The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
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US policies lead to crackdown on Iranian businesses in Dubai
The Boston Globe‘s Farah Stockman reports that small Iraqi businesses in Dubai and across the United Arab Emirates are suffering as the UAE refuses to register Iranian work visas or open bank accounts for Iranian businesses. Although these measures are designed to place pressure on the Iranian government, many Iranian small-business owners in Dubai are…
Read MoreRenegade Riders
All-terrain vehicles are rolling by the thousands into the Minnesota woods, offering motorized thrills but also causing long-term damage to public wildlands, the Star Tribune revealed in a multimedia investigative report. As the state Department of Natural Resources struggles to curb destructive off-trail riding, the agency is also mapping an immense trail network for ATVs…
Read MoreTreasury secretary issued ultimatum to Lehman Brothers
With Wall Street undergoing a major crisis, Deborah Solomon, Dennis K. Berman, Susanne Craig and Carrick Mollenkamp of the Wall Street Journal report that New York Federal Reserve Bank president Timothy Geithner, with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, told about thirty Wall Street executives with Lehman Brothers Holdings, “There is…
Read MoreCheney shielded Bush from surveillance program backlash
Continuing its ongoing series on the Cheney vice-presidency, Barton Gellman and the Washington Post have posted the second of a two-part article on how Vice President Dick Cheney handled a near-riot in the Justice Department over the domestic surveillance program. The articles are adapted from Gellman’s upcoming book “Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency,” due out…
Read MoreWarning lights, gates could curb Oklahoma train accidents
According to a report by Gavin Off of the Tulsa World, Federal Railroad Administration data shows Oklahoma has recorded 1,042 train accidents from 2000 to 2007. About half involved collisions with vehicles, and most of those took place at crossings without gates or flashing lights.
Read MoreBush secretly approved orders allowing raids in Pakistan
A report by Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times reveals that President Bush “secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials.”
Read MoreAmerican Divide: The Immigration Crackdown
The Columbus Dispatch, in a four-part investigative series, explores the consequences in communities across the nation as states pass anti-immigration laws. The newspaper teamed with its Spanish-language weekly newspaper to produce the series, American Divide/The Immigration Crackdown. The report is available in both English and Spanish.
Read MoreThe War Within
Bob Woodward of The Washington Post details how the Bush Administration dealt with the failing Iraq strategy beginning in 2006. Woodward’s book “The War Within” is based on interviews with over 150 participants, classified documents, and taped conversations with President Bush, and “reveals that the administration’s efforts to develop a new Iraq strategy were crippled…
Read MoreSheriff’s office failed to investigate deputy’s role in fatal accident
An investigation by the St. Petersburg Times links Polk County sheriff, Sgt. Scott Larson, to a 2002 car accident that killed the car’s 16-year-old passenger, Miles White. The Polk County Sheriff’s office ruled the crash was a single-car accident caused by drunk driving. “But a Polk sheriff’s deputy — who, it turns out, was a…
Read MoreHouston cantinas hid Houston’s lucrative sex-trade
“Despite enforcement efforts, human traffickers and prostitution operators have constructed resilient and lucrative networks of organized crime that have a franchise-like ability to persist and prosper,” reports Lise Olsen of the Houston Chronicle. Cantinas, with secret doors and hidden brothels, helped conceal the active prostitution and sex slave trade in Houston. The ringleader of the…
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