Global Warming and Climate Change. No credible scientist disputes it any longer. Flooding, monsoons, droughts, intense heat waves, and the disappearance of fresh water sources will lead to the deaths of millions of people around the world -- not some time in the distant future, but within our own lifetimes and the lifetimes of our children. The impact is not just a human one: it will also involve the extinction of nearly half the species that inhabit the planet, by some estimates. In addition, millions of people will become refugees, and these displaced populations will put a heavy toll on those of us who thought our wealth would protect us from the ravages of climate change.

The Global AIDS Pandemic. From the lack of U.S. press coverage, you'd think AIDS has been conquered. Nothing could be further from the truth. The West has largely shirked its responsibility for combating the worst epidemic since the Black Death killed much of the population of Medieval Europe, or the U.S. military deployed smallpox to wipe out the native population of the Americas.

The Bush administration has insisted that U.S. government funds be used only for programs that promote abstinence. In addition, the U.S. government has hindered efforts to use generic AIDS drugs in poor nations, in response to pharmaceutical companies who want to protect their profits. That's criminal behavior.

Meanwhile, 30 years of neoliberal economic policies have dismantled the healthcare systems of underdeveloped and industrial nations alike and are largely to blame for all the money that must now be poured into basic infrastructure, like re-building health clinics in African countries. The human race should be ashamed. We should admit the mistake, open our wallets, and begin to tackle another problem that has a whole variety of solutions, in particular: the use of condoms, the manufacture of generic AIDS drugs, and the funding of social welfare programs.

The Resurgence of Nuclear Power. Leave it to the Bush administration to promote nuclear power as its "green" solution to global warming, particularly in export to China and other developing countries. So far, the U.S. media has allowed this to sneak under the radar, in spite of well-established and long-standing public opposition to nuclear power and the costly problems entailed with nuclear waste disposal.

The Politics and Economics of Oil permeate everything from the economy to foreign policy, but are never discussed directly by the media. From major pipeline deals between Russia and Japan, to the influence of oil on U.S. intervention in the Middle East, to China cutting major deals with Latin American and African nations for long-term oil contracts, to the impact of burning fossil fuels on our environment, to misguided tax policies and our deteriorating highway system here at home, to massive oil spills in our increasingly polluted oceans and waterways, the U.S. press has managed to talk around the main topic: we are addicted to oil and something must be done to wean us off this drug. Let's declare a war on oil.

Continuing Corporate Scandals. The Enron and Worldcom scandals broke in the summer of 2001. Shortly thereafter, politicians and businessmen on Wall Street assured us that new regulations would make corporate scandals a thing of the past. Hah. Last week the SEC announced that the mortgage giant, Fannie Mae - - which, together with Freddie Mac, backs half of all the mortgages issued in the U.S. -- is involved in a new corporate scandal. Fannie Mae will have to recognize $9 billion in losses that they've hidden from the public since 2001. Yes, this accounting fraud, which rivals anything Worldcom or Enron did, has occurred in the last three years, in spite of a so-called crack-down on corporate crime. And it's received zero press coverage, except for a few small articles in the Wall Street Journal. For shame!

Not Every Vote Counts. Miscounts and "accidents" (that may or may not have been accidental) have been steadily oozing out of Ohio and Florida since the election, but tampering with voter registration lists and voter suppression techniques have also been widely reported. What it adds up to is an election process so riddled with fraud and error that it would shame most Third World countries. And we're supposed to be a model for this stuff?

South America Stands Up to Washington. Additional elections this year have meant a near-clean sweep (the exception being Colombia) of South American governments by left-leaning candidates who have won office by campaigning against Bush and the neoliberal policies of the U.S. The result: an emerging Global South bloc, led by Brazil, Venezuela, and India, that has brought free trade expansion via the WTO and FTAA to a standstill.

Torture. The horrific Abu Ghraib scandal got plenty of attention -- along with the Bush Administration's ridiculous assertion that it was the work of a few isolated soldiers -- but the systemic use of torture and prison abuse at Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq has now been documented far beyond question. Even less examined: that many of the torture techniques, and not a few of their practitioners, have been borrowed directly from federal and state "control unit" prisons, where such practices have been decried by Amnesty International and others for years.

Anything That Happens on the Ground in Iraq: the use of napalm, white phosphorus, and cluster bombs in Fallujah; continuing evidence of prisoner abuse in U.S. detention centers in Iraq; the lack of foreign fighters among captured Iraqi insurgents; zero progress in reconstruction; major fraud and the misappropriation of reconstruction funds; bombing of voter registration centers and the assassination of candidates and party members; no voter registration at all in the Sunni triangle, including Iraq's third largest city, Mosul; the massacre of civilians by hastily-trained, poorly-equipped Iraqi security forces and the combat weary, stressed-out U.S. soldiers who oversee them; U.S. military policy that is copying failed tactics from the Israeli military's playbook for the West Bank and Gaza Strip; continued fighting in Fallujah, a relatively small city that was supposed to have been pacified three weeks ago -- the list goes on and on.

If it's negative news, the U.S. press doesn't report it, on the assumption that telling the truth might make the American people demand a full and immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. The U.S. media has swallowed the Bush administration argument, echoed by John Kerry, that we must "stay the course" in Iraq or the whole Middle East will go up in flames (and whose fault would that be, hmm?).

