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F.B.I. Says Oregon Suspect Planned Attack of ‘Grand Scale’ - NYTimes.com : "PORTLAND, Ore. — A Somali-born teenager who thought he was detonating a car bomb at a packed Christmas tree-lighting ceremony downtown here was arrested by the authorities on Friday night after federal agents said that they had spent nearly six months setting up a sting operation. The bomb, which was in a van parked off Pioneer Courthouse Square, was a fake — planted by F.B.I. agents as part of the elaborate sting — but “the threat was very real,” Arthur Balizan, the F.B.I.’s special agent in charge in Oregon, said in a statement released by the Department of Justice. An estimated 10,000 people were at the ceremony on Friday night, the Portland police said. - Sent using Google Toolbar"

The Health Insurance Industry’s Vendetta Against Michael Moore : "Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, makes great movies but they are not generally considered “cliff-hangers.” All that might change since a whistle-blower on the “Democracy Now!” news hour revealed that health insurance executives thought they may have to implement a plan “to push Moore off a cliff.” The whistle-blower: Wendell Potter, the former chief spokesman for health insurance giant Cigna. He was quoting from an industry strategy session on how to respond to Moore’s 2007 documentary “Sicko,” a film critical of the U.S. health insurance industry. Potter told me that he is not sure how serious the threat was but he added, ominously, “These companies play to win.” - Sent using Google Toolbar"

Ambulance service: 4,200 Somalis killed in 2 years | Antiwar Newswire : "Maj. Barigye Bahoku, the spokesman for the 7,000-strong African Union force in Mogadishu, said he could not comment on the ambulance service report because he had not read it. Human rights groups and Mogadishu residents have repeatedly accused the African Union of indiscriminately targeting populated areas of the city with artillery fire after insurgents fire mortars toward AU troops. Bakara is the most popular market. The executive director of CIVIC, the U.S.-based Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, said civilians bear the brunt of war in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. But she said Somalia may be the most dangerous because neither side abides by obligations under international law to avoid civilian casualties, as U.S. and international forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are required to. 'Al-Shabab hides out in civilian markets, blasts the government or AMISOM (African Union) bases and then runs, so b...

Ethiopia PM warns of Nile war - Africa - Al Jazeera English : "Locked talks Egypt, Ethiopia and seven other countries through which the Nile river passes have been locked in more than a decade of contentious talks driven by anger over the perceived injustice of a previous Nile water treaty signed in 1929. Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya signed a new deal to share the waters in May, provoking Egypt to call it a 'national security' issue. Meles said he was not happy with the rhetoric coming from the Egyptians but dismissed the claims of some analysts that war could eventually erupt. 'I am not worried that the Egyptians will suddenly invade Ethiopia. 'Nobody who has tried that has lived to tell the story. I don't think the Egyptians will be any different and I think they know that,' Meles said. - Sent using Google Toolbar"

For white Americans, things aren't what they used to be | Gary Younge | Comment is free | The Guardian : "Pity George Bush. Scanning eight years of calamity for the lowest point in his presidency could not have been easy. Among the top contenders: Abu Ghraib; failing to act on threats of an al-Qaida attack before 9/11 or find WMD in Iraq; helping to collapse the economy; being forced to withdraw a supreme court judge choice; and failing on immigration reform. But no. According to his recent memoir, the nadir came when Kanye West, a black singer, accused him of racial neglect in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. West said: 'America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well off as slow as possible … George Bush doesn't care about black people.' - Sent using Google Toolbar"

92% of Afghans Never Heard of 9/11: Think tank: : Information Clearing House: ICH : "92% of Afghans Never Heard of 9/11: Think tank: By Daniel Tence November 20, 2010 'Truthdig' -- Fewer than one in 10 Afghans are aware of the 9/11 attacks and their precipitation of the war in Afghanistan, says a study from an international think tank. A report (PDF) from the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) shows that 92 percent of those surveyed had never heard of the coordinated multiple attacks on US soil on September 11, 2001. It also shows that four in 10 Afghans believe the US is on their soil in order to 'destroy Islam or occupy Afghanistan.' - Sent using Google Toolbar"

What If NATO Is Defeated In Afghanistan? : Information Clearing House: ICH : "America’s rational for invading Afghanistan was to destroy al-Qaida. But CIA chief Leon Panetta recently admitted there were no more than 50 al-Qaida operatives left in Afghanistan. The rest – no more than few hundred - fled to Pakistan years ago. So what are 110,000 US troops and 40,000 NATO troops doing in Afghanistan? Certainly not nation-building. Most reports show Afghanistan is in worse poverty and distress than before the US invasion. While the platitudes and synthetic optimism flowed thick at Lisbon, giant US Army bulldozers, demolition teams and artillery were busy leveling wide swathes of Afghan homes around the Pashtun stronghold, Kandahar. In 2006, US Marines conducted a similar ruthless campaign to crush the rebellious Iraqi city of Falluja. - Sent using Google Toolbar"