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via AP, Los Angeles Times The Senate closed the Capitol on Saturday after sending President Obama a spending bill that will make sure the government won’t shut down Oct. 1, the start of the new budget year. The measure passed early Saturday by a 62-30 vote — and then lawmakers skipped out of town to … Continue reading
via Scott Shane, The New York Times For streamlined, unmanned aircraft, drones carry a lot of baggage these days, along with their Hellfire missiles. Some people find the very notion of killer robots deeply disturbing. Their lethal operations inside sovereign countries that are not at war with the United States raise contentious legal questions. They … Continue reading
via Owen Bowcott, The Guardian The US policy of using aerial drones to carry out targeted killings presents a major challenge to the system of international law that has endured since the second world war, a United Nations investigator has said. Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions, told … Continue reading
via David Ignatius, The Washington Post As an intelligence operation, it must have seemed like pure genius: Recruit a Pakistani doctor to collect blood samples that could identify Osama bin Laden’s family, under cover of an ongoing vaccination program. But as an ethical matter, it was something else. The CIA’s vaccination gambit put at risk … Continue reading
via Hindustan Times With the profile of HIV-AIDS undergoing transformation from a life-threatening emergency to a manageable chronic infection, the World Health Organization (WHO) urged South-East Asian countries to focus on eliminating the infection, particularly among children, by 2015. “We are coming out of a transformative decade for the HIV-AIDS epidemic. With innovative treatment regimens, improved … Continue reading
via Margaret Talev and Nicole Gaouette, Bloomberg The Obama administration will weigh how countries treat gays and lesbians in making decisions about foreign aid, according to a presidential memorandum released by the White House. Laws prohibit same-sex sexual activity in many nations in the Middle East and Africa, and in two of the largest recipients … Continue reading
The Brandt Standard 