AMPHI TV

Seven former CIA chiefs have written to the President urging him to stop the investigation into the alleged prisoner abuse by CIA personnel. The President had earlier said that he was keen the truth comes out and that he would allow justice to take its own course. He has refused to interfere in the justice departments reopening of the cases. The chiefs in their letter have said that this will discourage people from making hard choices in future to protect the country. It would also affect the image of the CIA in the eyes of foreign governments. John Durham is spearheading the investigation into whether personnel broke US law during interrogation. The attorney general has said that people who acted in good faith and followed the laid out procedures would not be prosecuted. The controversial technique of waterboarding was an approved procedure albeit very detailed. Dick Cheney strongly opposed the opening of this investigation saying that it would lead to a drop in morale. He is a strong advocate of controversial methods of interrogation. He maintains that the information gained by such methods has been crucial in preventing further attacks. The current administration seems to feel the rule of law takes precedence over the other issues. Let us see how the investigation pans out and whether anyone is actually prosecuted.

In a final attempt to bolster support from Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine bid to be re-elected as Governor of New jersey, President Barack Obama made a fervent appeal to the voters. He said that Corzine was one of the best partners he had worked with and there is still a lot of work to be done. The president campaigned at Camden and Newark. He attracted a crowd numbering in the thousands. There is very close race between the incumbent Corzine and his challenger Chris Christie of the Republican Party. The President was in a combative mood blaming the Bush govt. policies for the current economic crisis. He thanked Corzine for being one of the first people to endorse his bid for a Senate Seat. This race will be an interesting barometer of the support the Democrats have after a landslide win for Obama last year. Next year there will be 37 gubernatorial posts up for grabs.  The president has attended 5 meetings in New Jersey. Very clearly he is trying his best to get an early supporter reelected. The prognosis looks rather bleak for the Democrats in Virginia. The president had comfortable won this state in last year’s presidential bid. Now they say the choice of Creigh Deeds as the candidate was flawed right from the start.

The U.S. Committee on Homeland  Security met today to discuss the problem of Shell corporations. Apart from the fact that they cause a huge revenue loss to the government, they are also a serious threat to national security. The panel is trying to find the best way to tackle this menace.

Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich) is the one at the forefront of the fight to tackle shell corporations. The people who run the corporation are allowed to be hidden. As a result of this even in cases like terror financing the ownership of the corporations cannot be ascertained.

Every year a few million corporations like this are established in the US. Even if only a few are involved in tax evasion it comes to a substantial number. The committee would like to draft legislation that would increase the transparency in Business Formation. There would then be a Federal standard on this that would require states to modify their hidden ownership laws. However there is some opposition to this approach on the ground that it infringes upon the individual State’s freedom. Nevada is one such state that has liberal laws regarding hidden ownership of companies. Let us see whether this results in any significant change to the law.

The GOP seems to have a fresh lease of life after winning two out of three State Governor  races. This is seen as growing dissatisfaction with the Obama administration. What makes the victory all the more significant is that they were both in formerly Democrat States. Robert McDonnell handsomely won Virginia by a margin of 59 to 41. This is the first time since 2001 the Republicans are in power in Virginia. In New Jersey Democratic Governor Jon Corzine lost in his attempt to be reelected to Republican Christopher Christie . The election campaign was marked by extremely negative ads on both sides. Corzine received a lot of criticism for his ads pointing out an overweight Christie. Pundits say that  this could have disgusted a few voters and provided some crucial votes in favor of Christie. He made the economy the key point of his campaign. President Obama addressed quite a few rallies in New Jersey in support of Corzine. Both the winners attracted support from independents. Last year the independents had overwhelmingly voted for Obama. It seems that they are dissatisfied with his policies on economy and healthcare. These victories were a vital boost for the Republican party which has recently been plagued by infighting. The losses are seen by some as a referendum on the Obama administration.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates feels that the current review of the U.S. Military in Iraq and Afghanistan should be kept private. In a speech given to a convention he said that Afghanistan was a worrisome issue. Violence was up 60 percent compared to last year. Afghanistan has seen a resurgence of the Taliban. He said that President Obama will soon have to take tough decision regarding the troop levels in the countries. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that the President is not considering a full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Earlier this year the President had approved about 20000 additional troops. The new aggressive campaign has resulted in a increasing number of U.S. Casualties. The first week of October this year saw 16 dead. That was the same number for the entire month of October last year. The ground commanders have publicly voiced their support for the continuation of this strategy. This would require increased troop levels. However Gates reiterated that the military will comply with whatever decision the President takes. The secretary also voiced his opposition to plans to increase the amount of air strikes and reduce the number of troops on the ground . He said this plan was not in accord with reality.He said that technology has its own limitations.

