Update 2:00 pm EST: The Obama Administration has issued a response on drones. The U.S. government cannot target an American citizen who is not engaged in combat on American soil, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday during his daily press briefing. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) had on Thursday asked the administration if the [...]

A report by the United Nations Committee of the Rights Of The Child is causing a stir in Washington and Brussels. The report claims the US and NATO bombing campaign has lead to the deaths of hundreds of Afghan children in recent years. Attacks by U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, including air strikes, have reportedly killed [...]

Given that Congress has decided to let the President kill people – including American citizens – without any due process it seems once again America will only face its problems due to outside pressure. A United Nations expert has launched an investigation of drone attacks and targeted killings, scrutinizing a deeply controversial tool in the [...]

The United Nations special rapporteur for counterterrorism will lead an inquiry into civilian deaths from US drone strikes around the world, to determine whether the strikes violate international human rights and humanitarian laws. The announcement was made by Ben Emmerson QC, a UN special rapporteur, in a speech to Harvard law school in which he [...]

Kofi Annan has stepped down as the international crisis mediator for the UN on Syria, in an acknowledgement that without unity on the Security Council, nothing will be done at an international level. Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is stepping down as the U.N.-Arab League mediator in the 17-month-old Syria conflict at the end of [...]

There are reports that Saudi Arabia has sent military equipment to aid the rebels in the Free Syrian Army, according to an anonymous diplomat for the Arab nation. But who the “good guys” in this fight, considering the push by neoconservatives to arm these same Syrian rebels, or intervene militarily on their behalf. It turns out that human rights groups are now accusing the Syrian opposition of a litany of abuses.

Glenn Greenwald had a good story yesterday about continuing human rights abuses in Libya, and how you cannot justify interventions on “humanitarian” grounds without being concerned about what you leave behind. There’s more indication of that today with this ugly situation described by Doctors Without Borders: Doctors Without Borders has suspended its work in prisons [...]

We’ve been following the story of the hedge funds who bought up distressed Greek debt at a discount and plan to make a killing on it. The only obstacle to this is the inconvenient fact that Greece made a deal to give haircuts on the debt. So the hedgies are blocking that deal, figuring they [...]

I’ve seen all kinds of hand-wringing over how the focus on Occupy encampments holding onto or getting driven out of their physical space has unwisely shifted the focus away from their core message of inequality and an economy that doesn’t work for anyone but the top 1%. This is true to a certain extent, although [...]

Seif al-Islam el-Gadhafi has contacted the International Criminal Court at The Hague, and is seeking an airlift out of Libya, where he fears assassination, in favor of a war crimes trial. The International Criminal Court (ICC) said intermediaries had been used in indirect talks with Saif al-Islam. Prosecutors said the court had made it clear [...]

Libya’s Transitional National Council has vowed to prosecute the killers of Moammar Gadhafi if crimes were found to be committed. They say they have issued a code of ethics on prisoners of war, and that any violation of that code will be investigated and subject to a criminal trial. They now have something else to [...]