Blackwater Watch|Blackwater USA/Worldwide, now called Xe, is the world’s largest private mercenary army with over 20,000 soldiers and its own air force.

These are the top headlines for Thursday, January 29, 2009:The US House passed the $819 Billion stimulus bill on Wednesday without a single Republican vote. The outnumbered GOP seem to be circling the wagons and redefine themselves early on in Obamas presidency as fiscal conservatives—a quick, and hypocritical turnaround after 8 years of endorsing Bushs rampantly wasteful federal spending:http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/01/29/house_approves_stimulus/Hundreds of thousands of teachers, nurses, factory workers and plumbers marched through French cities on Thursday to demand pay rises and protection for jobs:http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSTRE50S1MX20090129http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/Fighting between the Sri Lankan military and the insurgent rebel Tamil Tigers has recently flared up. The Tigers, who have been fighting for a separate homeland in northern Sri Lanka since 1983, have been routed from all major towns after heavy battles in recent months and are now cornered into a 115-square mile area of jungle and villages in the northeast:http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gVoaDFmbCYS-Usz9ACDRIengj21QD960SLAG1Early voting has begun in Iraq for Saturdays provincial election to replace the local councils in fourteen of the eighteen governorates of Iraq elected in the Iraqi governorate elections of 2005:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/60931.htmlToday is a big victory for Iraqi sovereignty as Blackwater has time and time again abused its power in Iraq. Members of the security firm immune to prosecution under US-imposed Iraqi law have been responsible for the murders of dozens of Iraqi civilians:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/28/AR2009012803319_pf.htmlThe approach to combating the drug mafia in Afghanistan has spurred an open rift inside NATO. According to information obtained by the German magazine SPIEGEL, top NATO commander US General John Craddock wants the alliance to kill opium dealers, without proof of connection to the insurgency. NATO commanders, however, do not want to follow the order:http://news.antiwar.com/2009/01/28/top-nato-commander-orders-troops-to-kill-all-opium-dealers/Spiegel:http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,604183,00.htmlZimbabwe is now accepting foreign currency alongside the Zimbabwe dollar. This is a move designed to stem the super-inflation going on there. The situation is so bad the Zimbabwe government recently printed $100 Trillion dollar bills. There have been recent reports that merchants in the poor African country arent accepting the Zimbabwe currency at all any more:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7859033.stmHarare diary.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7841562.stmNew home sales in the United States plunged to the lowest level in history in December. The current adjusted rate shows that only 331,000 new homes were sold in the United States in 2008, drastically down from the 600,000 new homes sold in America in 2007:http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/29/real_estate/new_homes/?postversion=2009012911

Author: YourWorldTimesVideo
Keywords: YWTV Your World Times Video Top headlines news politics united states american usa president barack obama bush iraq iraqi elections vote killed dead candidates shot war troops house congress washington stimulus economy zimbabwe dollar republicans democrats home sales houses new sri lanka tamil tigers fighting sex tpmtv drug opium afghanistan karzai nato germany blackwater contractor france french strike workers thousands people theforethought
Added: January 29, 2009