Pay no attention to the news stories suggesting that the White House caved in yesterday.
On the central issue of whether the CIA should continue using interrogation methods on suspected terrorists that many say constitute torture, the White House got its way, winning agreement from the "maverick" Republican senators who had refused to go along with an overt undoing of the Geneva Conventions.
The "compromise"? The Republican senators essentially agreed to look the other way.
A faction of the Thai military led by the army chief says it has overthrown Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Soldiers have entered the prime minister's offices in Government House and tanks have surrounded the building.
Mr Thaksin, who is at the UN in New York, has declared a state of emergency and said he had removed the army chief.
A government spokesman insisted the coup "could not succeed", and told the Reuters news agency that the government was still in control.
The spokesman said it had not been decided when the prime minister would return home from the UN.
However, in a television broadcast the leadership of the armed forces said it had taken control of Bangkok, declared a nationwide martial law and ordered all troops to return to their bases.
The admission by Hungary's Prime Minister that he lied to voters may have sparked the country's worst riots in decades, but the violent street protests have deeper-reaching economic and political roots.
Despite greater freedoms, many Hungarians feel they have been marginalised and left behind in a fast-changing nation as a small and powerful elite get richer at their expense.
At the same time, Hungary's economy has deteriorated to the point where the government has had to draft a package of emergency austerity measures in the hope of putting its finances back in order.
Whilst policymakers and analysts argue that there is little choice other than to accept tough decisions and tax hikes, for much of the population the memory of the last set of financial measures - the Bokros package - is still very raw and painful.
Especially when they were told that the sacrifices made little more than a decade ago would ensure Hungary's stable economic future.
"There is an element of general dissatisfaction with the economy, and an element of political dissatisfaction," explained Zsolt Papp, a senior economist at ABN Amro.
"People think they are not getting the benefit of economic changes and the country is still being run by the same old guys."
OTTAWA, Sept. 18 — A government commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured.
The report on the engineer, Maher Arar, said American officials had apparently acted on inaccurate information from Canadian investigators and then misled Canadian authorities about their plans for Mr. Arar before transporting him to Syria.
“I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada,” Justice Dennis R. O’Connor, head of the commission, said at a news conference.
The report’s findings could reverberate heavily through the leadership of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which handled the initial intelligence on Mr. Arar that led security officials in both Canada and the United States to assume he was a suspected Al Qaeda terrorist.
The report’s criticisms and recommendations are aimed primarily at Canada’s own government and activities, rather than the United States government, which refused to cooperate in the inquiry.
Speaking in tongues, weeping for salvation, praying for an end to abortion and worshipping a picture of President Bush -- these are some of the activities at Pastor Becky Fischer's Bible camp in North Dakota, "Kids on Fire," subject of the provocative new documentary, "Jesus Camp."
