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Syrian Refugees Raise Tensions In Fragile Lebanon

Archives for August 2013

Obama Takes A Step Back, Waits For Congress To OK Syria action

President Obama said, “I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course and our actions will be even more effective.”

President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, talks about proposals to reduce gun violence, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013, in the South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

WASHINGTON — Short on support at home and allies abroad, President Barack Obama unexpectedly stepped back from a missile attack against Syria on Saturday and instead asked Congress to support a strike punishing Bashar Assad's regime for the alleged use of chemical weapons. With Navy ships on standby in the Mediterranean Sea ready to launch their

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Swelling Colombian Protests Against Free Trade Met With Militarization

The violence broke out Thursday afternoon after some 30,000 people, many of them university students, marched in support of the farmers.

Associated Press
By Associated Press

BOGOTA, Colombia— President Juan Manuel Santos ordered troops onto the Colombian capital's streets Friday after rioting in which at least two people died, and small farmers said they were lifting road blockades elsewhere after 11 days of protests. Bogota was peaceful on Friday, with no disturbances reported as Santos ordered troops to reinforce

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British Intelligence Asked NYT to Destroy Snowden Docs, Too

The request was met with “silence” from the newspaper, but the fight to contain the information continues.

Jon Queally
By Jon Queally

Citing "people familiar with the matter," the Reuters news agency on Friday reports that after the British government learned The New York Times had received documents from the Guardian that had been obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the US newspaper was contacted by officials representing the UK's top spy agency and asked the paper to

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Federal Judge Hands Partial Win To Americans On No-Fly List

The ACLU says a U.S. district judge has taken a step toward ruling the no-fly list wholly unconstitutional.

Katie Rucke
By Katie Rucke

On Wednesday a federal court partially ruled against the U.S. government’s secretive “no-fly list,” agreeing with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that the list violated the constitutional rights of 13 Americans, including four military veterans, whose names were on the list. U.S. District Judge Anna Brown ruled that the 13 Americans

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America’s Religious Identity Crisis

A study indicates that America is becoming more religiously diverse and, in some cases, agnostic.

Frederick Reese
By Frederick Reese

There is an unspoken reality in America. Despite the nation’s history as a self-proclaimed bastion of religion tolerance and freedom and despite the intentions of the founding fathers to separate Church from State, America is a deeply religious nation. The vast majority of Americans identify with the notion of a Creator, and this is reflected in

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Another Inevitable War?

Opponents of U.S. intervention in Syria should fine-tune their argument to hit U.S. foreign poilicy where it hurts.

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh
In this citizen journalism image made and provided by the Kfar Suseh Coordinating of the Syrian Revolution on Monday June 18, 2012, protesters hold up a placard during a demonstration at Kfar Suseh area, in Damascus, Syria. (AP Photo/The Kfar Suseh Coordinating Of The Syrian Revolution )

A funny thing happened on the way to war with Syria – democracy, that confusingly complex and painfully slow form of government that many, if not most, believe has had the life sucked out of it of late, actually may have stopped a war from occurring. Or at least, British democracy may have. As it stands presently, the British Parliament stunned

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