World

With Rumored Manhunt for Wikileaks Founder and Arrest of Alleged Leaker of Video Showing Iraq Killings, Obama Admin Escalates Crackdown on Whistleblowers of Classified Information

Pentagon investigators are reportedly still searching for Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, who helped release a classified US military video showing a US helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians.

TWO TOP REPUBLICAN SENATORS are not happy enough that the United States is waging two major wars and multiple small skirmishes along the east coast of Africa. They want the U.S. military to initiate a full-scale, genocidal war against Iran. Why? Because they don’t want to put “too much pressure on Israel.”

Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) went on national television on Sunday, Oct. 3, saying that the U.S. military should not only bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, but should launch an “all-or-nothing” war against the Persian country with the goal of obliterating it.

Chinese state media say the government in the western region of Xinjiang has declared a curfew following ethnic unrest that has paralyzed the main city of Urumqi.

China's top official in Urumqi, Communist party leader Li Zhi, said Tuesday authorities also are blocking Internet and mobile phone service in parts of the city in order to prevent further unrest.

Iranian reformist leaders are urging authorities to release all those detained during the unrest that followed the country's disputed presidential election last month.

The call was issued by defeated presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi as well as former president Mohammad Khatami following a meeting late Monday. In a joint statement, posted to Mousavi's Web site Tuesday, the three leaders demanded an end to the harsh crackdown imposed by authorities.

Traditional May Day celebrations to recognize the achievements of organized labor turned violent in some cities Friday, May 1st, 2009 - as workers decried government efforts to deal with the economic downturn.

Tens of thousands of government supporters and opponents are demonstrating across Russia in rallies marking May Day. The traditional holiday celebrating labor is colored by growing unemployment amid Russia's worst economic crisis in a decade.

CIA Used Waterboarding 266 Times
A footnote in one of the newly declassified torture memos has revealed that CIA interrogators used waterboarding far more than had been previously reported. In August 2002, the CIA waterboarded Abu Zubaydah eighty-three times. The CIA also used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In 2007, a former CIA officer publicly claimed that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only thirty-five seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.

The United States announced Saturday it will not attend a United Nations conference on racism set to start Monday in Geneva.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood says the U.S. will boycott the conference "with regret" because of objectionable language in the meeting's draft declaration.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has announced a new $10 billion Asian infrastructure investment fund and said China's stimulus package was already paying off.

He also called Saturday for a more diversified monetary system and responsible oversight. In his opening remarks at the Boao Forum on Asia, Mr. Wen said the China-ASEAN Fund on Investment Cooperation would support infrastructure development in the region.

The US would be in breach of international law if it does not prosecute CIA officials for torturing alleged terrorists, the United Nations' monitor on torture Manfred Nowak said in a newspaper interview published Saturday in Austria. The UN Special Rapporteur on torture was reacting to the announcement by US President Barack Obama that CIA operatives who used harsh interrogation tactics authorized by the Bush administration should not be held responsible.

Thousands of opposition supporters in Georgia have begun a fifth day of protests, calling on President Mikhail Saakashvili to step down.

The demonstrators gathered outside the parliament in Tbilisi, before marching on to the presidential palace, where they plan to hold an ongoing protest. Correspondents say turnout is falling and the opposition seems increasingly unsure of how to continue its campaign.

Mr Saakashvili says Russian oligarchs are financing the Georgian opposition. The opposition accuses him of mishandling last year's conflict with Russia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia, and of being increasingly autocratic.