More than 800 cases and at least 62 deaths have been reported in Mexico, with most of the cases occurring in the country’s sprawling capital of Mexico City. But cases have been reported elsewhere in the country, and at least eight cases have been found in California and Texas near the Mexican border.
Control of the Buner district brings the Taliban closer to the capital, Islamabad, than they have been since they started their insurgency. Islamabad is 60 miles (96 km) from the district.
In a series of high-level meetings in 2002, without a single dissent from cabinet members or lawmakers, the United States for the first time officially embraced the brutal methods of interrogation it had always condemned.
A newly declassified Congressional report released Tuesday outlined the most detailed evidence yet that the military’s use of harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects was approved at high levels of the Bush administration.
Some African nations have reported a growing trade in albino body parts, which some witchdoctors believe can bring wealth and good fortune.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, had himself re-elected to another five-year term by Parliament on Thursday as questions persisted over his failing health and his regime’s confrontation with the outside world after its recent rocket launch.
This is remarkable: In his budget address today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates actually did what he has said he’d do for some time now—killed or slashed a bunch of weapons programs that don’t fill the needs of modern warfare, vastly boosted spending for weapons that do, and took the first steps toward truly reforming the way the Pentagon does business.
In the 1980s, in the midst of Iraq’s bitter eight-year-war with Iran, Saddam Hussein invited the Iranian opposition to set up military operations here. When Saddam’s regime was toppled, US forces disarmed the group. In January, Camp Ashraf reverted to control by the Iraqi government, which plans to close the base as a sign of goodwill toward Iran.
Its residents – members of the People’s Mujahadeen (Mujahadeen e-Khalq, known by the Farsi acronyms MEK or MKO) – are either to return to Iran or to the third countries where they have citizenship. But to the Iraqi government’s consternation, they are not going willingly.
