Author: Consortiumnews.com

How CIA Got NYT to Kill Iran-Nuke Story

When reporter James Risen called CIA to ask about a covert scheme to slip flawed nuclear blueprints to Iran, the Bush administration brought out some big guns to get the New York Times to rein in Risen, showing how cozy…

Can Obama Untangle from Syria’s Civil War?

President Obama appears open to a UN strategy of negotiating local ceasefires in Syria as a step toward a political solution to that civil war, but he remains tangled in the demand from Israel, Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies…

The Problems with Being Charlie

It’s one thing to decry all terrorism and defend the principle of free expression; it’s another to show disproportionate concern for some victims over others and to embrace offensive or irresponsible media content, troubling issues from the Charlie Hebdo case,…

‘Justice’ Hidden Behind a Screen

Exclusive: Behind a physical (and perhaps metaphorical) screen, the U.S. government is putting on its case to pin ten felony charges on ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling for allegedly leaking secrets to a U.S. journalist about a risky and convoluted covert…

A ‘Free Press’ and Double Standards

The Western reaction to last week’s terror attacks in Paris has been rife with double standards as U.S. and European politicians and pundits reinvent themselves as purists on freedom of the press and compound the hypocrisy by ignoring the longstanding…

NYC’s Riptides of Free Speech

Amid Western government’s sudden enthusiasm for free speech, no matter how offensive, there is the angry police reaction in New York City to protests against some police officers killing an unarmed black man by blaming the protesters for a deranged…

Savage Atrocity Reported in Nigeria

Exclusive: Islamist terrorists shocked the world with the killing of 17 people in Paris, but a possibly larger atrocity occurred a continent away in Nigeria where Boko Haram insurgents may have slaughtered as many as 2,000 in a remote village, reports…

CIA-Friendly Jury Seen in Sterling Trial

Accused leaker and ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling may face an uphill battle for acquittal as a northern Virginia federal court empanelled a jury that seemed generally sympathetic to the U.S. intelligence community, reports Norman Solomon.

Behind the Saudi Oil-Price Gambit

Exclusive: Saudi Arabia is wielding its oil weapon by keeping production high and prices low all the better to punish some rivals and consolidate market share but the gambit may come back to bite the House of Saud, as Andrés Cala…

Crime and CIA Embarrassments

Exclusive: Ex-CIA official Jeffrey Sterling is going on trial for espionage because he allegedly told a reporter about a botched covert op that sent flawed nuclear designs to Iran, but powerful people want to spare ex-CIA Director David Petraeus indictment for…