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CHICAGO, Dec. 7 (UPI) — It’s a far piece from the horse-and-buggies of Lancaster County, Pa., to the cars and freeways of Cook County, Ill.
But thousands of children cared for by Homefirst Health Services in metropolitan Chicago have at least two things in common with thousands of Amish children in rural Lancaster: They have never been vaccinated. And they don’t have autism.
"We have a fairly large practice. We have about 30,000 or 35,000 children that we’ve taken care of over the years, (…)

By Bill Weinberg
THE SEPT. 24 ANTIWAR protest in Washington, D.C., was hailed as a revival of a movement which had become somewhat moribund even as the quagmire in Iraq deepens with horrifying rapidity. The march brought out 300,000 protesters, by organizers’ estimates, making it the largest since the start of the U.S. invasion in March 2003. After a summer in which Cindy Sheehan’s campaign to demand personal accountability from the vacationing George Bush had riveted the nation, the march (…)

by Julio Godoy
BERLIN, Dec 7 (IPS) - The U.S. military flights illegally transporting Muslim prisoners through Europe to secret detention camps are presenting a particular challenge for the German government.
New reports indicate that the former coalition government of the Social Democratic Party (SPD, after its German name) and the Green party was informed of the illegal U.S. flights using German territory.
Official documents both in Berlin and in Washington also show that the German (…)

Helen Thomas, arguably the nation’s best known print journalist and dean of the White House press corps, told a Falls Church audience last week that “there is a lot of soul searching going on now” among news professionals about uncritical coverage since 9/11 of the Bush administration and its policies.
“The press has rolled over and played dead,” Thomas said of its behavior in recent years. “Our main weapon is skepticism. It is our indispensable role to protect the people’s right to know,” (…)

by Mike Whitney
The easiest way to understand the institutional bias of western media is to analyze reporting from the developing world. The economic summit in Mar Del Plata, Argentina, provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate the coverage and decide whether such partiality exists.
Although tens of thousands of working people came to protest George Bush and his suspiciously-named “free trade” economic policies; they were invariably smeared by the corporate media as “Leftists” or (…)

25 U.S.Citizens walk 80 miles across Cuba in an effort to visit prisoners at U.S. Naval Base
Calling their action Witness to Torture: A March to Visit the Prisoners in Guantánamo, the marchers began morning in Santiago de Cuba and will walk the 80 miles to the gates of the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay to arrive on December 10th, International Human Rights Day. They include War Resisters League (WRL) activists and members of Catholic Worker communities throughout the country.
Frida (…)

Nila Sagadevan sets the record straight about Pentagon crash while 9/11 fringe movement meets Dec. 7 in Tampa for beginning of five-day rally.
By Greg Szymanski
It’s impossible to fit a square peg in a round hole. It’s equally as impossible to fit a large 757 airliner through a small hole like left in the Pentagon wall after 9/11.
And this is just one of the many examples that the official 9/11 story makes no sense. In fact, it makes about as much sense as trying to keep jamming that (…)

By LILA RAJIVA
Dana Priest’s recent Washington Post article, "Anatomy of a CIA ’rendition’ gone wrong"(1) only confirms what those who have watched the torture scandal closely already know. Abu Ghraib was no anomaly but the most visible tip of a widespread but clandestine policy. Priest reveals details about a case in which the CIA used German, Macedonian, Albanian and Afghan authorities and European air space and terminals to "render" a German citizen snatched up abroad for interrogation (…)

By M. A. Saki
Allegations of secret CIA flights in Europe and the establishment of secret prisons in some European countries have seriously dogged the European Union and have put its claims of being a defender of human rights under question.
So far, the U.S. has neither dismissed nor confirmed the reports. In Washington on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to answer the question of whether the United States has established CIA-operated secret prisons, but added (…)

By Hassan Hanizadeh
Former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi is a dangerous, mysterious figure who is currently trying to play a significant role in the Iraqi political scene, which seriously threatens the future of the country.
The fact that Allawi was the only Iraqi official to attend a recent military parade inspection ceremony indicates that he intends to play an ambiguous military role in Iraq.
After the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, Allawi, who was once an Iraqi (…)