Neoconservatives losing hold over Republican foreign policy
June 24th, 20110 WASHINGTON (IPS) — Nearly ten years after seizing control of Republican foreign policy, neo-conservatives and other hawks appear to be losing it. That is at least the tentative conclusion of a number of political analysts following last week's first nationally televised debate of the party's...
Alabama’s immigration bill “turns back clock” on civil liberties
June 19th, 20110 WASHINGTON (IPS) — On Dec. 1, 1955, at the height of racial segregation in the United States, a little-known middle-aged seamstress named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery City bus in the southern state of Alabama. Governor Rober Bentley signs House...U.S. activists prepare to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza
Recent weeks have seen renewed attention on the blockade of Gaza as international activists' efforts to break Israel's blockade with a flotilla come to a head. The Israeli government has begun to ramp up its propaganda efforts, claiming the flotilla has ties to terrorism. The United...CIA building Mideast base for post-Saleh Yemen drone strikes
WASHINGTON — The United States is building a secret CIA air base in the Persian Gulf region to target terrorists in Yemen, preparing for the possibility that an anti-American faction may take over Yemen and ban U.S. forces from hunting a lethal al-Qaeda faction there, The Associated Press...
Will Huma Abedin remain Weiner’s good South Asian wife?
June 11th, 20110 Huma Abedin, an aide to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, heads to a meeting at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi June 9, 2011. Abedin is the wife of U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner. REUTERS/Susan WalshAs his enemies on both sides of the aisle of American politics continue to revel in New York Congressman Anthony...
Minority-owned businesses double
June 11th, 20110 WASHINGTON — The number of minority-owned businesses in the U.S. jumped 45.5 percent from 2002 to 2007, more than double the 17.9 percent increase for U.S. businesses as a whole, according to Census data released this week. Revenues of minority-owned firms increased 55 percent to $1.0 trillion...U.S. home prices at lowest levels since 2006 according to report
DETROIT – Home prices in the United States' major metro areas including Detroit have dropped to their lowest levels since 2006 according to a new report. Foreclosures have continued at record numbers forcing home prices down, a trend that is expected to continue this year. Prices in the...Embassy returns passport to U.S. Muslim stuck in Kuwait
WASHINGTON — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced this week that an American Muslim citizen stuck in Kuwait had his passport returned by U.S. embassy officials who had seized it in February. Aziz Nouhaili, a naturalized American citizen, received his passport...More than immigration at stake in historic effort to recall AZ’s Pearce
Pearce, who took over as president of the state Senate this year, has been in office for 10 years. Like many of his constituents, he is a member of the Mormon church.PHOENIX — A bipartisan effort to recall conservative Arizona state Senator Russell Pearce, known for his tough stance on illegal immigration, could signal a shift in...
Obama to Israel: Take whatever you want
May 28th, 20110 President Barack Obama delivers remarks at AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, DC.In 2008, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, pandered to pro-Israeli voters and Israel by promising in a speech addressed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), that Jerusalem would...
U.S. launches global diaspora initiative
May 28th, 20110 WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last week announced that the State Department was adding a fourth "D" to its toolbox of Diplomacy, Development and Defense: Diaspora. Marking an historic shift in the agency's view of global migrants, Clinton spoke at the opening of a...
How to lose friends and alienate Muslims, GOP edition
May 28th, 20110 In late January 2001, the day after George W. Bush was sworn into office, a group of conservative politicos including recently retired House Speaker Newt Gingrich gathered at Grover Norquist's Washington, D,C. office for a meeting with influential faith leaders. That, in itself, was hardly...
ACLU-Michigan seeks ICE records on illegal detention of U.S.citizen
May 28th, 20110 DETROIT – The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan filed a Freedom of Information Act request this week seeking records from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding the illegal detention of a U.S. citizen and his mother who is a legal permanent resident. The Grand...California mosque fire ruled arson
SACRAMENTO, CA — The Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SV) this week said an April 23 fire at a Stockton, Calif., mosque has been ruled arson. CAIR-SV is asking that a possible bias motive for the fire be investigated. Law enforcement authorities...
White House announces economic assistance to Arab world
May 20th, 20110 Editor's note: The following information was released by the White House on Wednesday evening this week: A Libyan watches a television broadcast of a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama in U.S., at a shop in Benghazi May 19, 2011. REUTERS/Mohammed SalemThe revolutions in the Middle East and......
Photo of 8-month old baby getting TSA pat-down causes stir
KANSAS CITY — Passenger Jacob Jester, a reverend, shot a photo of an 8-month-old baby being patted down by TSA agents at Kansas City International Airport that has once again raised questions of overzealous security measures. Mainstream news sources have questioned the radiation delivered by...Conyers introduces PATRIOT compromise
Washington — House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) has introduced the "USA PATRIOT Act Sunset Extension Act of 2011," the House counterpart to a bipartisan bill that recently passed the Senate Judiciary Committee. The proposal makes meaningful improvements to the...$5 million lawsuit targets Jimmy Carter for “attacking Israel”
WASHINGTON — Former President Jimmy Carter has become the target of a class action lawsuit over ostensibly mean things he said about Israel in his best-selling 2006 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. The lawsuit, filed in New York by an Israeli firm, alleges that the book "contained numerous...Rights groups: U.S. government targeting Muslims via immigration system
NEW YORK —The U.S. government's aggressive use of the immigration system in its counterterrorism efforts discriminates against Muslims and violates international human rights law, said the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law and the Asian American Legal and......
Washington showdown with AIPAC
Prohibited activities again catching up with lobby When former AIPAC director Steven J. Rosen interpreted the contents of stolen classified U.S. national defense information to Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler in 2004, he peddled it as proof that Iran was engaged in "total war against the...Saudi money wins Obama’s mind
Twice during the past week senior United States officials have let it be known that the Barack Obama administration has chosen to adopt a highly selective approach to the ferment in the Middle East. The U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton couched the message in appropriate diplomatic idiom in Washington last Tuesday in a......
Obama resists allied pressure for escalation in Libya
A rebel fighter walks beside a Grad multiple rocket launcher on the front line along the western entrance of Ajdabiyah April 19, 2011. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah DalshWASHINGTON (IPS) — Even as the conflict in Libya appears increasingly stalemated, the administration of President Barack Obama seems determined to resist growing allied...Poll: Americans overwhelmingly sympathetic to Arab democracyuprisings
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new poll released on April 11 found that Americans strongly support Arab World uprisings but are split on whether or not democracy will be the final result, according to a new poll. When asked about the effect on the U.S. "if the countries of the Middle East become more democratic," respondents said it would......