The cost of fighting the war in Afghanistan will overtake that of the Iraq conflict for the first time in 2010, Pentagon budget documents showed Thursday. On top of the basic defense budget of 533.7 billion dollars, the White House is requesting a further 130 billion dollars for overseas missions, including 65 billion for Afghanistan and 61 billion for Iraq. ‘This request is where you’re going to first see the swing of not only dollars or resources, but combat capability, from the Iraqi theater into the Afghan theater, Navy Vice Admiral Steve Stanley, director of force structure for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters. Some 136,000 US troops are currently stationed in Iraq, but they are set to be progressively withdrawn by the end of 2011, in accordance with a security pact signed between Washington and Baghdad in late 2008. The withdrawal from Iraq will be accompanied by a buildup in Afghanistan, which President Barack Obama has made a priority of his administration, dispatching 21,000 extra troops to the region to combat an emboldened insurgency. US forces in Afghanistan are set to reach 68,000 by the end of this year. The United States has about 45,000 troops in […]
In the middle of this financial crisis there is a debate taking place over whether governments can afford both massive tax-funded spending programmes needed to revive ailing economies, and the emissions cuts that are needed to combat climate change. Few regions on Earth throw this tension into sharper contrast than south-east Asia, where many nations are highly vulnerable to the effects of global warming while also having the chance to develop low-carbon economies. The plain truth is that nations can no longer afford to delay action on climate change, even temporarily, and such spending can serve as effective fiscal stimulus. Despite the global economic downturn the world is still warming. A major new report from the Asian Development Bank – The Economics of Climate Change in Southeast Asia: A Regional Review – explains how countries that invest now in climate change adaptation will better protect their people, economy and environment. Even with aggressive adaptation efforts, the negative impacts of climate change will continue to worsen. Only concerted global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can ultimately steer the world off its current calamitous course. The report examines a wide range of climate change impacts in Indonesia, Philippines, […]
SAN FRANCISCO — Pressure is mounting against two former Bush administration attorneys who wrote the legal memos used to support harsh interrogation techniques that critics say constituted torture. John Yoo, a constitutional law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is fighting calls for disbarment and dismissal, while Judge Jay Bybee of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals faces calls for impeachment. Justice Department investigators have stopped short of recommending criminal charges, but suggest in a draft report that the two men should face professional sanctions. A number of groups across the country agree, and some want even stronger action. ‘We believe there is a lot of evidence to suggest that war crimes were committed,’ said Laura Bonham, deputy director of the Progressive Democrats of America, a group dedicated to rebuilding the Democratic Party. ‘We believe the memos provided the Central Intelligence Agency with the cover they needed to begin torturing detaines for information.’ Bybee and Yoo worked in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and played key roles in crafting the legal justification for the interrogation techniques. The draft report from an internal Justice Department inquiry […]
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday will unveil nearly $17 billion in additional budget cuts for the coming fiscal year to showcase what a top adviser called a ‘constant effort to find savings at a time when the government’s costs for bailouts, health care and wars are mounting far faster. The savings for the budget year starting Oct. 1 represent the sum of Mr. Obama’s promised ‘line by line scrubbing of the federal budget. But, underscoring the nation’s fiscal plight, the proposed cuts represent about 1.4 percent of the $1.2 trillion deficit that is projected for the fiscal year 2010. The president’s 10-year budget outline, released in February, shows the deficit declining by his final year in office to $533 billion, mostly through assumptions about when the recession will end and the pace of renewed economic growth that many economists consider somewhat optimistic. The $17 billion would be saved through terminating or reducing 121 federal programs, ranging from $632,000 to eliminate the post of an attaché for the Education Department in the American Embassy in Paris to $142 million by ending a program to clean up abandoned mines. But the money for abandoned mines as well […]
New research shows young Americans are dramatically less likely to go to church — or to participate in any form of organized religion — than their parents and grandparents. ‘It’s a huge change,’ says Harvard University professor Robert Putnam, who conducted the research. Historically, the percentage of Americans who said they had no religious affiliation (pollsters refer to this group as the ‘nones’) has been very small — hovering between 5 percent and 10 percent. However, Putnam says the percentage of ‘nones’ has now skyrocketed to between 30 percent and 40 percent among younger Americans. Putnam calls this a ‘stunning development.’ He gave reporters a first glimpse of his data Tuesday at a conference on religion organized by the Pew Forum on Faith in Public Life. The research will be included in a forthcoming book, called ‘American Grace.’ This trend started in the 1990s and continues through today. It includes people in both Generation X and Y. While these young ‘nones’ may not belong to a church, they are not necessarily atheists. ‘Many of them are people who would otherwise be in church,’ Putnam said. ‘They have the same attitidues and values as […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
