Fort Hood." "Attorney General Eric Holder Announces Terror Trials in New York City for 9-11-01 Plotters." "Guantanamo Detainees to Illinois Prison." All three of these actions -- the Gates outburst, the Holder decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 conspirators in a Manhattan federal...

Former US vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin disagrees with the Obama administration's demand that Israel halt settlement construction, although her reason for that opinion is puzzling to some (or at the least demonstrates she's not familiar with the term "natural growth" that much of the debate has revolved around). Palin debates Biden in St.... She told Barbara Walters on ABC's Good Morning America this week that she disagrees with the White House because all the Jews moving to Israel need a place to live. "I disagree with the Obama administration on that," Palin told Walters. "I believe that the Jewish...

Obama 'shocker' leaves New Delhi confused, suspicious Last updated on: November 20, 2009 09:22 IST A week before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ] and United States President Barack Obama's [ Images ] first high-level talks in Washington, India [ Images ] got a 'shocker' from Obama via Beijing [ Images ]. The joint statement issued by US and China, after the talks between Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, declared that both sides "support the improvement and growth of relations between India and Pakistan." This created much confusion and suspicion in New Delhi [ Images ]. "At a...

EXCLUSIVE: Taliban Chief Hides Among Pakistan Populace By Eli Lake, Sara A. Carter and Barbara Slavin THE WASHINGTON TIMES Mullah Mohammed Omar, the one-eyed leader of the Afghan Taliban, has fled a Pakistani city on the border with Afghanistan and found refuge from potential U.S. attacks in the teeming Pakistani port city of Karachi with the assistance of Pakistan's intelligence service, three current and former U.S. intelligence officials said. Mullah Omar, who hosted Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders when they plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, had been residing in Quetta, where the Afghan Taliban shura --...

When Westerners examine the events of 20 years ago that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union—or even when they try to look at how China may change in the years ahead—their approach is very different from that officially followed in China today. Westerners almost without exception look instinctively for deep trends and deep causes—such things as rising literacy, increasing social complexity, or ethnic problems. Chinese officialdom approaches the dissolution of the Soviet Union in quite a different way. ~snip~ A perusal of Beijing Review for the Gorbachev years before that date will reveal much more positive and optimistic...

Representatives from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia are scheduled to meet today in Brussels to discuss future steps to dissuade Iran from developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Our message to the world leaders: If you want peace, prepare for war.

British scientists suspect that swine flu virus has mutated in Ukraine. Some doctors say that flu in the country has shown unprecedented symptoms, creating the effect of burnt lungs

Posting at Volokh Conspiracy, Professor Eric Posner of the University of Chicago law school  has offered up the most cogent explanation yet for Attorney General Holder's decision to try the 9/11 co-conspirators in a civil trial in New York: Eric Posner November 18, 2009 12:27 pm The answer is not "the rule of law."  According to the WSJ, Holder said: The 9/11 attacks were both an act of war and a violation of our federal criminal law, and they could have been prosecuted in either federal courts or military commissions. So the U.S. government has the option to try suspected...

First, Obama gets a Nobel Peace Prize for nothing; now, a tae kwon do black belt after zero kicks November 19, 2009 Even President Obama himself during his just-concluded trip to Asia admitted that he was surprised to receive the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year without actually producing any peace. In fact, the rookie American president ordered his own troop surge, boosting U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan to 68,000. Now, the Democrat may be preparing to send more. And a Gallup Poll showed 61% of Americans didn't think he deserved the prize either. Anyway, there he was in Seoul,...

New Delhi: US president Barack Obama ruffled Indian feathers on Tuesday. The next day, the American ambassador to India spent considerable effort in soothing offended sentiments. Timothy Roemer almost ran out of adjectives to describe the state of India-US ties, even as the ministry of external affairs expressed displeasure at Obama's statement with Chinese president Hu Jintao, which seemed to project China as the prime mover for peace and stability in South Asia. Roemer's charm offensive is a bid towards damage control ahead of prime minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington next week. A joint-statement by the US and China...

As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership tries to convince President Barack Obama and other world leaders that China is eagerly integrating itself with the global marketplace, the ultra-conservative norms and worldview of Chairman Mao Zedong are making a big comeback in public life. In provinces and cities that foreign dignitaries are unlikely to visit, vintage Cultural Revolution-era totems are proliferating. In Chongqing, a mega-city of 32 million people in western China, Mao sculptures—which were feverishly demolished soon after the late patriarch Deng Xiaoping catalyzed the reform era in 1978—are being erected throughout government offices, factories and universities. A newly...

On November 9, General He Weirong, deputy commander of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), confirmed long-standing speculations that the PLAAF is developing fifth-generation fighters (fourth-generation in Chinese standard), which may be in service within 8 to 10 years, and certainly by 2020. During an interview with state-owned China Central Television (CCTV) two days ahead of the 60th anniversary of the PLAAF on November 11, Deputy Commander He announced that the next-generation fighter would soon undergo its first flight, closely followed by flight trials (Xinhua News Agency, November 9). The senior military officer's disclosure reflects the considerable progress that...

A former horse riding school in the tiny Baltic state of Lithuania was used as a secret CIA prison to hold and interrogate top al-Qaeda terrorists, it has been claimed. The prison was reportedly built from scratch on the territory of a former horse riding school about 15 miles from Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, and included an underground annex. Pictures of the building said to be the former CIA jail show a bland-looking two-storey house surrounded by a fence and CCTV cameras. Locals say the building, which is now used as a training facility by Lithuania's state security service, originally...

NEW DELHI: A day after US ambassador Timothy Roemer tried to douse the China fire and create a positive atmosphere for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to the US, Washington went on the charm offensive, playing up the importance of India in the US’ scheme of things and acknowledging Indo-Pak issue were by and large a bilateral concern. Trying to mollify an annoyed New Delhi, Under-Secretary of State William Burns maintained that both China and India were important to the US. Mr Burns attempted to clarify the intention of the US-China joint statement saying that Washington looked to Beijing as...

A menorah stands outside of the White House. The national Hanukkah Menorah on the Ellipse near the White House is seen during the lighting ceremony in December 2003. | Photo by APClose The White House's forthcoming state dinner with the Prime Minister of India is expected to be larger than those of President Barack Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush. But another upcoming White House event will be smaller than in years past: The White House's annual Hanukkah party. The guest list is expected to be shrunk by more than half, according to the Jerusalem Post. "Though several Jewish leaders expressed...

President Barack Obama embarked on his highly anticipated maiden visit to Asia last week, furthering his efforts at global outreach. The trip comes as global leaders are reckoning with an unsynchronized exit from economic policies that have helped end the worst recession of the post-war era. Policy changes in Asia, particularly among major U.S. creditors, will be essential to rebalance global growth: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation nations (including those in the Americas) absorb 55% of U.S. goods exports and provide a major market for U.S. service exports, while Asia depends on U.S. consumers and foreign direct investment to drive economic growth....