Rodolfo Torre Cantu, who was running for governor in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas, was shot along with four of his supporters.

Police say he was on his way to a series of campaign rallies when his convoy was ambushed by hooded gunmen.

He was standing for the Todos Tamaulipas coalition in Sunday’s gubernatorial elections.

Mr Torre Cantu of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was attacked near Ciudad Victoria, where he was going to catch a flight to Matamoros for an end-of-campaign event.

His rival for the post of Tamaulipas governor, Jose Julian Sacramento of the National Action Party, cancelled his campaign meetings in Matamoros following the killing.

Mr Sacramento said he had known Mr Torre Cantu for years and respected him.

Tamaulipas has been the scene of a fierce turf war between rival drug gangs fighting over access to lucrative drug smuggling routes to the United States.

WASHINGTON – If al-Qaida acquired nuclear weapons it “would have no compunction at using them,” President Barack Obama said Sunday on the eve of a summit aimed at finding ways to secure the world’s nuclear stockpile.

“The single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term, would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Obama said. “This is something that could change the security landscape in this country and around the world for years to come.” Read the full story

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – International troops opened fire on a bus carrying Afghan civilians Monday, killing four people, officials said, setting off anti-American protests in a key southern city where coalition forces hope to rally the public for a coming offensive against the Taliban.

NATO and Afghan authorities declined to identify the international forces involved by nationality, although numerous Afghans said they were American.

Elsewhere in the city of Kandahar, three suicide bombers attacked an Afghan intelligence services compound, but security forces who opened fire repelled them, said the spokesman for the government of the surrounding province, also called Kandahar. Four intelligence agents and six civilians, including a teacher at a nearby school were wounded in the attack, said the spokesman, Zelmai Ayubi. Read the full story

Poland mourns President Lech Kaczynski after jet crash Read the full story

WikiLeaks to release video of civilians, journalists being murdered in airstrike
Whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks is planning to release a video that reveals what it’s calling a Pentagon “cover-up” of an incident in which numerous civilians and journalists were murdered in an airstrike, according to a recent media advisory.

The video will be released on April 5 at the National Press Club, the group said.

They also noted their members have recently been tailed by individuals under State Department diplomatic immunity, and that “one related person was detained for 22 hours” while authorities seized computer equipment.

http://rawstory.com/

US waves white flag in disastrous ‘war on drugs’

After 40 years, Washington is quietly giving up on a futile battle that has spread corruption and destroyed thousands of lives Read the full story

Here’s one of the photos, click the links to read more about the article and for more photos check out the archive link.

Article

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A senior Iranian anti-drug official has accused the US, Britain and Canada of playing a major role in Afghanistan’s lucrative drug trade.

On the sidelines of an anti-drug conference in Tehran, deputy head of Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters Taha Taheri said that Western powers are aiding the drug trade in Afghanistan.

“According to our indisputable information, the presence of the United States, Britain and Canada has not reduced the drug trade and the three countries have had major roles in the distribution of drugs,” IRIB quoted Taheri as saying on Thursday. Read the full story

Haiti has a longstanding history of US military intervention and occupation going back to the beginning of the 20th Century. US interventionism has contributed to the destruction of Haiti’s national economy and the impoverishment of its population.

The devastating earthquake is presented to World public opinion as the sole cause of the country’s predicament.

A country has been destroyed, its infrastructure demolished. Its people precipitated into abysmal poverty and despair.

Haiti’s history, its colonial past have been erased. Read the full story

(NaturalNews) The CDC is engaged in a very clever, statistically devious spin campaign, and nearly every journalist in the mainstream media has fallen for its ploy. No one has yet reported what I’m about to reveal here.

It all started with the CDC’s recent release of new statistics about swine flu fatalities, infection rates and vaccination rates. According to the CDC:

• 61 million Americans were vaccinated against swine flu (about 20% of the U.S. population). The CDC calls this a “success” even though it means 4 out of 5 people rejected the vaccines. Read the full story

To Help Support:

Text YELE to 501501 to donate $5 to help the people of Haiti.

http://www.yele.org/

PORT-AU-PRINCE — The United States, France, Canada and governments across Latin America were gearing up to help Haiti, after a massive 7.0 earthquake leveled buildings and caused an unknown number of casualties.

US President Barack Obama said his government stood “ready to assist the people of Haiti,” as the State Department, USAID and United States Southern Command mobilized, the White House said, “to coordinate an assessment and any such assistance.”

In Paris, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said France “expresses its complete solidarity” with Haiti, adding that his ministry’s crisis center had begun working “to mobilize and dispatch without delay urgent aid to Port-au-Prince.” Read the full story

As of 01/12/2010 here’s how our President has done:

Take a look at the website:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

Bomb Kills Tehran Professor

Target is seen as a longtime regime insider who veered toward supporting the opposition Read the full story

The initial reports of a disturbance on a flight landing in Detroit were all over Twitter news feeds on Christmas: Read the full story

CUERNAVACA, Mexico – Two hundred Mexican Navy marines stormed an upscale apartment complex and killed a reputed drug cartel chief in a two-hour gunbattle, one of the biggest victories yet in President Felipe Calderon’s drug war.

Arturo Beltran Leyva, the “boss of bosses,” and six members of his cartel died in the shootout Wednesday in Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City, according to a navy statement Thursday. Read the full story

The latest calculation of the National Debt as posted by the Treasury Department has – at least numerically – exceeded the statutory Debt Limit approved by Congress last February as part of the Recovery Act stimulus bill.

The ceiling was set at $12.104 trillion dollars. The latest posting by Treasury shows the National Debt at nearly $12.135 trillion.

A senior Treasury official told CBS News that the department has some “extraordinary accounting tools” it can use to give the government breathing room in the range of $150-billion when the Debt exceeds the Debt Ceiling. Read the full story

The Federal Government will introduce compulsory internet filtering to block overseas sites which contain criminal content, including child sex abuse and sexual violence.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced the changes today following a controversial trial to filter the internet which was conducted earlier this year.

Senator Conroy says some internet content is simply not suitable in a civilised society.

“It is important that all Australians, particularly young children, are protected from this material,” he said. Read the full story

Dubai said on Monday that it has received $10 billion from Abu Dhabi, another member of the United Arab Emirates, sparing the city state from defaulting on a $3.52 billion bond maturing that day.

The announcement ends weeks of speculation about whether Dubai would make good on the most immediately pressing of the obligations it incurred during years of freewheeling spending. The Islamic bond maturing Monday was issued by Nakheel, the property development arm of Dubai’s main investment vehicle, Dubai World. Read the full story