The U.S president Barrack Obama expresses his bitterness over the Agricultural department worker Shirley Sherrod’s firing and he urged her to get back to her job. Earlier this week a commotion occurred due to the speech given by Sherrod to NAACP(National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Her speech was misinterpreted as racialistic by the ‘biggovernment.com‘ blogger Andrew Breitbart. It was mistaken that she took little notice to the woes of a poor white farmer. The Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack ousted her from her job citing the racist remarks. But later it was realized that the speech did not motivate racial divide. Vilsack apologized to her and offered her to get back to her job. The NAACP which accused her, also apologized to her and posted the video of her speech. Meanwhile Sherrod expects the offering in a written format. She also said that she is going to sue the blogger for depreciating her.

The iceland based whistle blower organization wikilieaks published the secrets relating to the six years war in afghanisthan to destroy talibans. Many war crimes seems to have come to light after this incident. These documents are being assesed by many news channels and the pentagon is assessing the damage done to the officials due to these documents. These documents are going to create  a fuss all over the world. The important leaks are the role of ISI(Inter Service Intelligence), pakistan’s spy organization in helping the taliban.  The ISI seems to have aided the taliban in many ways. But the pakistani government has denied these charges saying that these documents are unsubstantiated. Also an another controversial leak is that the taliban’s have heat seeking anti-aircraft missiles making the issue bigger. The documents are said to be of 91,000 pages. Meanwhile, the defense department spokesman david lapan said that the pentagon is analysing the source of these documents and trying to control the damage. Many deaths of the civilians were covered up as accidents.  The wikileaks chief Julian Assagne says that there still many more controversial documents related not only to the afghan war but also about many other incidents. He added that this is just a beginning.  In the upcoming week more interesting theories are expected to  arise on these documents.

Despite the recent events regarding the 92,000 pages documents released by the wikileaks, the American lawmakers appoved funding for the 33,000 extra troops in afghanisthan. The funds are worth 37 billion dollars. The resolution for the removal of troops from pakistan was outvoted. Democratic representative Dennis kucinich said that the leaked documents gave 92,000  reasons to withdraw the troops from afghanisthan. The opposition parties seized the chance to launch a powerful campaign against the ruling government. The democratic representative Dave Obey said,”The Afghan government has not demonstrated the focused determination, reliability and judgment necessary to bring this effort to a rational and successful conclusion”. In an interview with CBS television network, Iranian president Ahmadijinad denied that their government is helping the talibans. He added that they only support afghan people.  Meanwhile , political parties are focusing on the mid-term elections in november inlight of this situation. The democrats are planning to spend 49 million dollars for advertising during the last week of the elections.

The U.S President Barrack Obama hailed about the deeds of the bail-out plan for automobile industry. He cited that the car sales has increased and the purchase of battery powered vehicles has gone up. He added that these will improve the economy and provide employment. The president was visiting the Chrysler and General Motors assembly plants on friday where he drove a battery powered car made by the company. The Obama team is planning to use this success for the november election campaigns. He is about to visit the ford company at chicago next week where a new sports car wiil be unveiled. He addressed the emnployees about his government’s  $60 billion bail-out plan saying, ” you are proving the naysayers wrong”.  But many believe that the tax payers money was not  much useful to the recessing economy that it just saved the industry from bankruptcy and it did not achieve any great strides.

The head of the GM motors said that the major part of the profits are being paid to government as loan interest due to which they are not able to show a remarkable success. the company is planning to release shares late this year to repay the debt.