WASHINGTON - The controversy over the Bush Administration’s pre-war intelligence on Iraq was further fuelled Friday by an internal Pentagon critique of the work of a little-known Defense Department office.  The report underscores the bureaucratic rivalries among the intelligence agencies and the danger of politicizing intelligence analyses.
When Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith disseminated […]

WASHINGTON - For decades, as fast food and highly processed packaged foods have become increasingly popular, the converted fat these foods contain, known as transfat, has become commonplace in the American diet.
Transfat is formed in a chemical process that makes vegetable oils more solid. It gives fast food its taste and allows for a longer shelf […]

LOS ANGELES - International law enforcement authorities now meeting in Los Angeles say the problem of violent street gangs crosses borders. Officials from Canada, Mexico, and Central America have joined their U.S. counterparts in a three-day gang summit ending Friday.
Authorities from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Belize are contending with street gangs that started in […]

BEIJING - Senior U.S. and North Korean negotiators have focused on a draft proposal of concrete steps toward ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities.
The chief U.S. and North Korean negotiators held a two-hour, one-on-one meeting here Friday. They were going over a Chinese proposal of specific steps that North Korea, the United States and other […]

OKLAHOMA CITY — A federal grand jury has returned an indictment against Scott William Johnson, 34, of Lawton, Okla. for using the Internet to arrange a sexual encounter with a person who he believed to be a 13-year-old girl, U.S. Attorney John C. Richter of the Western District of Oklahoma announced today.
According to the indictment, […]

MOSCOW - Russia has unveiled plans to replace nearly half the army’s hardware by 2015. Welcomed by some as a long-overdue necessity, others question whether the plan can really be carried out. 
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told lawmakers Wednesday the government planned to spend nearly $200 billion on the military upgrade. He said it would allow […]

QUNEITRA, GOLAN - Syria’s president has repeatedly called for a renewal of peace talks between his country and neighboring Israel, and some in Israel say now might be a good time to deal.  Central to any negotiations will be the strategic Golan Heights, an area Israel occupied after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and later annexed […]

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Senators Thursday she has instructed the chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Damascus to engage the Syrian government on the issue of Iraqi refugees. The move is part of a broader effort by the Bush administration to help deal with the refugee problem.
Officials here dismiss suggestions […]

BUDAPEST - Austria says it has uncovered a child pornography network involving more than 2,300 people in 77 countries. People allegedly paid to view videos via the Internet of young children being sexually abused.  Many of the children are believed to be eastern European.
Speaking in Vienna, Austrian officials described the content on a Russian website […]

STATE DEPARTMENT - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday the policies of Venezuela’s populist leader Hugo Chavez are “destroying” the South American country. In congressional testimony, Rice said the ongoing U.S. feud with Mr. Chavez is deflecting attention from the good relationship the Bush administration has established with other leftist governments in the […]

WHITE HOUSE - President Bush is asking the U.S. Congress for a big increase in funding for America’s national parks.   At a time when the president is proposing cuts in spending for a wide array of domestic programs, the parks could get a big budget boost. 
Along with the Defense Department, the U.S. National Park Service […]

WASHINGTON (RFE/RL) — The U.S. military says the much-awaited security “surge” operation in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, has begun.
Major General William Caldwell says U.S. and Iraqi forces have been strengthened in Baghdad and that more troops will be arriving during the coming weeks. The operation is the cornerstone of U.S. President George W. Bush’s new […]

JERUSALEM - Under a heavy police presence, Israeli archeologists are removing tons of rock and debris from a site that lies next to a walkway leading to Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.  The dig has infuriated Muslims who say it could damage Islamic holy structures.
Tensions were high in Jerusalem’s old city […]

TORONTO (RFE/RL) — At least 40 countries around the world, including China, Uzbekistan, and Iran, engage in some kind of Internet censorship. But Canadian researchers have devised new software to give people in these countries unfettered Internet access without getting them into trouble.
Ronald Deibert, director of the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, calls it a […]

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations has signed an agreement with Lebanon to create an international tribunal to prosecute suspects in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Undersecretary General for Legal Affairs Nicholas Michel signed the accord Tuesday on behalf of the world body. A statement issued by the U.N. spokesman’s office says the […]

WASHINGTON - The Superbowl is not only the championship final of the National Football League in the United States, it is also the country’s most watched sporting event of the year.   This year, history was made when Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts became the first African-American coach to win the big game.  There was […]

PENTAGON - More than 20 percent of next year’s budget that President Bush presented to the Congress Monday is defense spending, some $623 billion.
For the first time since the Iraq and Afghanistan wars began, the Pentagon has listed them as a separate budget item, totaling nearly $148 billion. The rest of the Defense Department budget […]

WASHINGTON - Like college students, faculty, alumni, and sports fans elsewhere across America, the folks at the University of Illinois really love their sports mascot.  
He’s not one of those fuzzy, oversized animal characters like Buzz the Yellowjacket at Georgia Tech or Peter the Anteater at the University of California at Irvine. Illinois’ mascot is a […]

CAPITOL HILL - U.S. Senate Republicans have used a procedural vote to block a bipartisan, nonbinding resolution opposing President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq. It is a defeat for Senate critics of the war, who say they will continue efforts to send a strong bipartisan message to the president to change course […]

IRBIL, IRAQ - The top spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq says four American helicopters that crashed in the past couple of weeks were shot down. The losses are prompting some changes in the way these aircraft are used. 
Major General William Caldwell, said for the first time, that a rash of recent helicopter crashes […]

MIAMI - The Indianapolis Colts have defeated the Chicago Bears, 29-17 to win the National Football League’s Super Bowl in Miami, Florida. The Colts captured the title for the first time since 1971, when the franchise was in Baltimore.
The game did not look good for Indianapolis when Devin Hester ran back the opening kickoff for […]

WHITE HOUSE - President Bush’s proposed 2008 federal budget is delivered to the U.S. Congress Monday.  It is expected to include billions of dollars more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Trucks carrying copies of the budget request are expected to arrive on Capitol Hill not long after dawn, setting off the annual battle over […]

HANOI - Vietnam has released its first government white paper on religious policy. The paper underscores Vietnam’s growing religious freedom, and the resurgence of spiritual belief in the country since the 1990s. But some believers say communist hostility toward religion has not entirely disappeared.Nguyen The Doanh, the vice chairman of the Government Committee on Religious […]

ISLAMABAD (RFE/RL) — Afghan and NATO forces are poised today to launch an assault on a southern Afghan town in a bid to recapture it from Taliban forces. Hundreds of Taliban fighters had seized control of Musa Qala on February 1, despite an agreement between Afghan and British forces and tribal elders that no armed […]

By Ken Joseph Jr.Special to ASSIST News Service
WASHINGTON, DC (ANS) – “We have received thousands of telephone calls,” was the slightly bemused answer from a Congressional Staffer!
“We have received thousands of telephone calls,” was the slightly bemused answer from a Congressional Staffer!In a show of support for the beleaguered Assyrian Christians of Iraq and its […]