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The Democracy Experiment In Northern Syria

Archives for October 2014

In Record ‘Dark Money’ Election, Chamber Of Commerce Top Shadowy Spender: Report

‘When large corporations decide they want to get their own candidates into office but they don’t want to be seen doing it, they call the U.S. Chamber.’

Sarah Lazare
By Sarah Lazare

This election season, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is coming out ahead—as the number one dark money spender of 2014, watchdog Public Citizen revealed in a report released Wednesday. "In a record year for dark money expenditures, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is leading the way," reads the report, entitled The Dark Side of

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Iraqi Kurds Head To Kobani To Join The Raging Battle Against ISIS

In Iraq, security forces said they had advanced to within 1.2 miles of the city of Baiji on Wednesday in a new offensive to retake the country’s biggest oil refinery that has been besieged by IS.

Global Post
By Global Post

Iraqi peshmerga fighters arrived in southeastern Turkey on Wednesday en route for the Syrian town of Kobani to try to help fellow Kurds break an Islamic State siege which has defied US-led airstrikes. Kobani, nestled on the border with Turkey, has been under assault from Islamic State militants for more than a month and its fate has become a key

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VIDEO: In Jerusalem Clashes Intensify Over Israeli Closure Of Holy Site

The clashes come as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government advanced plans to build more than 1,000 new settler homes in East Jerusalem, which is internationally recognized Palestinian land.

MintPress News Desk
By MintPress News Desk
APTOPIX Mideast Israel Palestinians

There are fresh fears of a new Palestinian uprising following the outbreak of clashes in East Jerusalem. It comes after Israeli police shot dead a 32-year-old Palestinian man suspected of having tried late last night to kill a far-right Jewish activist. Moataz Hejazi’s body lay in a pool of blood among satellite dishes on the rooftop of a

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Pinochet’s Chile: A Playground For Complicit Foreigners

An agricultural commune-turned Pinochet detention and torture center led by a German man accused of child sexual molestation could provide a major key to unraveling and laying bare the atrocities of the dictatorship era.

Ramona Wadi
By Ramona Wadi
CHILE GERMAN COLONY

Ongoing investigations into human rights violations committed during Augusto Pinochet’s U.S.-backed dictatorship in Chile between 1973 and 1990 have led Judge Mario Carroza to visit the former detention and torture center known as Colonia Dignidad (“Dignity Colony”), later renamed Villa Baviera (Villa Bavaria). According to Chilean news website

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The Forgotten Hunger Strikers Of Guantánamo Bay

Gitmo detainees have been staging hunger strikes almost since the island prison opened. Prisoners, their counsel and advocates all say force-feeding practices are purposely painful and inhumane, but the U.S. government says it’s “safe-guarding” the prisoners’ health.

Sean Nevins
By Sean Nevins
Guantanamo

WASHINGTON --- Within the next two weeks Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is expected to rule on alleged abusive force-feeding at Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba. Abu Wa'el Dhiab, a 43-year-old Syrian national and the father of four children, sued the Obama administration in 2013 in the first case

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Death, Taxes And The Cuban Blockade

It is not just the rest of the world that is against the Cuban blockade. A majority of Americans – even a majority of Cuban Americans – favor lifting the blockade and normalizing relations with Cuba.

Matt Peppe
By Matt Peppe
Cuba UN Embargo

The famous expression about the only things that will happen with absolute certainty, death and taxes, is actually missing one: the annual vote in which 99% of the world's nations declare that the blockade against Cuba is illegal and must end. Yesterday, for the 23rd straight year, the United Nations General Assembly voted to end the U.S. blockade

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