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'It is now virtually certain a child born in 1979 will not reach 50 years of age before the Arctic is ice-free in the summer. That is a rapid change on a planetary scale, with far-reaching consequences that scientists are just beginning to understand.' Stephen Leahy, Inter Press Service

Without being charged with a crime, the American-born cleric has drone missiles shot at him in Yemen

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledges how puny is the Al Qaeda menace even as the War on Terror escalates

WASHINGTON, Jul 12, 2011 (IPS) - Senior officials under the former George W. Bush administration knowingly authorised the torture of terrorism suspects held under United States custody, a Human Right Watch (HRW) report released here Tuesday revealed.

A former Army Specialist in Baghdad explains why the leaker of the WikiLeaks documents is a hero

top Obama administration official on Thursday questioned the scope of the state and federal investigations into alleged mortgage abuses and "illegal" foreclosures perpetrated by the nation's largest mortgage companies, marking the first time a senior White House official publicly broke ranks with the administration over the issue and raising fresh questions about the wisdom of the government's rush to settle with the firms.

At an extravagant hotel gilded just before the Great Depression, corporate executives from the tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, State Farm Insurance, and other corporations were joined by their "task force" co-chairs -- all Republican state legislators -- to approve "model" legislation. They jointly head task forces of what is called the "American Legislative Exchange Council" (ALEC).

The DOJ, with the exception of two likely murders, closes the book on all of the past decade's torture crimes

The United States has quietly expanded the number of "enemy combatants" being held in judicial limbo at its Bagram military base in Afghanistan, a facility which has now grown to more than twice the size of the controversial and much more widely discussed military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Bagram has received just a fraction of the world attention paid to Guantanamo, but the two facilities have prompted very similar complaints about prisoners held incommunicado for weeks or months, the lack of recourse to any system of legal redress, and persistent reports of prisoner mistreatment that many human rights campaigners have characterised as torture.

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The top U.S. derivatives regulators voted 3 to 2 today to curb trading in oil, wheat, gold and other commodities after a boom in raw-materials speculation, record- high prices and years of debate and delay. The rule has been among the most controversial provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, enacted last year, which gave the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the authority to limit trading in over-the-counter commodity swaps as well as exchange-traded futures. The rule will limit the number of contracts a single firm can hold. "Our duty is to protect both market participants and the American public from fraud, manipulation and other abuses," Chairman Gary Gensler said at the commission's meeting in Washington in support of the rule. "Position limits have served since the Commodity Exchange Act passed in 1936 as a tool to curb or prevent excessive speculation that may burden interstate commerce." The rule limits traders to 25 percent of deliverable supply in the month nearest to delivery. The spot-month limits apply separately to physically settled and cash-settled contracts. Deliverable supply will be determined by the CFTC in conjunction with the exchanges.

Fraudulent Defense Contractors Paid $1 Trillion

When Joe Homeowner bought too much house, essentially betting that home prices would go up, and losing his bet when they dropped, he was an irresponsible putz who shouldn't whine about being put on the street. But when banks bet billions on a firm like AIG that was heavily invested in mortgages, they were making the same bet that Joe Homeowner made, leaving themselves hugely exposed to a sudden drop in home prices. But instead of being asked to "suck it in and cope" when that bet failed, the banks instead went straight to Washington for a bailout -- and got it.

The speech that Mr. President gave at White House Correspondent's Dinnershowed that he really has agood sense of humor about his Obamacare.

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Europe's historic search for life on Mars is set to take off on Monday as a heavy-lift Russian rocket blasts into space from Kazakhstan. The Proton rocket will launch the first of two ExoMars missions, together costing 1.2 billion euro (£924 million), designed to uncover signs of past or present life on the Red Planet.