The use of the rockets has been suspended pending a “thorough review” of the incident, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

An Afghan soldier and a Marine were injured in the firefight that preceded the rocket attack, on the second day of an operation to take control of the town of Marjah and the surrounding district of Nad Ali.

Operation Moshtarak, which means “together,” is the biggest assault on the Taliban since the fall of the Islamic extremists’ government in 2001 and the first major test of the new U.S. strategy for quelling the insurgency and stabilizing Afghanistan. A centerpiece to the offensive has been to minimize civilian casualties and the use of force.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/AP/…

photo credit: abnskyshark

On January 12, AFP interviewed Mike Robinson, the editor of the UK Column, a liberty-minded newspaper not unlike AMERICAN FREE PRESS.

“Road charging,” as it is called in England, is widespread, he told AFP, as fiber optic cable has been laid along most English roads to help track vehicle travel by the mile so drivers can be charged.

“It has been on the European Union agenda for quite a long time,” he added.

His comments came amid recent news of a radical plan to raise $200 billion by privatizing “the motorway network,” as Brits call it. The plan was presented to the three main political parties by NM Rothschild, the influential investment bank, British news sources say.

The Rothschild bank, called “an architect of several privatizations,” reportedly made its pitch in the weeks running up to the summer recess back on July 21, 2009. Bankers told leading politicians that the sale of the roads overseen by the [public] Highways Agency—all motorways and most “big trunk roads”—could help revive battered public finances. This is the same story Americans have been told.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/u_s…

photo credit: MPD01605

Gregory D. Girard, 45, was arrested Tuesday night for allegedly storing approximately 20 weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Just before 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Manchester-by-the Sea police executed a search warrant at 23 Bridge St., police said. Girard faces four counts of possession of an infernal device and four counts of possession of a dangerous weapon. Additional charges are pending, police said.

“Mr. Girard indicated he was preparing for ‘Armageddon,’ which he felt was imminent, and he felt martial law would soon be imposed,” Chief Glenn McKiel said in a statement.

In addition to the weapons and ammunition, police found a large collection of camouflage clothing, knives, bulletproof vests, helmets, and several pairs of handcuffs. They also discovered stockpiles of medicine and nonperishable foods. An illegal indoor shooting range was also found in the attic, police said.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking…

photo credit: Preconscious

As the North Carolina curriculum stands now, ninth-grade students take world history, 10th-graders study civics and economics and 11th-graders take U.S. history going back to the country’s founding.

Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S. history only from 1877 onward.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,584758,00.html

photo credit: brewbooks

The rapid increase in the US drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan can be gauged from the fact that only two such strikes were carried out in January 2009, which killed 36 people. The highest number of drone attacks carried out in a single month in 2009 was six, which were conducted in December last year. But the dawn of the New Year has already seen a dozen such attacks.

The unprecedented rise in the predator strikes with the beginning of the year 2010 is being attributed to December 30, 2009 suicide bombing in the Khost area of Afghanistan bordering North Waziristan, which killed seven CIA agents. US officials later identified the bomber as Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian national linked to both al-Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

http://www.prisonplanet.com/us-drones-killed…

photo credit: RDECOM

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd opposes including a provision to audit the Federal Reserve in the Senate’s regulatory reform package, the retiring Connecticut Democrat told the Huffington Post Thursday.

The measure made it into the House bill in November after an unusual insurgency led by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) beat back a concerted effort by the Fed to kill the provision, and won an overwhelming and bipartisan vote in the House Financial Services Committee. It was an unprecedented legislative defeat for the Federal Reserve, which has never had a real audit in its history. Little is known of what it does with the trillions of dollars at its disposal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/22/dodd…

photo credit: Center for American Progress Action Fund

‘I am not sure now that Muslim terrorists carried out these attacks. There is evidence that the attacks were staged.’

‘If they can make Avatar, they can make anything,’ the former prime minister told a press conference here yesterday after delivering his speech at the General Conference for the Support of Al-Quds to aid the Palestinians.

He said killing innocent people to provide an excuse for war was not new to the US.

http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/…

Amid the recession and the cold winter months, Cynthia Magnus made a shocking discovery at the H&M in Manhattan’s Herald Square. It wasn’t a sale on the season’s hottest trends–it was garbage bags upon garbage bags of unsold merchandise, most of it slashed with razors to ensure that no one would ever wear or sell it, the New York Times reports.

“Gloves with the fingers cut off,” Ms. Magnus said, reciting the inventory of ruined items. “Warm socks. Cute patent leather Mary Jane school shoes, maybe for fourth graders, with the instep cut up with a scissor. Men’s jackets, slashed across the body and the arms. The puffy fiber fill was coming out in big white cotton balls.” The jackets were tagged $59, $79 and $129.

And right around the corner from this particular H&M is a popular collection point for New York Cares’ coat drive. The organization’s spokeswoman Colleen Farrell told the Times, “We’d be glad to take unworn coats, and companies often send them to us.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/06/hm-wal-mart-destroy-unsol_n_413234.html

photo credit: Robert Couse-Baker

One of the targeted sites was a suspected al Qaeda training camp north of the capitol, Sanaa, and the second target was a location where officials said “an imminent attack against a U.S. asset was being planned.”

The Yemen attacks by the U.S. military represent a major escalation of the Obama administration’s campaign against al Qaeda.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles…

photo credit: Ian Vaughan