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A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release. Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to...

Based on a complaint lodged by Cuba’s foreign minister, Felipe Perez Roque, the United Nations may declare that the United States’ long running embargo of the island nation is illegal. “The Cuban complaint makes a persuasive case that the US embargo has contributed to human rights abuses in Cuba,” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. “Because of the embargo, the Cuban government has been unable to acquire supplies from America to upgrade their facilities. As a result, political prisoners are being housed in filthy and decrepit buildings, locked up in rusted manacles and beaten with cracked and splintered clubs. So...

(CBS4) CORAL GABLES -- Presidential hopeful Christopher Dodd would end a decades-old trade embargo with Cuba and lift travel restrictions to the island if elected, he said Saturday in Coral Gables. The Democratic senator from Connecticut also said he would open an embassy in Havana and shut down TV Marti, a U.S. government-run television station that broadcasts to Cuba. "Other than the war in Iraq, no other American policy is more broadly unpopular internationally," Dodd said of the United States' policy toward Cuba. Dodd said as president he would seek a repeal of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which strengthened the...

WASHINGTON – In the latest scare involving products imported from China, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled millions of toys believed to contain dangerous amounts of lead paint. The biggest single recall by the CPSC this month was for 1.5 million Thomas and Friends wooden railway toys containing lead paint that poses special hazards to children. The toys are wooden vehicles, buildings and other parts for a train set that bears the logo "Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway" in the top left-hand corner of the package. The toys that could contain poisonous amounts of lead in their surface paint...

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The United States strengthened its offer of support for President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, telling him an international aid embargo against the Palestinians would end as soon as he forms a new government without Hamas, aides to Abbas and a Western diplomat said. Elsewhere in the West Bank, hundreds of Fatah gunmen stormed Hamas-controlled institutions, seeking revenge for the Islamic group's takeover of the Gaza Strip. In Gaza, Hamas forces blew up the home of a prominent pro-Fatah family and deployed at strategic locations to solidify their control of Gaza. Hundreds of Gaza residents converged on...

There's really only one problem for Cuba: those yanqui imperialists and the embargo they slapped on the country. Just ask Andrea Mitchell. The NBC correspondent is in Cuba today for the May Day festivities. Here's an excerpt from her conversation on MSNBC at 9:07 EDT this morning with host Contessa Brewer. MSNBC HOST CONTESSA BREWER: Is there an expectation among the crowd there, a sense that Castro will return to power at some point? NBC CORRESPONDENT ANDREA MITCHELL: Officials are pointing out, and it's certainly true from my visits here that the government runs, it's business as usual, that...

The Law: A Manhattan high school's openly illegal class trip to Cuba showed more than just brazen disregard for the U.S. ban on tourism to Cuba. It amounted to aiding and abetting a malevolent regime. That needs scrutiny. On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, "alternative" public schools don't usually follow a lot of rules. But a high school teacher at the elite Beacon School, Nathan Turner, took that to a new level when he organized a class trip to communist Cuba in early April. Fidel Castro's regime has been under a U.S. trade embargo since 1963 for, among other...

On the eve of the EU summit in Brussels, the European Parliament has adopted a resolution stressing the importance of solidarity between the Member States with regard to trade relations with Russia. The resolution passed yesterday by the EU parliament "stresses the importance of unity and solidarity among the Member States" in its trade relations with Russia. It also insists "that the European Union show the necessary solidarity with all Member States, in particular Poland, which is suffering discrimination under Russia's trade policy." Therefore, the MEPs admitted that Poland has been subjected to discriminatory practices in trade relations with Russia....

HOW do you get the attention of North Korea's dictator, Kim Jong Il? Stop him getting hold of iPods, plasma televisions and Harley Davidson motorbikes, it would appear.The United States government's first effort to use trade sanctions to aggravate a foreign leader personally is targeting items believed to be favoured by Mr Kim or to have been given by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyal families who run the Communist government. Mr Kim, who engineered a secret nuclear weapons programme, has other ways of obtaining the high-end consumer electronics and other items he wants. But the list of...

ETAJIMA ? The only special squad of the Maritime Self-Defense Force has engaged in secret drills to prepare for Japan's possible inspections of North Korea-related ships under a U.N. Security Council resolution following Pyongyang's nuclear test last month, Kyodo News learned Thursday. The MSDF is carrying out the drills every day at its base in Etajima, a Seto Inland Sea island in Hiroshima Prefecture even though the Japanese government has yet to decide its position on the issue due to legal sensitivities. The government has left various questions unanswered, such as whether it can apply the law on Japan's...

MOSCOW — Russian lawmakers on Friday called for international condemnation of the United States' economic blockade of Cuba, calling it a "massive human rights violation." Members of the State Duma, the Russian parliament's lower house controlled by Kremlin's loyalists, unanimously voted in favor of an appeal to parliaments worldwide to condemn the sanctions and urge the U.S. to end the blockade. "The United States ... in recent years has further strengthened its policy of interfering with the affairs of a sovereign state with the aim of a forcible change of the constitution regime of the Republic of Cuba," the statement...

