World-News

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/16204225.htm


From Information Clearing House



Lunch with Robert Fisk

Video

Robert Fisk talks about his latest posting to Lebanon, shares his intimate understanding of the Middle East and tells us where the region-wide struggles are heading.

http://tinyurl.com/y87jc9

The conflict in Afghanistan has entered a dangerous phase, and the next three to six months could prove crucial in determining whether the United States and its NATO partners can suppress a revitalized enemy - or will be dragged into another drawn-out and costly fight with an Islamic insurgency, according to senior military and security officials and diplomats.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120906Z.shtml

Video - Unreported World - Channel 4

Five years after the fall of the Taliban, western intervention has produced a mafia-style state. Reporter Kate Clark and director Tom Porter discover a fractured country and an economy dominated by the drugs trade.

Real Video
http://tinyurl.com/wxdzp


From Information Clearing House

The editors of the New York Times write: "Afghanistan was supposed to be the good war - and the war America was winning. But because of the Bush administration's inattention and mismanagement, even the good war is going wrong."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120506B.shtml

Mr. Karzai has done nothing tangible in the past 4 years to rebuild the country. Millions of $ has been given to Afghanistan by donor countries but much of it is being grabbed by warlords, NGOs and UN workers.

http://rawa.org/rebuild3.htm


From Information Clearing House

A U.S. troop convoy fired on policemen in waning daylight in eastern Afghanistan, killing one officer and wounding another, officials said Saturday.

http://tinyurl.com/y3krv6


From Information Clearing House

NATO's fragile unity over Afghanistan has begun to crack ahead of an important summit - with one public call to discuss an exit strategy from the Allied forces' bloody confrontation with the Taliban.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112706J.shtml

Guardian [UK]

11/27/06

Police are to demand new powers to arrest protesters for causing offence through the words they chant and the slogans on their placards and even headbands. The country's biggest force, the Metropolitan police, is to lobby the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, because officers believe that large sections of the population have become increasingly politicised, and there is a growing sense that the current restrictions on demonstrations are too light. Trouble at recent protests involving Islamic extremists has galvanised the Met's assistant commissioner, Tarique Ghaffur, into planning a crackdown. ... The police want powers to proscribe protest chants and slogans on placards, banners and headbands. Human rights experts say that such powers could also be used against protesters such as animal rights and anti-globalisation activists. The civil rights group Liberty said the powers would make the police 'censors in chief'...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1957831,00.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Lord+Goldsmith

Suspect Nation

Channel 4 UK - Video

Since Tony Blair's New Labour government came to power in 1997, the UK civil liberties landscape has changed dramatically. The right to remain silent is no longer universal. Our right to privacy, free from interception of communications has been severely curtailed. The ability to travel without surveillance (or those details of our journeys being retained) has disappeared.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15736.htm

Drivers who get stopped by the police could have their fingerprints taken at the roadside, under a new plan to help officers check people's identities.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6170070.stm


From Information Clearing House

BANKS in the UK have been ordered by financial regulators to assess how they would cope in the event of house prices crashing by 40 per cent.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9063-2455507,00.html


From Information Clearing House