Endless Afghanistan? US-Afghan Agreement Would Keep Troops in Place and Funds Flowing, Perhaps Indefinitely

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Andrew Burton/ReutersWhile many Americans have been led to believe the war in Afghanistan will soon be over, a draft of a key U.S.-Afghan security deal obtained by NBC News shows the United States is prepared to maintain military outposts in Afghanistan for many years to come, and pay to support hundreds of thousands of Afghan security forces.

The wide-ranging document, still unsigned by the United States and Afghanistan, has the potential to commit thousands of American troops to Afghanistan and spend billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

The document outlines what appears to be the start of a new, open-ended military commitment in Afghanistan in the name of training and continuing to fight al-Qaeda. The war in Afghanistan doesn’t seem to be ending, but renewed under new, scaled-down U.S.-Afghan terms.

“The Parties acknowledge that continued U.S. military operations to defeat al-Qaeda and its affiliates may be appropriate and agree to continue their close cooperation and coordination toward that end,” the draft states.

The 25-page “Security and Defense Cooperation Agreement Between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan” is a sweeping document, vague in places, highly specific in others, defining everything from the types of future missions U.S. troops would be allowed to conduct in Afghanistan, to the use of radios and the taxation of American soldiers and contractors.

Read more from this story HERE.

Newborn Baby in Colombia ‘Comes Back from the Dead’ More than 10 Hours after Being Sent to Morgue

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Alamy A Colombian baby came back from the dead more than 10 hours after being sent to the morgue.

The tiny tot – now named Milagros (Miracles) – was born prematurely in Quibdo in the Pacific state of Choco in the early hours of Wednesday, November 13, last week.

Her mother Jenny Hurtado was just 27 weeks pregnant when she was rushed to the San Francisco de Asis hospital at 2:45am.

Medics performed a C-section but, unable to find signs of life, declared the newborn deceased just 35 minutes later – at 3:20am.

Taken to the morgue, the baby was placed inside a box. Staff then waited for her fisherman father to collect her.

Read more from this story HERE.

Netanyahu Jabs Obama on Iran (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Yonatan SindelIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised French President Francois Hollande’s “courageous stance” against Iran on Sunday, an indirect jab at President Obama’s push for diplomatic talks.

Netanyahu called France a “true friend” of Israel as he greeted Hollande on his first official trip to the country. France demanded last week that a preliminary deal on Iran’s nuclear program be toughened, causing it to be rejected by Iran.

“Zionism was influenced by the values of the French Revolution,” Netanyahu told Hollande, according to Haaretz. “Israel sees France as a true friend. France, like Israel, aspires for a stable Middle East that lives in peace and security.”

He told members of his Cabinet that he hoped Hollande’s visit could stiffen the resolve of other countries negotiating with Iran. Talks with Iran are being led by the permanent members of the Security Council – the U.S., France, Great Britain, China and Russia – plus Germany.

Read more from this story HERE.

French President In Joint Press Conf with Israeli PM Netanyahu Vows Tough Iran Stance

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP/Ariel SchalitVisiting French President Francois Hollande vowed to maintain his country’s tough stance in upcoming nuclear talks with Iran this week, earning praise from his Israeli hosts Sunday as he began a three-day visit to the Jewish state.

Israel has repeatedly voiced concern that the emerging deal global powers are negotiating with Iran gives it too much, without guaranteeing that the Islamic Republic’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon is eliminated.

Hollande vowed to keep up pressure on Iran and not make any concessions regarding nuclear proliferation.

“If there hadn’t been sanctions, if they hadn’t been enforced, it’s clear that we would never even have had the words from Iran — and I don’t yet speak of actions — that we had in the last few weeks,” he said In a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We have a duty to resolve this problem that has been under discussions for too many years because Iran for too long has participated in discussions without taking actions.”

Netanyahu has been outspoken in his opposition to a potential deal in which the international community would ease some sanctions on Iran in exchange for some curbs on Iran’s nuclear program. The countries fear that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, a charge Iran denies.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pentagon and CIA Fighting State Dept. Plan to Allow Russian Space Agency to Build GPS Stations on U.S. Soil

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Pedro Ladeira/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesIn the view of America’s spy services, the next potential threat from Russia may not come from a nefarious cyberweapon or secrets gleaned from the files of Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor now in Moscow.

Instead, this menace may come in the form of a seemingly innocuous dome-topped antenna perched atop an electronics-packed building surrounded by a security fence somewhere in the United States.

In recent months, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon have been quietly waging a campaign to stop the State Department from allowing Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, to build about half a dozen of these structures, known as monitor stations, on United States soil, several American officials said.

They fear that these structures could help Russia spy on the United States and improve the precision of Russian weaponry, the officials said. These monitor stations, the Russians contend, would significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of Moscow’s version of the Global Positioning System, the American satellite network that steers guided missiles to their targets and thirsty smartphone users to the nearest Starbucks.

