WASHINGTON — Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.
Blackwater approved the cash payments in December 2007, the officials said, as protests over the deadly shootings in Nisour Square stoked long-simmering anger inside Iraq about reckless practices by the security company’s employees. American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that …

BOISE (CN) – KBR and Halliburton poisoned U.S. troops and civilian contractors by burning an immense variety of toxic, unsorted wastes in Iraq and Afghanistan to cut costs and preserve profits, according to a federal class action. The class claims at least 100,000 people were endangered by the contractors’ “utter indifference to and conscious disregard” of troops’ welfare.
The class claims the Pentagon contractors, “motivated by financial gain,” ignored contract requirements minimize risks, environmental effects and human exposure to toxic fumes when disposing of waste. Instead, the contractors cut corners and …

The corruption trial against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will take place on November 27, judicial sources said Saturday, after a high court this month stripped him of his immunity.
The trial was suspended last year after Italy’s parliament passed legislation giving the premier immunity, but the Constitutional Court struck down the law on October 7, paving the way for legal cases against Berlusconi to resume.
Berlusconi is accused of paying his British former tax lawyer, David Mills, 600,000 dollars (400,000 euros) to give false evidence in two trials in the 1990s.
Mills, …

House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.
The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer.
The ethics committee is one of the most secretive …

A French court has convicted the Church of Scientology of fraud, but stopped short of banning the group from operating in France.
Two branches of the group’s operations and several of its leaders in France have been fined.
The case came after complaints from two women, one of whom said she was manipulated into paying more than 20,000 euros (£18,100) in the 1990s.
A Scientology spokesman told the BBC the verdict was “all bark and no bite”.
France regards Scientology as a sect, not a religion.
Prosecutors had asked for the group’s French operations to …

An ex-soldier convicted of raping and killing an Iraqi teen and murdering her family has been spared the death penalty and will serve a life sentence after jurors couldn’t agree unanimously on a punishment.
Steven Dale Green of Midland, Texas, will be formally sentenced on Sept 4. Jurors who convicted him said they couldn’t agree on the appropriate sentence after deliberating more than 10 hours over two days.
In a March 2006 attack in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, Green and three other soldiers …

WASHINGTON – The top military commander in Afghanistan is asking for up to 80,000 more American troops even as he warns that rampant government corruption there may prevent victory against the Taliban and al-Qaida, according to U.S. officials briefed on his conclusions.
A still-secret document by Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal that requests more troops is expected to be among the topics discussed Wednesday when President Barack Obama meets with his national security team to hash out a strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Even with additional troops, McChrystal concluded that corruption still could …

The Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office has charged police officer Joseph Rios with third-degree aggravated assault and second-degree official misconduct.
Last May, Rios was allegedly captured on surveillance video beating a mental patient with his baton, sparking allegations of police brutality.
Ronnie Holloway was arrested after the incident. He insists he did not provoke the beating. Four months after the 50-year-old schizophrenia patient was allegedly beaten, an incident that community activists called unprovoked police brutality, the Passaic County prosecutor filed the charges.
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MERCED, Calif. (CBS/AP) A man whose legs are amputated says police used a stun gun on him twice and violently manhandled him even though he was unarmed.
Police internal affairs investigators in Merced, Calif. say they’re looking into the complaint by 40-year-old Gregory Williams, who was arrested Sept. 11 on suspicion of domestic violence and resisting arrest, according to the Merced Sun-Star.
Williams and witnesses say officers tasered the wheelchair-bound man twice, then left him handcuffed on the sidewalk in broad daylight, with his pants down.
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According to a watchdog group and a litany of whistleblowers, Armorgroup North America, a key U.S. security contractor in Afghanistan, has suffered a breakdown of its chain of command resulting in an atmosphere in which “sexual predators and “deviants” are being allowed to “run rampant” at the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
The nonprofit Project On Government Oversight (POGO) said on its website it had sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton detailing the problems, which also include language barriers between Nepalese Ghurkas and other guards.
It said it had obtained …