SPB News for Thursday.

NAACP gives McCain polite but tepid welcome

Exclusive: Seven years on, no answerfrom White House on anthrax attacks

US to triple aid to Pakistan
US non-military aid to Pakistan could be tripled to $7.5 billion over five years if the US Congress clears a bill. Joseph R. Biden (D-DE), chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, introduced the bill on Tuesday, proposing US$1.5 billion annually for five years for developmental activities like building schools, roads and health clinics.

US troops pull out of Afghan base after attack U.S. troops abandoned a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan [the village of Wanat in Nuristan province] where militants killed nine American soldiers this week and 'insurgents' briefly overran the area, officials said Wednesday. Omar Sami, spokesman for the Nuristan provincial governor, said American and Afghan soldiers quit the base on Tuesday afternoon. He said they took the district mayor with them.

Kuwait orders US Patriot missile defense system Kuwait has placed a $156 million-order with an American company to purchase the Patriot air and missile defense system, according to news reports Kuwait was awarded the deal through the US Foreign Military Sales program. Defense contractor Raytheon, based in Massachusetts, said it anticipated a resurgence of the Patriot program in the near future.

Veterans Have Medical Claims Denied to Reduce Backlog, According to House Subcommittee Report At least 28,283 veterans have had their medical claims denied by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service because of efforts to reduce a large backlog of claims, according to a report released on Tuesday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Domestic Policy Subcommittee, AP/Long Island Newsday reports... DFAS in mid-2006 hired Lockheed Martin to help the office deny the claims and reduce the backlog. According to the report, DFAS and Lockheed eliminated the backlog this summer, several months after the initial deadline. However, the report found that the backlog was cleared only after DFAS and Lockheed eliminated quality assurance checks of their work, which resulted in the denied claims.

Colombia misused Red Cross emblem in hostage 'rescue' --State security agents posed as members of a fictitious aid group that ingratiated itself with the rebels. Colombia misused the symbol of the Red Cross in this month's military rescue of politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other rebel-held hostages, it said on Wednesday, admitting a possible violation of the rules of war. Reports that the Red Cross emblem was displayed on a jersey or T-shirt worn by a Colombian intelligence officer who took part in the 'rescue mission.' Falsely portraying military personnel as Red Cross members is against the Geneva Conventions as it could put humanitarian workers at risk when they are in war zones.

Consumer Prices, Driven by Fuel, Surge 1.1% in June Almost everything that consumers spent money on last month -- from food to electricity and gasoline -- took a bigger piece of their paychecks. Inflation in June rose at the fastest rate in 17 years, the government said on Wednesday. The Consumer Price Index, which measures prices of a batch of common household products, rose 1.1 percent in June, the Labor Department said.

Super Rich Tax Cheats Outed by Bank Clerk --Technician in Liechtenstein Turns Over Names of Americans With Secret Bank Accounts Hundreds of super-rich American tax cheats have, in effect, turned themselves in to the IRS after a bank computer technician [Heinrich Kieber] in the tiny European country of Liechtenstein came forward with the names of US citizens who had set up secret accounts there, according to Washington lawyers investigating the scheme.

US soldier who deserted over Iraq is deported Canada yesterday deported to the US the first American army deserter fleeing the Iraq war across the US-Canadian border. Robin Long, 25, faces a possible court martial and jail, and even redeployment to Iraq. He joined the army in 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, but became troubled by the war. In 2005 he fled to Canada and applied for refugee status, because the US army wanted him to participate in what he called an "illegal war of aggression in Iraq."

Phil Gramm's Porn Stash By Max Blumenthal Before Gramm joined the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed to call for the defunding of the NEA, before he attacked an opponent for taking money from a gay rights group, and before he was interviewed by the white supremacist Southern Partisan magazine, Gramm was an avidly active investor in soft-core pornography movies. Gramm's journey into porn began in 1973, when his brother-in-law, George Caton, rushed to tell him about an exciting low-budget soft-core production called "Truck Stop Women..." Gramm contributed at least $7500 towards the sequel, a satire of the Nixon White House called "White House Madness" that featured the crazed president wandering around the White House in the nude.