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A former U.S. president is accusing the current president of sanctioning the “widespread abuse of human rights” by authorizing drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists. Jimmy Carter, America’s 39 th president, denounced the Obama administration for “clearly violating” 10 of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, writing in a New York Times op-ed on Monday that the “United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.”
“Instead of making the world safer, America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends,” Carter wrote.

While the total number of attacks from unmanned aircraft, or drones, and the resulting casualties are murky, the New America Foundation estimates that in Pakistan alone 265 drone strikes have been executed since January 2009 . Those strikes have killed at least 1,488 people, at least 1,343 of them considered militants, the foundation estimates based on news reports and other sources. (more…)

The United States government has made the shocking admission that its 1940s-era scientists deliberately infected Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases – and even gave a dying woman syphilis. The horrifying revelation was made this week by a panel commissioned by President Obama to investigate the dark chapter in American medical history.

More than 1,300 Guatemalans were given various STDs between 1946 and 1948 to see if the diseases could be treated with penicillin, and at least 83 people died during the trials, the panel discovered. The findings, some of which were revealed to the White House last year, prompted Obama to call his Guatemalan counterpart to apologize.

The scientists’ methods were stunning even when considering the different medical ethics in the post-World War II era, according to the presidential panel. (more…)

WASHINGTON – Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States, is dead, and the U.S. is in possession of his body, a person familiar with the situation said late Sunday. President Barack Obama was expected to address the nation on the developments Sunday night. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak ahead of the president.