Israel rejects Syria's arms embargo pledge By Patrick Bishop in Beirut and Tim Butcher in Jerusalem (Filed: 02/09/2006) Israel last night rejected Syria's pledge to Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, that it would prevent weapons being smuggled to Hizbollah across its border with Lebanon. Syrian soldiers on parade at Riyyak airbase President Bashar al-Assad of Syria told Mr Annan during talks in Damascus that he was prepared to deploy his military forces along the Lebanese border to enforce the arms embargo on Hizbollah demanded by security council resolution 1701. Mr Assad has previously warned that Damascus would take...

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, said today that Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, had promised to enforce an arms embargo on Hizbollah under a UN resolution that halted Israel's war with the Lebanese group. "The president informed me that Syria supports the Security Council Resolution 1701 and will help in its implementation," Annan told reporters after talks with Assad in Damascus. "While stating Syrian objections to the presence of foreign forces along the Syrian-Lebanese border, the president committed to me that Syria will take all necessary measures to implement in full paragraph 15 of the resolution," Annan added, referring to...

Venezuela's U.N. ambassador tells NewsMax that President Hugo Chavez will not use oil exports as a weapon against the Bush White House for support of Israel's confrontation with Hezbollah. More than 60 percent of Venezuela's oil income comes from U.S. sales. Its also America's largest single source of imported oil. Rumors about a possible reduction in Venezuelan oil exports to the U.S. had been circulating in commodities markets since Israel's confrontation with Hezbollah began on July 12. "No, we are not considering any oil embargo, Venezuela believes in a laissez-faire market," proclaimed Francisco Javier Arias-Cardenas, Venezuela's new U.N. representative

Executive Summary The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been almost uniformly embraced by politicians and energy economists as one of the best means to protect the nation against oil supply shocks. This study finds little evidence for the proposition that government inventories are necessary to protect the country against supply disruptions. Absent concrete market failures, government intervention in oil markets is unlikely to enhance economic welfare. A conservative estimate finds that the SPR has cost taxpayers at least $41.2–$50.8 billion (in 2004 dollars), or $64.64–$79.58 per barrel of oil deposited therein. Accordingly, the "premium" associated with the insurance provided by the...

Ukraine will ban the import of animal production from Russia. Agricultural Policy Minister Oleksander Baranovskiy claimed this at a meeting with journalists in Nemishayevo town of the Kyiv Oblast today. According to an UNIAN correspondent, he stressed: “The other day the Russia will be closed. We have already prepared all the necessary documents”. At the same time, the Minister stressed that the ban will cover all the animal production, including meat and dairy products. Asked about the reasons of the ban, O.Baranovskiy put it short: “Low-quality”.

Pluck and luck save smuggled photos Banned images taken by Czech beauty queen to go on display in Prague By Sarah Schaschek and Jeffrey White Staff Writers, The Prague Post February 15, 2006 Helena Houdová Cuban police were intent on preventing these less-than-flattering images of the country's impoverished and regimented people from leaving the island. As a supermodel and 1999's Miss Czech Republic, Helena Houdová has been on the receiving end of a camera's attention. But the 26-year-old now finds herself on the other side of the lens. After an unpleasant arrest in Cuba Jan. 23 — during which she...

MEXICO CITY - Cuban officials invited U.S. corporations Friday to lobby against the U.S. trade embargo and invest in the communist nation's energy sector, as they announced plans to double their drilling capacity and explore for oil in the island's Caribbean waters. In the first private-sector oil summit between the two countries, executives from U.S. giants like ExxonMobil Corp., Caterpillar Inc. and Valero Energy Corp. were meeting with Cuban government officials in Mexico City this week to learn about Cuba's potentially lucrative oil reserves. "We would be happy if North American companies also participated in future projects," said Raul Perez...

Two of the world's most successful investors say oil will be in short supply in the coming months. DAVOS, Switzerland (FORTUNE) - Be afraid. Be very afraid. That's the message from two of the world's most successful investors on the topic of high oil prices. One of them, Hermitage Capital's Bill Browder, has outlined six scenarios that could take oil up to a downright terrifying $262 a barrel. The other, billionaire investor George Soros, wouldn't make any specific predictions about prices. But as a legendary commodities player, it's worth paying heed to the words of the man who once took...

A group of Cuban major leaguers will meet tomorrow with Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart to discuss forming a team to play in the inaugural World Baseball Classic in March. Diaz-Balart, Florida Republican and a native of Cuba, declined to identify the players but said they have enough for every position, plus a manager. "Cuban players have rights, too," Diaz-Balart said. "They are organizing and want to play together as a team." The issue of Cuban players in the tournament -- a World Cup-style competition that is being heavily promoted by Major League Baseball and the players union as a historic event...