Saturday, December 3, 2011
The Star
President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper will unveil in Washington next week far-reaching changes in Canadian-American border operations.
SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES file photoOTTAWA—Armed U.S. police officers will for the first time be allowed to operate in Canada along with the RCMP as part of far-reaching changes in Canadian-American border operations to be unveiled next week by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama.
The joint action plan to be announced at the White House will also break new ground by introducing exit-entry records that will track the movements of everyone who leaves the United States or Canada, with the information available to authorities in both countries...[Full Article]
Labels: Canada, North American Union, United States
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Intel Hub
By Dana Gabriel – Contributing Writer
March 15th, 2011
There were growing concerns over drug violence prior to the recent U.S.-Mexico summit, along with other issues which have been a source of friction between the two countries. Despite any perceived tension, both leaders showcased their bilateral partnership and vowed to enhance collaboration. They focused on immigration, along with economic issues and took steps to end the long-standing dispute over cross-border trucking. The leaders also agreed to further deepen their cooperation in combating drug cartels.
During a Joint Press Conference following their bilateral meeting, President Barack Obama praised Mexico as a valued partner and thanked President Felipe Calderon for, “being here today to deepen the cooperation that is so essential to the prosperity and security of both of our countries.” He noted, “we’re moving ahead with plans for a 21st century border so people and goods can cross securely and efficiently. We’re working to coordinate and streamline regulations and get rid of unnecessary trade barriers to make it easier to do business together.”...[Full Article]
Labels: Mexico, North American Union, United States
Monday, February 14, 2011
Russia Today
The United States boats hundreds of military bases around the world, perhaps even thousands. But, no one knows for sure because even the Pentagon does not bother to keep track.
Historian and journalist Nick Turse explained, “What I’m relatively sure of is that there are no less than 1,077 US bases or sites in foreign countries….and likely there are many more than that, we just can’t be sure.”
What is known is that the US Defense budget is now about the equal to military spending in all other countries combined, and since 9/11, military and security expenditures have soared 119 percent.
Some of these bases are on tiny islands, and some, like Guantanamo Bay, serve dual purposes.
A great deal of money goes towards maintaining those bases, but once again, taxpayers and the military do not know exactly how much is allocated towards construction and maintenance at each.
Experts argue the reason for sustaining all these military installations abroad is to “maintain a far flung global empire,” and they point out that in places like Saudi Arabia and Okinawa, US military presence has been denounced by locals.
“Cleary there’s no need from the point of view of self defense for the US to have military installations all over the world. It’s really part of maintaining a far flung global empire, and at the heart of the empire and corporate and banking interests and elites that the US military is defending. Each place that the United States has a military base, the US has political power, economic power, and it’s a matter of coercion,” said Brian Becker of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition...
Labels: military bases, Russia Today, United States
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Protesters Across US Offer Support to Egyptians
Friday, January 28, 2011
The American government secretly backed leading figures behind the Egyptian uprising who have been planning “regime change” for the past three years, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
The American Embassy in Cairo helped a young dissident attend a US-sponsored summit for activists in New York, while working to keep his identity secret from Egyptian state police.
On his return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats that an alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak and install a democratic government in 2011.
He has already been arrested by Egyptian security in connection with the demonstrations and his identity is being protected by The Daily Telegraph...
Labels: America, Egypt, United States
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
More than 25% of Kids and Teens in the U.S. Take Prescriptions on a Regular Basis
Gage Martindale, who is 8 years old, has been taking a blood-pressure drug since he was a toddler. "I want to be healthy, and I don't want things in my heart to go wrong," he says.
And, of course, his mom is always there to check Gage's blood pressure regularly with a home monitor, and to make sure the second-grader doesn't skip a dose of his once-a-day enalapril.
These days, the medicine cabinet is truly a family affair. More than a quarter of U.S. kids and teens are taking a medication on a chronic basis, according to Medco Health Solutions Inc., the biggest U.S. pharmacy-benefit manager with around 65 million members. Nearly 7% are on two or more such drugs, based on the company's database figures for 2009...
[Full Article]Labels: prescription drugs, United States
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Sept 23 – In a report titled “Global Governance 2025,” experts from the U.S. National Intelligence Council and the European Union’s Institute for Security Studies project that by 2025 the United States will maintain its lead in the world power structure, but will have lost considerable ground to the next two countries on the list – emerging Asian forces China and India.
The 82-page report highlights several current and growing global threats, including climate change, economic issues, terrorism, competition for resources, and infectious diseases.
In judging the outcomes of these collective issues, the report outlines several potential scenarios that could take place by 2025, suggesting that the most likely structure in global governance will be “barely keeping afloat,” in which ad hoc institutions and solutions will be applied as new issues arise...
[Full Article]Labels: China, global governance, India, United States
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
For decades, investigative journalists, researchers and analysts have noted the symbiotic relationships forged amongst international drug syndicates, neofascists and U.S. intelligence agencies, documenting the long and bloody history of U.S. complicity in the global drugs trade.
While the United States has pumped billions of dollars into failed drug eradication schemes in target countries through ill-conceived programs such as Plan Colombia and the Mérida Initiative, in the bizarro world of the "War on Drugs," corporate interests and geopolitics always trump law enforcement efforts to fight organized crime, particularly when the criminals are partners in crimes perpetrated by the secret state.
Since 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderón turned the Army loose, allegedly to "dismantle" the drug cartels slowly transforming Mexico into a killing field some 28,000 people, primarily along Mexico's northern border with the U.S., have lost their lives. Countless others have been wounded, forced to flee or simply "disappeared."
Writing in The Guardian, journalist Simon Jenkins tells us that "cocaine supplies routed through Mexico have made that country the drugs equivalent of a Gulf oil state."
"Rather than try to stem its own voracious appetite for drugs," Jenkins writes, "rich America shifts guilt on to poor supplier countries. Never was the law of economics--demand always evokes supply--so traduced as in Washington's drugs policy. America spends $40bn a year on narcotics policy, imprisoning a staggering 1.5m of its citizens under it."
Judging the results, one might even think the drug war solely exists as the principle means through which wealthy elites organize crime...
[Full Article]Labels: drugs, intelligence, Mexico, United States
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), along with other members of Congress and leading financial experts, is warning that the United States is in danger of being in the same dire situation as Greece – national bankruptcy -- in seven to 10 years unless the federal government radically curtails spending.
Last month, Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said the United States will “essentially be where Greece is in about seven years.
“If we continue to spend much more than we take in," he says. "We'll double our debt in five years and triple it in 10 years and essentially be where Greece is in about seven years,” Gregg told the Fox Business Network in May...
[Full Article]
Labels: Greece, United States
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The former head of MI5 has claimed US intelligence agencies "concealed" their mistreatment of terror suspects.
Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller said she only discovered alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded after retiring in 2007.
In a lecture at the House of Lords, she said the US had been "very keen to conceal from us what was happening".
Her comments follow controversy over UK agents' alleged collusion with US counterparts using torture techniques...
Labels: MI5, torture, UK, United Kingdom, United States, US
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