Henry Kissinger 'considered Cuba air strikes' in 1976. 1 October 2014Last updated at 11:49 ET Kissinger (left) has been described as being 'apoplectic' about Cuba's role in Africa in discussions with Ford US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger drew up plans to "smash Cuba" with air strikes nearly 40 years ago, government papers obtained by researchers show. He was angered by Cuba's 1976 military intervention in Angola and was considering retaliation if Cuban forces were deployed elsewhere in Africa.
The information comes from documents declassified at the request of the National Security Archive. They show that Mr Kissinger was eager for the US to stand up to Cuba. The documents from the Gerald R Ford Presidential Library show that US officials devised plans to attack ports and military installations in Cuba in addition to measures ordered by Mr Kissinger to deploy Marine battalions based at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay to "clobber" the Cubans. Anger Continue reading the main story “Start Quote End QuotePeter Kornbluh "I agree," Mr Ford said. Detroit cuts off water for families - and hopes for future. 20 September 2014Last updated at 19:30 ET By Aleem Maqbool BBC News, Detroit Water for people in 17,000 Detroit households was halted because they did not pay their bills For months, thousands of families in Detroit have been living without water.
It is not because of natural disaster, but because of a controversial decision by the city to enforce bans for those who do not pay their bills. But the plight of those without water - already among the poorest residents of any major city in America - is getting national and even international attention from human rights groups. "It was early in the morning and I was making coffee when I saw the water truck and I ran outside," says Valerie Blakely. She says she sat crying and shouting in front of her home as she witnessed what followed. "He pulled [up] across the street and shut off my neighbour," she points down her road in North End in Detroit. "He shut off that neighbour, and shut off that neighbour and that neighbour.
The 'Shocking' Truth About Net Neutrality | Timothy Karr. The spreading popularity of Net Neutrality really rankles those in Washington who have been trying so hard to portray it as a "government takeover of the Internet. " NEW YORK -- It's rare for liberals and conservatives to find common ground in this era of political brinkmanship. That's why it's been refreshing to see a strong national consensus in support of Net Neutrality, the principle that protects free speech and innovation on the Internet.
Republican Alabama Representative Spencer Bachus, a champion of First and Fourth Amendment values, recently spoke out in favor of such protections, suggesting that the FCC treat Internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon as common carriers, and prevent companies from blocking, censoring or discriminating against Internet traffic. Makes sense, no? It does to the millions of people who have been flooding the Federal Communications Commission with letters, petitions and phone calls in favor of Net Neutrality. Rep. A Judge Just Gave Prosecutors Access To Someone's Gmail. (Adds background on debate, comment from privacy expert) By Joseph Ax NEW YORK, July 18 (Reuters) - A federal judge in New York has granted prosecutors access to a Gmail user's emails as part of a criminal probe, a decision that could fan the debate over how aggressively the government may pursue data if doing so may invade people's privacy.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein said Friday he had authorized a warrant to be served on Google Inc for the emails of an unnamed individual who is the target of a money laundering investigation. Gorenstein said his decision ran counter to several other judges' rulings in similar cases that sweeping warrants give the government improper access to too many emails, not just relevant ones. But he said the law lets investigators review broad swaths of documents to decide which are covered by warrants.
Google did not respond to a request for comment. The ruling came three months after U.S. In June, a unanimous U.S. Eden Foods' Hobby Lobby-esque Birth Control Fight Sparks Boycott. Spurred on by the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby ruling, Eden Foods CEO Michael Potter has revived a March 2013 case to nix coverage of all birth control from his employees’ healthcare plans. In turn, many shoppers have soured on the organic food giant and are boycotting its products. “In accordance with his Catholic faith, Potter believes that any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation, whether as an end or means -- including abortifacients and contraception -- is wrong,” Erin Mersino, Eden’s lawyer from the conservative Thomas More Law Center, said in a statement sent to The Huffington Post on Friday.
Last month, Hobby Lobby won the right to shirk a clause in the Affordable Care Act that requires employers who provide health insurance to cover all Food and Drug Administration-approved forms of birth control. Eden's founder and chief executive goes one step further, opposing all birth control. Benjamin Netanyahu Stops Pretending To Support A Sovereign Palestinian State. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank, he told reporters last week in remarks that largely have been overlooked. “There cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan," he said July 11 at a press conference.
But if Israel doesn't relinquish security control, Palestinians cannot establish a state. The alternative, then, would be a single state in which Palestinians are residents but not full citizens. "That sentence, quite simply, spells the end to the notion of Netanyahu consenting to the establishment of a Palestinian state,” summed up Times of Israel editor David Horovitz, whom Ha'aretz described as a Netanyahu supporter. “If we were to pull out of Judea and Samaria, like they tell us to, there’d be a possibility of thousands of tunnels," Netanyahu explained. A Blackwater official threatened to kill a government investigator. 1 July 2014Last updated at 10:23 ET By Anthony Zurcher Editor, Echo Chambers On Monday New York Times reporter James Risen published a 2,000-word article on Blackwater Worldwide, a private security company that received more than a billion dollars in government contracts to provide protection to US personnel in Iraq. He paints a portrait of a company whose employees, from the top down, considered themselves above the law - engaging in reckless, threatening behaviour with a disregard for written procedures and civilian safety.
