Ali Khan

Washington, January 23: Olbermann warns of the consequences of Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling, including as he describes it, American politicians becoming ‘prostitutes.’

Yesterday evening’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann began with his traditional ‘heads up’ diary entry at Daily Kos.

Titled ‘Pandora’s Box,’ Olbermann explains before the segment, “Pandora’s box meets the bottomless pit and becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton. What the Supreme Court did today. My special comment, could be the last of them, next.”

Kabul, January 20: Though not given as high a profile by the NATO forces as the growing insurgency or the opium trade, a new report suggests that corruption and bribery costs Afghans $2.5 billion every year, roughly a quarter of the nation’s economy.

The report, issued today by the UN, suggests that doing virtually anything in the nation has a huge bribery cost associated with it, and Afghans have little legal recourse when officials come knocking, demanding a payout.

Beijing, January 18: Chinese opposition is expected to forestall any additional international pushes for sanctions against Iran, after Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi once again insisted that disputes should be solved through diplomatic negotiations.

Chinese FM YangYesterday’s P5+1 meeting, aimed chiefly at discussing the Iran dispute, ended in failure, with officials calling the meeting “inconclusive” and both China and Russia seen as pressing for continued diplomacy.

Haiti, January 18: A GROUP of men and children watch as a suspected thief is brutally beaten to death by a man wielding a stick.

The victim is naked and his hands and feet are bound. The man’s body is then dragged along by a rope and set on fire as bystanders watch the scene with dead eyes.

It is broad daylight in Port- au- Prince, the devastated capital city of Haiti.

These are the latest in a series of chilling images from the country as anarchy threatens to destabilise the relief effort following Tuesday’s earthquake.

Washington,January 18 :US authorities have charged three men with plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper and helping to plan the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, in which 160 people died.

Ilyas Kashmiri was indicted in Chicago on Thursday for his role in plotting a revenge attack against the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

The Danish newspaper published cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in 2005, setting off a firestorm of protests across the Muslim world.

Court documents released on Thursday described Kashmiri as having been in regular contact with leaders of al-Qaeda.

Washington, January 16: The U.S. relief effort for Haiti started too slowly and cautiously, says a retired general who led the military relief effort on the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Baghdad, January 16: Calling 2009 a “painful year,” the US Army announced today that it faced a record number of suicides among Army personnel, with 160 active-duty soldiers taking their own lives.

Deployment away from family is just one issue facing soldiersThis surpassed the previous record of 140 in 2008, and the previous record before that was 115 in 2007. The Army has been keeping track of suicides since 1980, with the level suddenly rising to epidemic levels in recent years.

Washington, January 14: Pizza shop heckler: Bush Sr. a murderous, Zionist piece of shitFor a man whose son became one of the most polarizing, controversial and even hated figures in U.S. history, a mouthful of pizza may not be worth a mouthful of profanity.

At an unidentified pizza shop visited by George H.W. Bush recently, one of the customers decided to give the former president a slice of his mind, replete with generous toppings.

“Murderous, Zionist piece of shit,” the man said as he filmed the scene. Bush’s entourage of guards quickly turned and began walking toward the camera.

Washington, January 12: Air travelers strongly approve of the government’s use of body scanners at the nation’s airports even if the machines compromise privacy, a USA TODAY/Gallup poll finds.

Poll respondents appeared to endorse a Transportation Security Administration plan to install 300 scanners at the nation’s largest airports this year to replace metal detectors. The machines, used in 19 airports, create vivid images of travelers under their clothes to reveal plastics and powders to screeners observing monitors in a closed room.