“They don’t want to be reliant on the American system and believe that their systems, like GPS, will spawn other industries and applications,” said a former senior official in the State Department’s Office of Space and Advanced Technology. “They feel as though they are losing a technological edge to us in an important market. Look at everything GPS has done on things like your phone and the movement of planes and ships.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Trans-Pacific Partnership: Obama’s Dangerous International Deal Surrendering U.S. Sovereignty

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WikicommonsWhile the Obama Administration appears to be growing ever-more-limp domestically, the president is still making a vigorous international push that has the potential to shift economic power dynamics, rewrite intellectual property laws, establish new labor and environmental regulations, and reduce the authority of Congress. And, the White House hopes to have all this sorted out by the end of this year.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), considered the “cornerstone of the Obama Administration’s economic policy in the Asia Pacific,” has been quietly negotiated since since the president’s first term began. The U.S. Trade Representative Office (USTR) presents the agreement as a means for the United States and other 11 other Pacific-rim countries to be the leaders of a technology-fueled future by trading with each other free of government tariffs. For all this, it has received a ringing endorsement from the New York Times.

However, as documents from negotiations have been leaked, a growing number of politicians and policy groups across political ideologies have found disconcerting features of the TPP that point not at all toward free trade, but bigger government, stricter laws, and less accountability.

Too Much Secrecy

Perhaps the most widely discussed aspects of the ongoing TPP negotiations is the apparent secrecy. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have spoken out against the lack of transparency for such a massive agreement. Warren even wrote a letter to Obama, goading him that the Bush administration conducted more democratic, transparent trade negotiations.

Read more from this story HERE.

China Loosens Its One-Child Policy (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Carlos Barria / ReutersThe Chinese government announced on Nov. 15 that it will loosen its notorious family-planning scheme, commonly known as the one-child policy. The new regulations will allow couples in which at least one parent is an only child to have two offspring. Xinhua, China’s official news agency, said the reform was designed to “steadily adjust and improve family planning policies.”

The reform is part of what the Chinese government earlier this week referred to as “fine-tuning” of its restrictive family-planning policy, which was unveiled in 1979. (Generally speaking, the scheme limited urban families to one child but allowed rural couples to have more than one child in certain cases.) The curtailing of reproductive freedom, its supporters contend, meant that 400 million fewer Chinese were born, allowing for an unprecedented economic boom over the past 30-plus years.

But critics have assailed the policy for both the human-rights abuses it gave rise to—forced abortions and sterilizations, to name just two—as well as its social costs, which are now multiplying. China today faces a dramatic increase in its elderly population, along with too few young people to take care of all these retirees. The nation must also contend with an alarming gender imbalance because some parents have terminated pregnancies of female fetuses in order to ensure a favored boy as their sole child. By some estimates, China will have an extra 25 million young males by 2020.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hugo Chavez-Linked Group Crafted ‘You Can Keep Your Plan’

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: WND A little-known group called the Herndon Alliance has been the driving force in branding Obamacare to the public.

It was this group that advised President Obama to say Americans can maintain their choice of doctors and insurers under his health-care plan, WND has learned.

The Herndon Alliance is openly partnered with a number of radical groups, including MoveOn, the National Council of La Raza and a slew of George Soros-funded activist organizations.

It is also partnered with a “direct action” group dedicated to the teachings of radical Saul Alinsky.

The original research that informed Herndon’s blueprint for marketing Obamacare, WND has found, was concocted by the imaging guru for the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

Read more from this story HERE.

Kerry Warns Fresh Iran Sanctions Could Scuttle Nuclear Talks

/7 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty Images Secretary of State John Kerry has told US lawmakers any new sanctions against Iran would risk ruining talks over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

He told a Senate banking committee that the US might lose negotiating partners if it imposed economic penalties.

The panel has been considering a fresh package but legislators are divided on the measure.

Mr Kerry has told the BBC that Iran and world powers had come “extremely close” to a deal at the weekend.

Before Wednesday’s closed-door meeting with senators, Washington’s top diplomat told reporters: “What we’re asking everybody to do is calm down, look hard at what can be achieved and what the realities are.”

Read more from this story HERE.

United Nations Elects Human Rights Violators to Human Rights Council

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APThe United Nations elected China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia to seats on its Human Rights Council Tuesday, all countries that have been widely condemned by international groups for gross human rights violations.

The U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) cast votes for 14 seats on the 47-member Human Rights Council (HRC). The HRC is responsible for adopting resolutions that censure human rights abuses globally and placing special monitors on problem countries and issues.

“China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia systematically violate the human rights of their own citizens, and they consistently vote the wrong way on U.N. initiatives to protect the human rights of others,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, in a press release.

“When the U.N.’s highest human rights body becomes a case of the foxes guarding the henhouse, the world’s victims suffer,” he added.

France, Britain, South Africa, Vietnam, Algeria, Morocco, Namibia, Maldives, Macedonia, and Mexico also secured seats in the vote and will serve three-year terms.

Read more from this story HERE.