Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, according to military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States.
The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said.
While it has been widely reported that the C.I.A. and the military are attacking operatives of Al Qaeda and others through unmanned, remote-controlled drone strikes, some American officials say they became troubled that Mr. Furlong seemed to be running an off-the-books spy operation. The officials say they are not sure who condoned and supervised his work.
“Evidence .... Show me evidence of CURRENT ‘intelligent life on Mars.’ :) All we see are ruins ... literally thousands of square miles ... of ruins. And, a lot of mud covering them ... slowly eroding and blowing away in the wind. Which is why we can now see glimpses [of] what was once buried in a vast, planetary catastrophe--Which suddenly ENDED the Martian Civilization ... a long, long time ago. RCH - P.S. If there is anyone NOW living on Mars, it is ‘us’ -- as part of the ~60-year-old Secret Space Program."
For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits - billions more each year. Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes - nearly $29 billion more.
The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland resisted calls for his resignation yesterday, despite admitting that he took part in meetings where the victims of a paedophile priest were forced to take a vow of silence.
The book stands accused of being a towering monument to self-denial of what are now seen as self-evident truths. Despite millions of words of newsprint, endless government probes in numerous countries and hours upon hours of TV reports proving the opposite, Rove stands by the idea that President George W Bush invaded Iraq reluctantly. He also denies Bush condoned torture. "He did just the opposite," Rove wrote.
Ireland's most senior Catholic cleric tonight faced down calls to resign after revealing that he was at a secret tribunal where sex abuse victims were made to take an oath of silence.
On January 18, 2007. Ardeshir Hassanpour, a nuclear physicist with extensive knowledge of Iran's nuclear program is found dead in his apartment. Reva Bhalla, a senior analyst with the private intelligence firm Stratfor, believes the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, was behind his assassination.
Law enforcement officers who worked near ground zero after the World Trade Center attacks seem to show early signs of heart problems at a higher rate than would be expected for their age, a new study suggests.
The Novartis diabetes drug Starlix failed to reduce progression to the disease or cut down on serious heart problems in patients at high risk for both diabetes and heart disease, according to a large study released on Sunday. The 9,306-patient study tested Starlix, known chemically as nateglinide, and the big-selling Novartis blood pressure medicine Diovan.
