Paper’s organ harvesting article causes Israel-Sweden rift

Israeli troops are accused in a newspaper article of harvesting organs from dead Palestinians, and Israel wants Sweden’s government to condemn the Swedish paper that published it. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman compared the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s hands-off position to the country’s neutrality during World War II. “It’s a shame that the Swedish Foreign Ministry fails to intervene in a case of blood libels against Jews,” Lieberman told Sweden’s ambassador to Israel on Thursday evening

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Ridge accused of trying to profit from terror alert accusations

A former Bush administration official said she thinks former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge’s recent charges that politics were behind raising the terror level in 2004 were "personally motivated." In a new book, Ridge says top Bush administration officials may have tried to raise the nation’s terror alert for political reasons in the days before the 2004 presidential vote.

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Rivals claim success in Afghan vote

Afghan leader Hamid Karzai’s campaign team claimed Friday he was on track for victory in the country’s presidential election, while his close rival Abdullah Abdullah also said he was leading the vote. Their claims came as election officials said the results of the vote, seen as a judgment on the Karzai government’s efforts in tackling Taliban insurgents, poverty and corruption, would be rolled out starting August 25.

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Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food

Correction Appended: Aug. 20, 2009 Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed in so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped off so they won’t bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics.

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The CIA Scandals: How Bad a Blow?

The last thing the CIA needs right now is another scandal, let alone two. Allegations that the CIA chief in Algiers drugged and raped two women is going to hurt badly. The accusations that Harold Nicholson, a former CIA operative in federal prison convicted of spying for the KGB, continued his work from behind bars isn’t nearly as serious, but it won’t exactly help the agency’s reputation

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Brief History: Secret CIA Missions

— A federal study of mercury contamination released Wednesday found the toxic substance in every fish tested at nearly 300 streams across the country, a finding that underscores how widespread mercury pollution has become. The study by the U.S. Geological Survey is the most comprehensive look to date at mercury in the nation’s streams.

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Transcript: Scotland official talks of Lockerbie release

Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, convicted of murdering 270 people by blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, two decades ago was returned to his native Libya on Thursday. He suffers from terminal prostate cancer and was freed from prison in Scotland, with Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill citing compassionate grounds for the release and saying al Megrahi was “going home to die.” “Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed but compassion available,” MacAskill said. He spoke to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the case.

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