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The Biden administration is taking new actions in an attempt to facilitate humanitarian aid to people in Afghanistan, with the Department of Treasury allowing some financial transactions with the Taliban. "The United States is the largest single provider of humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan," Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo said in a statement Wednesday.... ...While the Treasury's new general licenses put certain conditions in place on transactions with the Taliban, critics warn that it could serve to legitimize and assist Taliban rule. House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, was critical of the move....

The entire system has been revealed for the sham it really is since the start of the New Year. Stock markets are crashing, the global economy has stalled, and the powers that be appear to have lost control. As Andy Hoffman of Miles Franklin notes in his most recent interview with Future Money Trends, the only thing they are able to manipulate now are a few markets that include the Dow Jones and the gold and silver trade. 2011 is when the, let's call them, The Powers That Be realized they were losing... they were three years into their post-2008...

The U.S. launched a new initiative on Sunday aimed at battling large-scale public corruption in foreign states. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative at the African Union Summit in Uganda. In addition to tackling the lucrative field of public bribes, the new initiative is also aimed at recovering public money and redirecting it to its intended use. As head of the Department of Justice, Holder said the U.S. has been assembling a team of prosecutors who will be devoted exclusively to the initiative. He emphasized that African countries must strengthen their judicial systems in tandem with...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush has ordered the transfer of about 86 million dollars in aid to strengthen security forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, the White House said. Confirmation of the US aid came a day after an Islamic militant carried out the first suicide bombing inside Israel in nine months and as Abbas' Fatah party is locked in a violent power struggle with the Islamist movement Hamas. The aid is part of a broader US push to revive peace negotiations between Abbas and Israel and comes ahead of a meeting here Friday of the...

WASHINGTON -- When Robert Steinbuch discovered his girlfriend had discussed intimate details about their sex life in her online diary, the Capitol Hill staffer didn't just get mad. He got a lawyer. Soon, though, the racy tidbits about the sex lives of the two U.S. Senate aides faded from the front pages and the gossip pages. Steinbuch accepted a teaching job in Arkansas, leaving Washington and Jessica Cutler's "Washingtonienne'' web log behind. While sex scandals turn over quickly in Washington, lawsuits do not. Steinbuch's case over the embarrassing, sexually charged blog appears headed for an embarrassing, sexually charged trial. Lurid...

NEW YORK -- The city wants to make it easier for transgender New Yorkers to switch the sex listed on their birth certificate even without undergoing sex-change surgery, putting the city at the forefront of efforts to redefine gender. Under present city rules, only people who can show proof of surgery qualify for getting a revised birth certificate. Even then, the only change made is the elimination of any reference to gender on the document. The new plan, unveiled in September, would let birth records reflect the new gender. It would also allow changes for people who hadn't had genital...

An investigation by Scotland Yard into whether a gay group’s advert is a faith crime has been backed by the Catholic Church. The advert, showing a Bible next to a pool of blood under the headline 'In the name of the father,' was produced by the Gay Police Association and published in a national newspaper. Alongside the picture is the claim that a rise in homophobic attacks was due to religious beliefs. The Catholic Church in Scotland said it supported the investigation, describing the advert as "outrageous and intolerant." Peter Kearney, spokesman for the Scottish bishops, said: "This is exactly...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Episcopal clergy and lay delegates Tuesday rejected a demand from fellow Anglicans that they temporarily stop electing gay bishops, leaving little chance the proposal could be revived at a national church meeting. Anglican leaders, angered by the 2003 consecration of an openly gay Episcopal bishop, had asked the Episcopalians pass a moratorium — at least for now — on homosexuals leading dioceses. But in a complex balloting system, a majority of the Episcopal House of Deputies voted against the measure, which church leaders had seen as critical to keeping the embattled Anglican Communion together. The critical debate...

TORONTO -- It promises to be a grand June wedding, two scarlet-coated officers of the famed Royal Canadian Mounted Police standing before a justice of the peace with an escort of similarly spiffy Mounties observing the nuptials on the eve of Canada Day, a national holiday. When the two constables become the first male Mounties to marry each other, the grumpiest witness-from-afar might well be Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The planned union of Jason Tree and David Connors in Nova Scotia on June 30 has cast a spotlight on Harper's pledge to his conservative backers to try to roll back...

Kicking things around with the Guardian's Stephen Bates, Frank Griswold really hopes that California doesn't cause him ECUSA any more trouble: The leader of the US Episcopal church, which is in danger of being expelled from the worldwide Anglican communion for its election of an openly homosexual bishop, has warned parishioners of the diocese of California that they would widen the confrontation it they chose another gay bishop. In a fortnight’s time the diocese, centred on San Francisco, will choose its next bishop from six candidates, three of whom are gay. Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, Frank Griswold, presiding bishop...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's announcement Wednesday that he would name a prominent Democrat as his new chief of staff has been topic A among political insiders of both parties, who are still chewing over its meaning and significance. Whether the move has any impact on the governor's standing among the state's 15.8 million voters - most of whom pay little heed to such Sacramento staff shuffles - remains the larger question. Schwarzenegger's appointment of Susan Kennedy to replace outgoing chief of staff Pat Clarey is the first major shakeup after the disastrous Nov. 8 special election, when...

The number of men paying women for sex has nearly doubled in a decade, UK research shows.Surveys of 11,000 British adults in 1990 and 2000 found the rate increased from one in 20 to nearly one in 10 men. Rising divorce rates, sex tourism and increasing availability of commercial sex are blamed by the Sexually Transmitted Infections journal. It warns men's lifestyles put them at risk of catching sex diseases, yet few are getting checked in clinics. Only a fifth had visited a sexual health clinic and even fewer had been tested for HIV. The findings come as experts call...

FLASH: Al Franken has agreed not to draw a salary at AIR AMERCIA, hoping to keep the fledgling talk-radio network afloat... Developing...

What's up with all these Kerry football throwing pics?