It's not the job of the U.S. media to worry about the consequences of failed U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. press should stop worrying about controversy and start doing its job: report the news, negative or not. Let the people decide. That's what real democracy is all about.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress' new blueprint for U.S. intelligence spending includes a mysterious and expensive spy program that drew extraordinary criticism from leading Democrats, with one saying the highly classified project is a threat to national security.

In an unusual rebuke, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, complained Wednesday that the spy project was "totally unjustified and very, very wasteful and dangerous to the national security." He called the program "stunningly expensive."

Rockefeller and three other Democratic senators -- Richard Durbin, Carl Levin and Ron Wyden -- refused to sign the congressional compromise negotiated by others in the House and Senate that provides for future U.S. intelligence activities.

The compromise noted that the four senators believed the mystery program was unnecessary and its cost unjustified and that "they believe that the funds for this item should be expended on other intelligence programs that will make a surer and greater contribution to national security."

Each senator -- and more than two dozen current and former U.S. officials contacted by The Associated Press -- declined to further describe or identify the disputed program, citing its classified nature.

Thirteen other senators on the Intelligence Committee and all their counterparts in the House approved the compromise.

Despite objections from some in the Senate, Congress has approved the program for the last two years, Rockefeller said.

The Senate voted Wednesday night to send the legislation to President George W. Bush. The bill is separate from the intelligence overhaul legislation that also won final congressional approval Wednesday.

The rare criticisms of a highly secretive project in such a public forum intrigued outside intelligence experts, who said the program was almost certainly a spy satellite system, perhaps with technology to destroy potential attackers. They cited tantalizing hints in Rockefeller's remarks, such as the program's enormous expense and its alleged danger to national security.

A U.S. panel in 2001 described American defense and spy satellites as frighteningly vulnerable, saying technology to launch attacks in space was widely available internationally. The study, by a commission whose members included Donald H. Rumsfeld prior to his appointment as defense secretary for Bush, concluded that the United States was "an attractive candidate for a Space Pearl Harbor."

Sending even defensive satellite weapons into orbit could start an arms race in space, warned John Pike, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, who has studied anti-satellite weapons for more than three decades. Pike said other countries would inevitably demand proof that any weapons were only defensive.

"It would present just absolutely insurmountable verification problems because we are not going to let anybody look at our spy satellites," Pike said. "It is just not going to happen."

Rockefeller's description of the spy project as a "major funding acquisition program" suggests a price tag in the range of billions of dollars, intelligence experts said. But even expensive imagery or eavesdropping satellites -- so long as they're unarmed -- are rarely criticized as a danger to U.S. security, they noted.

"From the price, it's almost certainly a satellite program," said James Bamford, author of two books about the National Security Agency. "In the intelligence community, it's so hard to get a handle on what's going on, particularly with the satellite programs."

Another expert agreed. "It's hard to think of most any satellite program, at least the standard ones, as dangerous to national security," said Jeffrey T. Richelson, who wrote a highly regarded book about CIA technology in 2001.

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ANOTHER VIETNAM?  :(

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon said Wednesday it plans to send 1,500 soldiers from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division to Iraq as part of its effort to shore up security for the Iraqi elections, which are scheduled for January 30.

The troops are two battalions of the 82nd Airborne's Division Ready Brigade, which is on standby to be deployed anywhere in the world on 18 hours notice.

Deployment orders for the 82nd Airborne troops, based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, say they can be deployed for up to 120 days, an official said.

Also, by extending the tours of several thousand other troops now in Iraq, overall U.S. troop levels in Iraq will grow from about 140,000 to 150,000, according to a Pentagon official.

Soldiers from the Army's 1st Cavalry Division and Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit -- which are already in Iraq -- will have their tours extended through January, sources said.

Earlier this fall, soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were dispatched to Afghanistan to beef up security for that country's elections.

Iraq's neighbors tightening borders

Interior ministers from Egypt and the countries neighboring Iraq promised Wednesday to strengthen security along their borders in an attempt to prevent insurgent infiltration ahead of January elections.

"I believe we have reached consensus on just about all the issues we discussed," said Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari, Iran's interior minister.

Iraq's neighbors pledged to help enhance security in Iraq, increase their efforts to control their borders, train and equip Iraqi police and border guards, and help the U.S.-backed government hold elections as scheduled on January 30.

The two-day conference was attended by interior ministers from Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran -- along with Iraq. (Map)

A special envoy of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also attended the sessions.

Iraqi Interior Minister Fallah al-Naquib urged neighboring countries to do more to stop the infiltration of terrorists into Iraqi territory.

"Any instability in Iraq will impact the whole region," he told the conference.

Iraq has accused some of its neighbors, particularly Iran and Syria, of not doing enough to stem the inflow of insurgents and terrorists from their territories.

The United States has accused Iran of meddling in Iraq's affairs by sending men and arms to destabilize the country.

While Iran has denied these allegations, it said stability in Iraq is of paramount concern. According to the Tehran government, its side of the border is closely guarded, and any illegal crossing will be stopped.

In September, a U.S. delegation directly confronted Syrian President Bashar Assad with evidence that Syrians were aiding militants crossing the border, a senior American government official said.

President Bush had warned Syria before about its failure to police its borders, but the meeting with Assad -- as opposed to lower-level Syrian officials -- sent a direct message.

Other developments