Although Blackwater has since been sold, renamed and merged with a competitor, the company's actions during the US occupation of Iraq have been in the news lately, as four employees are standing trial in the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square on 16 September, 2007. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote Mr Carroll said 'that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq'” He concludes: This Is How A Domestic Violence Victim Falls Through The Cracks. Laura Aceves photographed in 2009, holding her niece. Berryville, Arkansas — Two days before she died, Laura Aceves stood on the side of the road and frantically dialed the police for the last time. It was early afternoon and the 21-year-old had finished her shift at the Berryville Tyson Foods plant, where she worked on an assembly line deboning chicken. Moments after pulling out of the parking lot, her car broke down.
At the nearest service station, a mechanic identified the problem: Someone had poured bleach in her gas tank. Laura knew who was responsible. According to family members and court records, Laura spent the last year of her life being terrorized by Acuna-Sanchez. At the time, Acuna-Sanchez, 18, was awaiting trial for charges stemming from two prior attacks on Laura, including a felony for aggravated assault. At the gas station, Laura told police where she thought Acuna-Sanchez might be staying and pleaded for their help. A year and a half has passed since her murder. IRS Targeted Progressive Groups, Too, Documents Reveal. WASHINGTON -- The Internal Revenue Service targeted progressive groups applying for tax-exempt status in addition to conservative ones, according to IRS documents released by congressional Democrats on Monday.
The documents and an internal IRS report being sent to congressional committees reveal that the tax agency used terms that included "progressive" and "occupy" to flag progressive organizations for extra scrutiny before the 2012 elections. The revelations greatly complicate the political scandal that has engulfed the IRS over the past few weeks. An inspector general report in mid-May revealed the tax agency had screened conservative groups with words like "tea party" in their name when considering applications for tax-exempt status.
Lawmakers from both parties quickly denounced the creation of such "Be On The Lookout," or BOLO, lists. Republicans in particular argued the finding proved the IRS was trying to tip the scales of the election during the heat of the campaign. Glenn Greenwald On Dean Baquet: A 'Disturbing History' Of Journalism 'Subservient' To National Security State.
Glenn Greenwald joined HuffPost Live Friday to discuss Edward Snowden, the latest news on NSA spying and his recent book "No Place to Hide. " The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist weighed in on the turmoil at the New York Times this week and had some choice words for incoming executive editor Dean Baquet, who with the LA Times in 2006, was accused of killing a story about collaboration between AT&T and the NSA. HuffPost Live host Alyona Minkovski asked Greenwald what kind of leader Baquet will be for the New York Times. "I think of all the executive editors of the New York Times," Greenwald began, "at least in recent history, or I'll say in the last 10 years since I’ve paying extremely close attention to how the New York Times functions, Jill Abramson was probably the best advocate for an adversarial relationship between the government and the media. I don’t know if she’s always been that way but in her stewardship of the paper as editor in chief I think that was definitely the case.
" More Google 'forget' requests emerge after EU ruling. 16 May 2014Last updated at 09:31 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News Google has said the EU's ruling is "disappointing" A man who tried to kill his family is among the latest to request removal of search results from Google. A European court this week ruled that an individual could force the removal of some search results. The BBC has learned that more than half of requests sent to Google from UK individuals involved convicted criminals.
A business has also sought for links to negative reviews on a forum to be removed. As the European Court of Justice made its ruling on Tuesday, many speculated that a flurry of similar requests would come Google's way. On Thursday it emerged an ex-politician seeking re-election has asked to have links to an article about his behaviour in office removed. A man convicted of possessing child abuse images had also requested links to pages about his conviction to be wiped. Tax scammer More requests came to light on Friday. 'Slow and cumbersome' Terrible Net Neutrality Plan Will Get A Makeover, Still Be Terrible. FCC Chairmain Tom Wheeler is taking another stab at that whole "net neutrality" thing, after over 100 tech companies blasted his recent proposal for new net neutrality rules as weak and biased towards wealthy companies that can pay extra to have their sites load more quickly on the web.
A court struck down the FCC's original rules on net neutrality -- or the principle that Internet service providers should treat all online traffic equally -- in January, and in April Wheeler put forward a new proposal that would revise the rules. Under the new system, Internet providers could charge websites like Netflix or Skype for faster Internet, essentially creating two lanes for online traffic -- one for companies that can pay up, and a slower one for those that can't.
Critics say that such a "pay-to-play" system will stifle innovation and make Internet more expensive. Translation: Trust us! Given Wheeler's small concession, don't expect Internet companies to back down. London property empire amassed by controversial German landlord | UK news. A German landlord with a reputation for shabby buildings and disgruntled tenants has emerged as one of the biggest investors in London property in recent years.
Henning Conle, 70, has snapped up almost £2bn of prime real estate, including a series of historic buildings in central London, raising inevitable questions about where he got his money from. The portfolio includes buildings that house department stores such as Liberty and House of Fraser, the Kensington Roof Gardens complex, the London offices of Manchester United and the art deco Shell Mex House on the Strand. Until now, little has been known about Conle and the Luxembourg-registered Sirosa company he uses. When the Shell Mex deal was concluded for a reported £610m last year, press reports identified the buyer as a German family named "Conley", a typing error that inadvertently helped to disguise the owner. Conle has a somewhat tarnished reputation in his native land, where he is thought to own more than 10,000 properties.