By ERIC SCHMITT and TIM GOLDEN
Published: February 22, 2006 WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 - The military commander responsible for the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, confirmed Tuesday that officials there last month turned to more aggressive methods to deter prisoners who were carrying out long-term hunger strikes to protest their incarceration.
The commander, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, head of the United States Southern Command, said soldiers at Guantánamo began strapping some of the detainees into "restraint chairs" to force-feed them and isolate them from one another after finding that some were deliberately vomiting or siphoning out the liquid they had been fed. |
By Solomon Moore, Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD - A 1,500-member Iraqi police force with close ties to Shiite militia groups has emerged as a focus of investigations into suspected death squads working within the country's Interior Ministry.
Iraq's national highway patrol was established largely to stave off insurgent attacks on roadways. But U.S. military officials, interviewed over the last several days, say they suspect the patrol of being deeply involved in illegal detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings. |
by Tim Harper
Toronto Star Feb. 17, 2006 WASHINGTON -- A U.S. federal court has dismissed a lawsuit against the Bush administration brought by Ottawa engineer Maher Arar, essentially giving Washington the green light to continue its practice of sending terrorist suspects to third countries where they could be tortured.
Brooklyn District Court Judge David Trager cited the need for national security and secrecy in making his decision, but also raised the possibility of Canadian complicity in the decision to send Arar, now 35, to Syria in 2002, where he was tortured for almost a year. |
AFP
Wed Feb 22, 1:56 AM ET LONDON - Nearly 100 prisoners have died in US custody in
Iraq and Afghanistan since August 2002, the Human Rights First organisation said ahead of the publication of their report. At least 98 deaths occurred, with at least 34 of them suspected or confirmed homicides -- deliberate or reckless killing -- the group of US lawyers told BBC television Tuesday. Their dossier claims that 11 more deaths are deemed suspicious and that between eight and 12 prisoners were tortured to death. |
By Bret Schulte
2/27/06 NEW ORLEANS--It was a thing marvelous to behold: the future in full color, projected onto twin screens in a hotel convention room where an overflow crowd packed four deep against the walls. Flashing before them was three months of work by the best and brightest in urban design, led by the superstar national planning firm Wallace Roberts & Todd, which resurrected the dying Baltimore waterfront and laid out a master plan for the national Capitol grounds way back in 1983.
What the crowd saw put the "new"back in New Orleans. Canals covered and converted into leafy bicycle and pedestrian paths crisscrossing the city. A gleaming $4.8 billion transit and infrastructure system, including rail links to the airport, Baton Rouge, and the Gulf Coast. For every neighborhood: a school, a park, and a retail zone. But the dreamy PowerPoint presentation by the Urban Planning Committee of Mayor Ray Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back Commission ended in a cold splash of harsh reality. |
by Jon Swain and Brian Johnson-Thomas,
The Times of London [UK]Feb. 19, 2006 The American military have been operating flights across Europe using a call sign assigned to a civilian airline that they have no legal right to use.
Not only is the call sign bogus -- according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) -- so, it appears, are some of the aircraft details the Americans have filed with the air traffic control authorities. In at least one case, a plane identified with the CIA practice of "extraordinary rendition" -- transporting terrorist suspects -- left a US air base just after the arrival of an aircraft using the bogus call sign. |
By Pratyush Chandra
21 February, 2006 Counterpunch Recently, the United States has been anxiously trying to pre-empt every possible uncomfortable situation in South Asia. Its ambassadors are actively intervening in internal political debates in South Asian countries. Of course, it is nothing new for the US, but in order to understand specific implications of this activism in specific contexts, the peeping tom has to be caught red-handed at the site of the crime and interrogated. The ambassador in India was recently in the dock for threatening Indians to behave well on the Iran issue. Now it is the turn of the ambassador in Nepal, James F. Moriarty. However, for our convenience, Moriarty has been too explicit in his conduct.
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By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, February 22, 2006; Page A01 The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to decide whether a 2003 federal ban on the procedure that critics call "partial birth" abortion is constitutional, setting the stage for its most significant ruling on abortion rights in almost 15 years.
Without comment or recorded dissent, the court granted the Bush administration's request to review a lower court's ruling striking down the law, which passed Congress overwhelmingly but has yet to be enforced. |
By Sean Gonsalves, AlterNet. Posted February 21, 2006.
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Tuesday 02 21 2006
Wonkette Should we ever appear on Celebrity Jeopardy, we have our charity all picked out: The Scooter Libby Legal Defense Trust, sure to be topping everyone's year-end lists of Least Important Causes.
Here, you can learn all about America's favorite former senior administration official - it's everything you need to know about Scooter, besides the unimportant matter of why he actually needs a legal defense trust. And check out the Advisory Committee - a veritable who's who of Washington's indicted, formerly-indicted, and soon-to-be-indicted set. The only person missing is that guy who's automatically your friend when you sign up on Myspace! While you're there, see what others are saying about our friend with the poor penmanship:
"Of course! 'The British Government has learned…'! Scooter, you're a genius!" |
Wednesday, February 22, 2006; Page A13
Carol D. Leonnig A Who's Who of Republican heavy hitters and Bush administration supporters are lending their names to help raise $5 million for the defense of Vice President Cheney's former top aide in his criminal trial.
Led by Florida real estate magnate and former ambassador Mel Sembler, the group seeking to help I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby avoid jail time includes 26 notable names, many of whom could also be described as "Friends of George and Dick." |
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
FreeMarketNews.com The Preventive Psychiatry Newsletter has written to its subscribers telling them that the real reason the former Veterans Affairs Secretary, Anthony Principi, recently resigned was because he has been involved in a massive scandal covering up the fact that Gulf War Syndrome was caused by the use of depleted uranium, according to the SF Bay View.
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